Garden Club Events & News

Rose Garden Dedication for Marjorie Marcallino

6/12/2021

A wonderful turnout and many more people who were thinking of Marjorie from afar. The Manhattan Rose Society graciously donated this plaque with which we dedicate this rose garden to Marjorie Marcallino.

A song, flowers, friends, and family all together to honor our master rose gardening friend. The ceremony was well attended today, including Marjorie's sister and niece who flew in from Georgia. Carole Kennedy did a great job pulling it together along with the help of Debbie Drucker, Kaz Bujno, and Alexander Mahongue, the new Chair of the Rose Garden.

Important Actions to Save Our Compost TODAY!

6/9/2021

This information is from @AstoriaPug on Instagram and from Big Reuse.
If you can, please call or email your support today!

We have a very challenging two days ahead of us. Senate bill S6282C is gaining momentum. However, time is running out as the state assembly will adjourn on Thursday.

The next two days are critical in getting Senate Majority Leader @andreastewartcousins and Assembly Speaker @cheastie to see the importance of community composting.

Please reach out to them and tell them how essential composting is to you and to New York.

The Senate Majority Leader and the Assembly Speaker need to hear this:

1. Why composting is essential to all of us.

2. The two biggest composting facilities in New York City are facing eviction from the Department of Parks.

3. Bill S6282C/A7774 is a game-changer in trying to divert organic waste away from landfills. This is an environmental justice issue.
https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2021/s6282?intent=support

Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins
New York City Office: (212) 298-5585
Albany Office: (518) 455-2585
scousins@nysenate.gov
Instagram: @andreastewartcousins

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie
New York City Office: (718) 654-6539
Albany Office: (518) 455-3791
speaker@nyassembly.gov
Instagram: @cheastie
#saveourcompost #compostlikeapug #worldenvironmentmonth
#hakicompost

For more information you may also go to twitter save our compost https://mobile.twitter.com/SaveNYCCompost
or www.instagram.com/p/CPtifzojMTe/ Save our Compost

Roosevelt Island Day 2021 - Saturday June, 12

6/7/2021

It’s that time of year again, Roosevelt Island Day!

Come out and join fellow Islanders for a day of beautification and celebration of Roosevelt Island
on Saturday, June 12 th , from 10 AM – 3 PM.

North of the RIGC gardens from 10 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. we will host a Compost Learning table and Roosevelt Island Birds table. With RIOC's help and BigReuse soil/compost mix we will also host planting of the butterfly bed/ pocket meadow spaces in the former tree pits near the tennis courts.

Bring your family and friends to our fun, educational, service-oriented activities, located at Blackwell Plaza, the Meditation Lawn, and all the way from Octagon just north of the Roosevelt Island Garden Club throughout Main St and finally under the Helix near the Citibikes at 2:00. Learn more info from our local community organizations.

Activities to include are:

Island Beautification Plantings 10 a.m .-12 p.m.
Plogging 10 a.m.-12 p.m.
Bike Repair
Clothing Drop-off
Free Giveaways of Masks
Paper Shred Truck (thanks to Rebecca Seawright's office!)
Live Music - Haki Compost 12: 00 noon Nate & Hila live
Free Book Swap
Picnic Table Paintings
Battery Recycling Drop-off
Art installation and Poetry Circle with Open Doors at Alone Together photo exhibit under the helix (2:00 p.m.)

If you are unable to attend, check out our live updates on Instagram (@rooseveltislandrioc).

Kindly note that this is a socially distanced event and we encourage everyone to wear your face coverings, keep six feet in distance, and continue adhering to the NY Forward COVID-19 guidelines.

Last year all was virtual, I think the plans for this year will also be a little different. There will be less carnival and more simple times of getting outside together and moving our Island toward being earth friendly. The plans remind me of the first Roosevelt Island Day in 1999 which was all about service kinds of fun and we removed knotweed from the beds south of meditation steps along the river!

Sharing Garden Joys

5/17/2021

Iliada Bass and the Outreach Committee are looking for possible ways to share our wonderful small moments spent in the gardens.

Take some time to connect with the birds and smell the roses! What joyful moments have you experienced in the gardens recently?

RI Youth Center visits RIGC for Compost Learning

5/14/2021

Wonderful weather on a Friday afternoon in mid-May 2021 for a very active visit from two groups with the RI Youth Center. Anthony Longo and Danika Lam and Peggy Roalf taught students all about the full circle of food scraps to compost and they experienced sifting and the joys of decomposers like worms, centipedes, and rolypolies. Students took back compost they sifted for their garden club at the youth center. We can't wait until the next visit - perhaps a scavenger hunt for more discoveries about our natural world! It is good to be back together with community again.

Wonderful news from iDig2Learn: Thanks to Partnerships Native Trees added to Roosevelt Island landscapes

5/13/2021

Christina Delfico of iDig2Learn writes:
Planting native plants supports birds and butterflies who evolved alongside those regional plants. Great morning of digging, planting & watering these new additions into the community.

Thank you @treesny for your generous donation of glorious native trees! Your support helps expand iDig2Learn’s impact and that of our many partners - literally changing the landscape of our neighborhood and the living beings who share it with us. Redbuds, Serviceberries, Dogwoods, Magnolia & Witch hazel are tremendous adds and it was great to see the Cardinals and American Robins looking on.

