By HWM Network In the bustling heart of Harlem, where culinary wonders await at every turn, one restaurant’s dessert has earned a coveted spot among the city’s top sweet indulgences. Eater NY, the discerning connoisseur of New York’s culinary scene, has unveiled its list of the “13 Desserts to Try in NYC,” it’s a triumph…
New York City tends to be associated with glitzy skyscrapers and glimmering lights, but it’s also extraordinary for its wildflowers. Native plants abound in all five boroughs, and you can vote for your favorite local wildflower in this fun new contest.
Then, if all goes well, the winner will become NYC’s official wildflower. Voting is now open and runs until November 7; keep scrolling to meet the candidates.
Botanist Marielle Anzelone is the director of NYC Wildflower Week, a nonprofit she founded with experience working in the city’s parks department. She’s running Vote WildflowerNYC with hopes the contest will encourage New Yorkers to pay attention and feel invested in the city’s greenery and environmental issues.
“New York City has a lot of nature,” Anzelone says. Even Manhattan, she adds, isn’t just a monument to the built environment.
“I try to teach New Yorkers about nature, but plants specifically, and why it’s important. So much research has shown how being in nature makes people joyful,” she says.
Plus, we need nature. New York City’s native plants are essential to our ecosystems, providing us with fresh air, pollinated foods, climate regulation and more.
She teamed up with organizations across the city, asking each to nominate a native-to-NY wildflower for their borough. Once the winner is crowned, Anzelone will present it to City Council asking them to make it official. She also hopes to parlay this initiative into a more robust biodiversity policy, as she said NYC is the only global city without one.
Meet the candidates
Photograph: By Uli Lorimer | Wild Columbine
Wild Columbine
Nominated by: Brooklyn Bridge Park, Brooklyn
Beloved by butterflies and hummingbirds, Wild Columbine is known for its wiry stems with blue-green foliage and dazzling red-and-yellow flowers.
“We love its unique scarlet drooping flower, its five petals evoking the five boroughs,” Rashid Poulson, director of horticulture for Brooklyn Bridge Park, said in a statement. “Columbine’s nectar helps fuel the spring migration of the ruby-throated hummingbird. This ecological kinship is something we’re always excited to observe at the Park—one of many critical connections between local wildlife and our city’s greenspaces.”
Photograph: By Uli Lorimer | Pinxter Azalea
Pinxter Azalea
Nominated by: Staten Island Museum, Staten Island
This versatile plant works hard all year long with blossoms supporting pollinators like hummingbirds and butterflies. In the spring, it shows off with pink blooms. In the summer, its smooth leaves invite leaf-cutter bees, which chew small circular pieces to help build their nests. In autumn, it’s decorated in richly colored reds, golds and mauves.
“Did you know that Staten Island is the only borough that already has an official wildflower? In the 1980s, Staten Islanders voted for the Pinxter Azalea to represent our borough and we are proud to support it!” said Colleen Evans, director of natural science at the Staten Island Museum. “One of our native azaleas, Pinxter Azalea grows wild throughout the city, and is especially abundant in Staten Island’s Greenbelt.”
Photograph: By Marielle Anzelone | Spicebush
Spicebush
Nominated by: New York Botanical Garden, Bronx
This yellow bloom welcomes spring, brightening up the woods with floral cheer when little else is blooming yet. Its delicate clusters look almost like a pointillism painting. When fall arrives, this ubiquitous shrub treats our eyes to its golden glow once again. A critical part of the forest understory, swallowtail butterflies love this popular plant.
“Spicebush has long been a part of the history of Eastern North America, and it’s particularly close to our hearts here in the Bronx, where in early spring you’ll spot its abundant flowers punctuating the trails of our old-growth Thain Forest with clouds of gentle yellow petals,” noted James Boyer, vice president of children’s education and senior director of education at NYBG. “Its intriguing name comes from the spicy aroma that arises from the crushed leaves.”
