The 2008 NYC Grows Festival co-hosted by The National Gardening Association was held this past Sunday in Union Square Park, Manhattan. I listened to five speakers talk about various types of container gardening from herbs to trees. Not one of them mentioned "self-watering" (sub-irrigation) planters, not even as a viable option.
All I heard for almost three hours was the "make sure your planter has a drain hole" mantra repeated ad nauseam.
When William Moss got his cordless drill, I thought for sure he was going to make a sub-irrigation vegetable planter from the bucket he had. It was not to be. He drilled a large hole in the bottom of the bucket but it was for an upside down tomato plant. This was his example of urban “vertical gardening”.
Nothing new was presented which is a reflection on the National Gardening Association. The information was just a rehash of the same old out of date sermon. The public deserves better.






so let's say another city was considering a ) a permanent urban garden on municipal property and b)a series of grow fests or whatever intended to rejuvenate the gardening population.
Rather than what they shouldn't do, what SHOULD they do?
Posted by: Otto | November 04, 2008 at 04:48 PM