Tending Our Gardens
Volunteers work together to build an resilient environment that welcomes all beyond humans.
Whether you are an experienced gardener or have never put your hands in the soil, we would love you to join our efforts.
Gardens Cared By Garden Community
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Meg's Garden & Edible Forest
Witness and taste the blessings of gardens and connect to our amazing garden community.
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Jubilant Pollinator Garden
It is the home of buunies, bees, wasps and counless insects & bugs, and winged beings.
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Garden at The Museum of Bronx Histoy
The garden is home to many medicinal plants including burdocks (Arctium lappa), ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea), and heal-all (Prunella vulgaris). You are welcome to join us to care for the gardens and beautify the garden surroundings.
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Edgar Allan Poe Garden
The garden has many young trees and we built gardens around them with the amazing help from volunteers to protect the trees and local flora including mullein & yellow bristly oxtongue (Helminthotheca echioides).
TOOL lending LIBRARY
We are excited to initiate this program with the help from Forest For All NYC (FFANYC) to help empower individuals and groups to care for our environment and neighborhood.
Please let us know if you want to borrow tools, trash pickers, trash bags, gloves during our market days via our email contactjbolc@gmail.com.
Our market runs every Saturday from 10 am - 3 pm from mid-June to the end of October. We will be delighted to assist you in your efforts to build a greener and cleaner community.
Tree Love
Did you know that cared young trees can grow and mature more successfully than un-cared ones?
Since 2018, garden community have been caring for the young street trees by controlling competitive plants, mulching, and removing any trash. Don’t forget to feel the trees after working as we strongly believe that one of the best ways to tend to the trees is connecting to them and build a relationship with! Everyone is welcome to join the blessed work.
Have you been curious about the trees while walking the streets? Then, explore the NYC Tree Map, a free online tool developed by NYC Parks.
Summer 2025: One of SYEP interns removes English Ivy from a tree (Eytan Stanton)
Stewardship in Mosholu Parkway forested area
Winter 2022: Invasive vines covering over two acres of the urban forest. (Matthew López-Jensen)
As recently as 2022, the 11 acre northernmost urban forest of Mosholu Parkway had over an acre of aggressive vines smothering trees and preventing people from accessing the space. Additionally, two massive trash dump sites were left to pollute the soil and water near the Knox-Gates playground.
With the hope of improving forest health and community access, local environmental artist Matthew Lopez-Jensen submitted a Park Maintenance Complaint about these issues. Within a year, much of the trash and vines were removed.
Winter 2022: Trash dumping sites in the middle of the forest. (Matthew López-Jensen)
Since then, with the support of the Super Stewards program, community volunteers, students from nearby schools, and garden community, our SYEP interns and other partner organizations have continued to revitalize and beautify the forest.
5/2022: With the amazing help from AmeriCorps members, we were able to clear up more than 3,000 lbs of trash.
10/2022: On NYC’s inaugural City of Forest Day, students from Wave Hill’s Woodland Ecology Research Mentorship (WERM) program removed invasive vines.
11/2023: In partnership with CitizensNYC, we engaged more than a dozen Con-Ed employees and collected more than 600 lbs of trash.
07/2023: Our Summer Youth Employment (SYEP) interns collected over 400lbs of trash from the inner forest.
11/2023: Twelve neighbors gathered to sow over a thousand tree seeds and share a picnic.
Summer 2025: Neighbors learn how to harvest burdock root (Eytan Stanton)
03/2024: The whole freshman year class of nearby World View High School helped plant native flower seeds and pick up trash throughout the forest.
04/2024: NYC Parks added several dozen trees to Mosholu Parkway to address heat vulnerability. Edible and medicinal plants including Dogwoods, American Persimmon, Service berries, Pawpaw and Witch Hazel were among the trees put in.
10/2024: For this City of Forest Day, over fifteen Wave Hill WERMS helped clean up fallen branches.
11/2024: World View High School offered a Photography, Environment, and Social Justice class where each student’s final project was a portrait of life in the forest.
07/2025: Our garden community and SYEP interns worked to remove 6 bags of trash and save 26 trees from English Ivy and Bittersweet vines.
08/2025: Urban forager Journei Bimwala leads 3 educational walks with 30+ attendees on how to prepare and use medicinal plants growing in Mosholu Parkway.
11/2025: Volunteers beautified the parkway.
Out of respect for neighbors who see our efforts in the Mosholu PKWY as prescriptive and not community-led, JBOLC as an organization will be stepping back in their role of leading any steward activities at the forest.
Local stewards interested in improving the forest ecology can use the following resources:
Tool Lending Library at the Meg’s Garden supported by the Nature Conservancy and Forest for All Coalition.
NYC Parks Super Steward program, supporting neighbors to “take the lead on caring for their neighborhood parks.”
CitizenNYC Community Leaders Grants, up to $5,000 for “projects carried out by resident-led groups to improve neighborhood life, strengthen local leadership, and scale community partnerships.”
The following educational materials document the local ecology and recent history of this northern section of Mosholu Parkway. Inventories about plant species in the forest, historical research on how the parkway came to be, and tools for plant ID and use can all be found below:
Clinical herbalist Journei Bimwala’s educational booklet on urban foraging.
Physician Sarah Garrison’s Natural History Portrait of the forest as part of her Urban Naturalist Certificate with the NYBG.
Landscape architect Eytan Stanton researched the ecological history of this public forest and parkland.