Photograph: By Uli Lorimer | Sunflower
Giant sunflower
Nominated by: Queens Botanical Garden, Queens
Perhaps the best-known wildflower in the field, this particular genus is known for its resilience and showy yellow flowers. Sunflowers also feed the multitudes, providing sustenance for many bees, birds, butterflies, beetles, and humans. Sunflowers also provide shelter for wildlife, as they grow well in moist meadows and salt marsh edges.
“Sunflowers radiate joy and burst with sunshine no matter where you see them in our city,” said Evie Hantzopoulos, executive director of Queens Botanical Garden. “Although the Helianthus giganteus species, a.k.a. Giant Sunflower, is a native one, the sunflower genus includes plants from all over the world. Because sunflowers are so internationally recognized and hold different meanings across cultures, we felt Giant Sunflowers captured the power of New York City’s diversity and how we are all interconnected.”
Photograph: By Uli Lorimer | Butterfly Milkweed
Butterfly Milkweed
Nominated by: The High Line, Manhattan
The High Line nominated butterfly weed because they say it emulates everything a good New Yorker should be: resilient, brash yet warm, a generous multitasker, and capable of thriving in many environments. The plant supplies nectar for many pollinators and beneficial insects while serving as a host plant for milkweed bugs and the globally endangered Monarch butterfly. You can’t miss its bright orange flower clusters in the summertime.
“We love Butterfly Milkweed because it so successfully represents the unique aspects of the High Line’s naturalistic gardens: colorful beauty, ecological function, and four-season interest,” said Richard Hayden, director of horticulture for Friends of the High Line. “Choosing Butterfly Milkweed also allows us to highlight the importance of milkweeds to the story of the monarch butterfly; milkweeds are the only plants that monarch butterflies lay their eggs on. Since monarchs were recently designated as globally endangered, planting more native milkweeds is one thing the public can do to help these iconic insects make a home in New York City.”
The campaign recommends taking a walk to reconnect with nature every week. If you want to meet up with fellow nature enthusiasts, NYC Wildflower Week hosts free plant walks to see local flora in person; here’s the schedule.
Also keep an eye out for the Vote WildflowerNYC team who will visit civic groups, schools, community boards and neighborhood businesses during the campaign.
Nestled amid picturesque landscapes and surrounded by a warm and inviting community, Mount Pleasant is a gem of a place that captivates both residents and visitors alike. Located in various regions across the world, the name “Mount Pleasant” has become synonymous with tranquil beauty, abundant greenery, and a sense of belonging. In this article, we…
From a thrilling water activity to a worldwide phenomenon that enthralls water fans of all ages, wakesurfing has seen significant development. The constant technological advancement in wake surfing boats is one of the main reasons for the sport’s explosive expansion. Manufacturers have been pushing the envelope and introducing innovative features that improve the overall surfing…
January marked the beginning of the Lunar New Year and the Year of the Rabbit, and in celebration of the Year of the Rabbit, Queens’ wildly entertaining Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival (HKDBF-NY) will be held Saturday, August 12, and Sunday, August 13 at Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
For thirty successful years HKDBF-NY, the international, multicultural celebration and sporting event, has attracted more than 20,000 attendees throughout North America. It’s the largest multicultural festival in New York and the largest festival of its kind in the U.S.
The festival keeps up the age old tradition of dragon boat racing to commemorate poet and performer Qu Yuan who drowned himself in the third century B.C. to protest against his emperor’s policies.
Teams consisting of 20 crewmen–including 18 paddlers, a drummer, and a steers person–race across the water in colorful, custom-made teak boats, custom made by a small coterie of craftsmen in Hong Kong. The boats each weigh one ton and are colorfully painted with a dragon head at the front and tail at the rear.
This year 160+ teams involving more than 1,000 competitors from across the U.S. and Canada will take to the water.
The competition begins with an opening ceremony on Saturday at noon, joined by the traditional Dragon Dance and Team Parade. The race takes place both days from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., plus the “Hello Hong Kong Invitational” will be part of the competition for the first time ever, sponsored by the Hong Kong Tourism Board.