Big shout out to
@country_gardens_nursery
@rooseveltislandrioc
@grin_10044
@rooseveltislandlibrary
@j9cheesy
@its_oliviaspam
TJ and Matt Kibby &
@princershah of RIOC
for the great help making this happen.

Thank you Sam Bishop & the entire team of @treesny today. Once again, you helped us change the future.
#planttrees #trees #magnolia #serviceberry #witchhazel
#redbud #dogwood

RIGC Community Service 2021 begins with #EarthLove

4/24/2021

Yesterday, April 24th, turned into a wonderful busy day.

RIOC Special Events invited Island Kids families, RI Youth Center teens and staff, and Girl Scouts to the gardens to join us in service. They all showed up fairly early in steady numbers to help place compost in former tree pits near the Octagon tennis courts, nearby Pony field and further south on Main Street, too. These tree spots will soon be filled with pollinator plantings to become butterfly beds/pocket meadows in June.

RIGC invited 12 high school students from UNIS who helped out all morning for service in the gardens. Four of these students along with Outreach Associate, Laura Laderman, completely handled the table for free seed planting on Meditation Lawn from 10 a.m.-12 p.m. They worked in between plogging/recycling with Christina Delfico of iDig2Learn and a book exchange with Nicole Izsak and daughter. RIGC also took some worms and decomposers to Haki compost for kids of all ages who came by with food scraps to explore.

Both our community gardens and other parts of our Island were buzzing with beautification, time outside in the sunshine, and some learning about nature.

As can often be the case, composting pulled people together. Anthony and the Compost Committee's work made a big difference along with compost from Big Reuse and RIOC. Some Island Kids families, Youth Center teens, and older Girl Scouts stayed all morning helping to sift compost and enjoying the worms.

Many RIGC gardeners came out to work on the rose garden beds, begin work on border replacement, clean paths and common areas, upgrade landscape areas, begin painting to upgrade, and to put out hoses. The UNIS students enjoyed learning, helping, and chatting with gardeners.

Collaborations and connections all around. This was RIGC's first community service day since the fall of 2019 and it turned into an important, lovely milestone for many on Roosevelt Island.

If you have more pictures and RIGC news from this day, please send them to rigardenclub@gmail.com.

Watercolor Course with artist member Peggy Roalf

4/11/2021

Hello Everyone,

If you’ve wanted to master transparent watercolor and haven’t had the time or opportunity, my six-week immersion, The Interaction of Watercolor, starts tomorrow Monday online at *Sculptors Alliance!

This hands-on course is designed for artists who want to understand the interaction of color without the eye-numbing science of refracted and reflected light. If you’ve tried watercolor before and given up, this course is for you! Using just six tubes of paint, the rogue nature of this fluid medium will become your collaborator as you develop confidence and aptitude.

You don’t have to be a sculptor to enroll in this course—and it’s free for NYC residents thanks to the support of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and NYC Department of Cultural Affairs.

Information/registration for the course is here. More information about materials, and regular updates, here.

Please reach out if I can answer any questions you might have. If you have friends who might be interested, please help spread the word, thanks!

All the best,
Peggy

*Sculptors Alliance, Inc. is committed to developing and encouraging community interest in the field of fine arts, with an emphasis on sculpture. The organization is devoted to fostering creativity through the promotion of sculpture as an art form in a way that makes a sustained and lasting impact on the public. It seeks to provide information and instruction on the techniques and methodologies of sculptural art in order to stimulate expression of the community’s cultural statues and heritage. Through exhibitions and presentation of works of sculpture in all mediums, Sculptors Alliance offers a means by which the cultural identity of the community may be expressed; it showcases established and unknown, but promising artists, for the cultural enrichment of the community.

Peggy Roalf
Website
Instagram
DART

Cicadas Coming Soon

4/11/2021

A benign invasion is coming this May (or when the soil heats up to 64 degrees), the likes of which has not been seen since 2004, and will not repeated again until 2038. The large red-eyed cicadas
are coming to New York (Central Park, the Bronx and Staten Island at least) but I am not certain
that includes Roosevelt Island? We will know for sure when we hear their 100 decibels mating
call, which will make the FDR seem quiet by comparison. We will know for sure when we see
their shredded exoskeletons lining the tree branches as if they were frozen in time from some
ancient lost world. They will be with us for about a month before they go back into hibernation. And our local birds will be able to eat up to their hearts content. Some have asked why the 17 year cycle? It could be a clever defense mechanism to avoid predators, or a way that helped them cope with the last ice age, but I think they are doing it just to remind us that nature has its own way of doing things that go beyond our understanding. go beyond our understanding. I hope to see them again in 2038. By Neal Weissman

For more scientific information check out this KidsPost Article from the Washington Post.

Volunteers Can Return to Help Us Out in 2021

3/27/2021

On Saturday March 27th we had our first group of UN International School student volunteers come to help with maintenance and landscape work. At the same time our local Eagle Scout candidate and garden member Brendan was actively helping all day with Compost work. We are so glad that we can gather again in 2021 with each other and with volunteers as long as we stay masked and physcially distant.

Celebrate community service!

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