Poplar Street Community Garden

Poplar Street Community Garden A bountiful, whimsical garden for people and bees built and tended by devoted members on a tiny triangle along a BQE offramp. Email: [email protected]

The small, narrow wedge of land along the Cadman Plaza off-ramp of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, largely shaded, provides the pleasures of intimacy with nature and a great variety of gardening opportunities. Apple, apricot, and nectarine trees, raspberries and blueberries, and perennial herbs are among the diversity of plants. Dense plantings in areas of differing character provide a constantly

changing array of focal points as well as rich habitat for birds and insects. Tall trees are kept pruned to maximize light on vegetable gardening plots at the Garden’s center. Self-sowing violets, queen-anne’s-lace, coneflower, black-eyed-susan, asters, and others, contribute to the vitality of the Garden. The only water source is a hydrant across the street. The Garden is managed holistically and tended communally by a committed group of member-gardeners. A beehive is managed by member-gardeners with beekeeping training. The site is what remains of a private backyard taken over for highway construction in the 1960's and then left as a dumpsite. Old apple trees and antique roses remain from earlier times, and a thorny honey locust has grown from seed. Other woody plants, including a native Pagoda Dogwood and two Siberian elms, were put in randomly by city workers. In the 1980’s, neighbors cleared the debris and planted lawn grass, which, in the 90’s, reverted to a mass of mugwort and other weeds. Since 1994, a new crop of gardeners has removed weeds, shaped terrain and pathways, and installed plants of edible and ecological as well as ornamental value, while continually amending the silty fill soil. Stepping stone paths and retaining walls have been constructed of found rocks and cobblestones. Curbing stones dumped in a pile long ago have been put to several uses, including sidewalks outside the fence. A home-made children's playhouse became the Garden's 'Little House' serving as storage shed and the Garden's charming centerpiece, and, when it deteriorated, the member-gardeners built a newer larger one. More recent projects have included rebuilding the compost system, rebuilding old cast-iron benches, building a stone retaining wall to make an area for communally harvested herbs, creating a 'hugelkultur' mound for planting fruiting trees and shrubs, and building a toolshed. Next we hope to complete the irrigation system.

We’re hosting our annual Pumpkin Party on Oct. 18! RSVP via email: poplargarden@gmail.com.
09/29/2025

We’re hosting our annual Pumpkin Party on Oct. 18! RSVP via email: [email protected].

Join us tomorrow!
06/13/2025

Join us tomorrow!

Cindy Goulder, longtime member and our garden expert extraordinaire received the Lifetime Achievement Award from GreenTh...
01/27/2023

Cindy Goulder, longtime member and our garden expert extraordinaire received the Lifetime Achievement Award from GreenThumb. 💚💚💚

Last week, we honored and celebrated community gardeners and longtime supporters at the 6th annual GreenThumb Garden Recognition Awards for 2022. Congratulations to all the honorees and thank you for all your hard work and dedication in stewarding and supporting community gardens across the city! Visit our website at on.nyc.gov/3wfVnYi for descriptions of the awards. Stay tuned for video and more photos from the awards ceremony and more about the honorees in the coming weeks.

2022 Garden Recognition Honorees -
• Greening Partner Award: Green Guerillas
• Sustainability Award: Vinegar Hill Community Garden in Brooklyn
• Youth Award: Zonia Ortiz, La Isla Youth Community Garden in the Bronx
• Landscape Design Award: Dolly’s Park in Brooklyn
• Rookie of the Year Award: Bean Morris Garden in the Bronx
• Community Engagement Award: Two Coves Community Garden in Queens
• Urban Agriculture Award: ISO Student Farm in Brooklyn
• Public Art Award: Maggie's Magic Garden in Manhattan
• Going the Extra Mile Awards:
- West 123rd Street Community Garden in Manhattan
- Amboy Street Garden in Brooklyn
- Jackie Rogers, The Garden by the Bay in Queens
- Barbara Caporale, 6th Street and Avenue B Community Garden in Manhattan
- Danny Chervoni, Friends of Brook Park Community Garden in the Bronx
• Lifetime Achievement Award (Group): East Fourth Street Community Garden in Brooklyn
• Lifetime Achievement Award (Individual): Cindy Goulder, Poplar Street Community Garden in Brooklyn

📷 by Daniel Avila, New York City Department of Parks & Recreation

Beautiful sunflower. We heart our community garden.
08/19/2018

Beautiful sunflower. We heart our community garden.

Friends and Neighbors! Join us Saturday August 4th, noon to 3pm – for a fun time giving the Garden’s grand old apple tr...
08/01/2018

Friends and Neighbors!

Join us Saturday August 4th, noon to 3pm – for a fun time giving the Garden’s grand old apple trees their annual summer pruning.

You'll be welcome to wield any of our assorted pruning tools, climb ladders, lend support to those climbing and cutting, learn about fruit trees and their care, and maybe even pick some fresh apples..... Or else just enjoy strolling the Garden, looking at its lush greenery, colorful blooms and emerging veggies, and chatting with other garden–loving people!

FYI, these apple trees were planted about 1960, decades before the Garden was started. Standard-sized (not dwarf or semi-dwarf like many sold these days) and left untended for many years, they had grown very large and had produced many dead branches by 2002. That's when early Garden members arranged for a NYC Parks Dept crew to start to clean them up and bring them down to manageable size. The work took ten years, having to be done slowly. In 2012, we called upon Trees New York to train us in pruning the trees for shape and yield, and we’ve been doing it ourselves ever since.

Join us for a delightful time with these amazing trees! Children eight or older will enjoy it too.

See you in the Garden!

Gardening Party!! June 2, 2018
06/21/2018

Gardening Party!! June 2, 2018

06/18/2018
We prune back the Garden's roses every spring. A friend of the Garden, Uda Bradford, joined Member-Gardener Natalia, in...
06/06/2018

We prune back the Garden's roses every spring. A friend of the Garden, Uda Bradford, joined Member-Gardener Natalia, in pruning the front roses this year.

Our apricot tree welcomes sparrows as well as bees when in bloom.
06/06/2018

Our apricot tree welcomes sparrows as well as bees when in bloom.

Address

Hicks Street At Poplar St
New York, NY
11201

Opening Hours

Tuesday 6pm - 5pm
Thursday 6pm - 5pm
Saturday 9am - 12pm
Sunday 9am - 12pm

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