Beyond the competition there’s even more fun to be had by attendees.
A main stage will serve as the platform for performances by the best regional multicultural artists from across the globe, including the ever popular Shaolin Martial Artists, Dance China, traditional Japanese dancers Junko Fisher and Manhattan Taiko, violinist Daisy Jopling, and more.
Between performances attendees can peruse booths filled with traditional Asian folk arts and crafts along with a multicultural food court and a several food trucks.
Admission to the HKDBF-NY is completely free, and events will take place rain or shine. The full event schedule can be found here.
Disaster helped make the Arkansas Delta lowlands favorable for farming. It also contributed to the decline of Black-owned farmland.
The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 was the most devastating flood in U.S. history. It displaced nearly 640,000 people, mostly in Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana. A disproportionate number of the displaced were Black. Some were held in refugee camps. Others fled for work elsewhere, hastening the Great Migration of Southern Black farmers.
Many of the Black farmers who were most impacted lived and worked in flood-prone areas, and that was not by accident. Minority farmers have long been saddled with poor land and not much of it. Most of the good farms belonged to white farmers.
“They homesteaded, they had options to go buy land when my ancestors were slaves,” said PJ Haynie, a fifth-generation row cropper who grows 1,000 acres of rice on the Arkansas Delta and co-owns a rice mill. “After slavery, most African Americans got what was left over, which was mostly marginal ground.”
Still, just two generations after the Emancipation Proclamation, Black farmers had accumulated an estimated 16 million acres of farmland in the country. Then decades of discrimination, largely by the Department of Agriculture, chipped away at that achievement. By 1990, Black farmers lost 90% of that land, while white farmers lost only 2% of their acreage.
But there are still Black farmers, who still face discrimination along with a newer challenge: climate change.
In late April, Haynie wore boots nearly up to his knees. His rice field was damp but drying quickly considering the fact that just days earlier it was full of standing water. Still, he had no trouble digging a rice seed from the dirt with his pocketknife. A shoot pushed through the bran. Alive.
“Because these fields are so flat and it’s such low-lying land, rice is the only thing that won’t drown out when you get a 6-inch rain in the middle of the summer,” Haynie said, turning the grain in his hand. “Corn, soybeans, cotton — they don’t like to get their feet wet.”
He sliced open a bag of one of his latest crops: medium-grain rice, one specialty of a California rice industry that’s suffered from years of drought. It drove that state’s rice production down 50% last year.
His daughter, a pre-med student, worked on the family farm a couple of summers back. She visited his rice mill and turned to her father on the way home.
“And her exact words were, ‘We can feed the world, Dad,’” Haynie said.
As the water rises, the rice still grows
“Rice is a tough crop to grow, but it’s a rewarding one because you’re growing food rather than feed,” said Brandy Carroll, director of the Arkansas Farm Bureau’s commodities division. “It’s a nice thing to look at your fields and think about how many people you can feed from your crops.”
Carroll knows. She grew up in Poinsett County, Arkansas, flagging the rice-seeding planes to the furrows on her family farm before GPS took over that hard work.
Now, she said, the crop is generates a billion dollars in annual revenue in the state, with Arkansas growing between 1.1-1.5 million acres each year. For many years, Arkansas has been the No. 1 rice-producing state in the nation, growing just under half of the nation’s crop, Carroll said.
These lowlands, with the sort of mineral-rich alluvial soil favorable for farming and a subterranean aquifer that spans the Delta, are well-adapted to rice.
“And in many cases, not much else,” Carroll said. “There’s hardpan under the topsoil that holds water, which is great for rice, but challenging for other crops at times.”
Rice requires quite a lot of water, and there is no shortage of water in Arkansas. This year was especially wet, according to the National Weather Service in Little Rock, Arkansas. Through April, Pine Bluff got 27.79 inches of rain — that’s 9.06 inches above average.
“When we have a wet year, the rice is happy and so are the farmers,” Carroll said.
