Leaves of (Long) Grass

This week’s story in the Kingston Times about the City of Kingston’s budget offered a sober view of what department heads face in the coming year.

Reporter Jesse Smith quoted parks and recreation head Kevin Gilfeather as saying his department will “still be able to pick up the trash and do all of the regularly-scheduled maintenance, it’s the extras we won’t be able to do anymore.” Gilfeather went on to say that his department be might resort to cutting “the grass [in city parks] every eight or 10 days instead of every five or six.”

On the Ward 9 website, Bill Berardi speculated that “city trash will be left” curbside on the weekends and the grass will be “unmowed — nice attraction to tourists,” he wrote.

Bill’s got a point. Unmowed grass in a park is not a pretty sight. I wonder if the city could get a little bit creative here.

Maybe certain, street-adjacent areas of our parks can be mowed while letting larger swaths grow out with some planted wildflower seeds? Imagine a variety of wildflowers growing in the parks, adding color and beauty. Doing so would not only save money on mowing, but would be better for the soil and would attract wildlife.

Just a thought.

— Arthur Zaczkiewicz


2 thoughts on “Leaves of (Long) Grass”

  1. Hey Arthur,
    I really like the idea of planting native wildflowers that don’t require much maintenance. However, I personally like grass a bit longer, so cutting it every 8-10 days sounds fine to me. Sorry to hear about the programming cuts, though.
    Jessica

    Reply
  2. A year ago, the Ward 9 community group hosted the Catskill Native Nursery to discuss this very concept. How to turn big parcels of mowed land back into useful, living grounds by way of meadows. Maybe we should do another presentation at one of our future community gardens meetings. It was fantastic. I wish more people could have been there.

    How about planting sections of our parks to specifically attract monarchs or other wild life?

    http://www.catskillnativenursery.com/

    Reply

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