HarborLAB’s work to green and stabilize our little section of Newtown Creek Superfund waterfront continues to bring green returns. When we arrived in late 2012 the site was covered with illegal dumping and pallets of scores of thousands of stranded bricks. Now our GreenLaunch’s milkweed, shadbush (serviceberry), American persimmon, and other native species are thriving and attracting birds and insects. After we install our final pieces of large infrastructure we’ll plant our healthy, container-grown apple, apricot, fig, pear trees and fruit vines into permanent homes. We also plan to cover graffiti at our site with a living green screen.

We need gardeners and sponsors to help keep this wonderful progress going! Please email volunteer@harborlab.org or support@harborlab.org with the subject line “gardening” and a few lines about how you’d like to be help. Thanks!

Black swallow butterfly (male) feeding on milkweed nectar at the HarborLAB GreenLaunch. Photo by Erik Baard.

Black swallow butterfly (male) feeding on milkweed nectar at the HarborLAB GreenLaunch. Photo by Erik Baard.

Shadbush (or serviceberry or juneberry) growing at HarborLAB. Delicious for birds and humans alike. Photo by Erik Baard.