Arkansas has another advantage over other rice-growing states, positioned as it is with access to both the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers, important shipping arteries. And though the state exports some “rough” or unmilled rice, the rice milling industry is booming.
Since agriculture is a big part of the economy in the Delta, that’s crucial. Processing the state’s rice in mills such as Haynie’s adds value and keeps a lot of cash right in the Delta, Carroll said.
The challenges of rice
But as with anything that grows in the ground, rice farming has its challenges. Though rice likes hot humid days, it prefers to cool off at night. When the temperatures don’t drop, the grain has a tendency to break.
The Arkansas Rice Research and Promotion Board is working with the University of Arkansas in a collaborative breeding program, created with funds invested by farmers, to develop a strain of rice that’s more heat tolerant.
“These farmers are investing their own money to adapt and thrive and flourish and continue to provide a product that customers want,” Carroll said. “That’s important when you’re attempting to sell 1 million acres of rice. They’re making sure their product is adapted to our changing world.”
Another downside of rice is that it’s one of the leading methane-emitting crops. The standing water it tolerates acts as a natural herbicide and pest control, but it also creates an anaerobic environment that emits greenhouse gas.
Haynie is the chairman of the National Black Growers Council, which has a partnership with the Ducks Unlimited Rice Stewardship. Together in 2022, they received $80 million through a USDA program to support sustainable rice farming, some of it earmarked specifically for historically underserved farmers.
“We’re (trying) to showcase and lead and grow the next generation, and the only way we can do this is to share knowledge,” Haynie said in an interview shortly after the grant was awarded.
Robot farmers?: Machines are crawling through America’s fields. And some have lasers.
Haynie, for example, uses several growing methods to reduce methane, including eliminating the standing water that traps it, when possible.
Sharing strategies like these can make Black-owned farms more sustainable, which creates value and protects Black-owned farms, PJ Haynie said.
“What I say is that, if we protect the herd, the herd will grow,” he said. “If we protect the small amount of Black farmers that are left in America, it will create opportunities for their children and grandchildren, their nieces and nephews.”
Rice, he believes, has the potential to do that.
Beating the odds
Haynie co-owns Arkansas River Rice, a Pine Bluff rice mill, with Alabama farmer Billy Bridgeforth. The operation, which Haynie said is the only Black-owned rice mill in the United States, can process 22 metric tons of grain an hour. Both men, who also help run farms founded by their formerly enslaved ancestors, offer reasonable rice packaging rates for small farmers and serve as mentors to other growers.
“The work that we’re doing out here on the farm, the brand that we’re trying to move in the rice mill, and also the rice that we’re buying from other farmers,” he said. “That’s never happened in the Black farming community before, and that’s exciting.”
For subscribers: Black farmers have lived here for generations. Now, a Ford plant is changing the landscape.
In Pine Bluff, Arkansas, nearly 80% of the population is Black. But its white farmers have an advantage. The majority of the Black farmers in the Delta have smaller operations, which means less payout in the way of crop insurance, Haynie said.
That’s just one of the reasons Black farmland ownership has dramatically declined across the U.S., he said.
“Black farmers are still dealing with the inequities of the past at the hands of the federal government, which are still creating present-day disparities,” he said.
Haynie’s family beat the odds. Besides the Arkansas land, Haynie farms in all four counties of Virginia’s Northern Neck, a peninsula that juts into the brackish water where the Potomac River meets the Chesapeake Bay.
Haynie’s great-great-grandfather the Rev. Robert Haynie was born on the Northern Neck as a slave. After emancipation, he purchased 60 acres of land on Sept. 14, 1967, at the age of 44.
“And by the grace of God, we still own it and have grown it from the original 60 acres,” Haynie said.
When asked what he thought his grandfather would say about the farm, the acres of row crops, the state-of-the-art mill, Haynie paused.
“I hope that he would say job well done,” he said. “And I hope that my ancestors would be able to see the seeds that I’m trying to plant for the future.”
Flushing Meadows Corona Park
Saturday, August 12, & Sunday, August 13
