Making a Healing Garden

by John Cannizzo

Danny likes this time of year best. Fall turns to winter. He whistles. We walk. Cool breeze blows. He dashes into the street. With a loud screech a car jams on its brakes. He veers, runs, looses his balance, gets up again.

“You're not in Puerto Rico anymore."¯

“We're still alive."

We bring back the coffee. Interns are working at the Whitestone library. It is hidden behind a wooden construction fence. Steam rises from the hot coffee. Matt blows across it. Danny does the same. Sharon shivers. “Brrr,"¯ she says. “It's windy today."

Danny throws two crumbs. Three birds hop in his direction. He holds out a crumb to the third. It takes the bread and hops away, looking back, almost as if it expects Danny to follow.

David moves to the gate. Danny shyly tags along. David gives him the level. With a little practice he uses it well. All day we position the big pieces of steel that will be the trellis. Much of this space will be surfaced in one way or another. I have to stop and rest but the interns never get tired. Two weeks have passed since Danny started working with us. He forgets a lot of things, but he is one of the family.

How peculiar the weather is! Two weeks ago still felt like summer. The leaves are as green as they were in August. Looking at the tree's green leaves you sense something is wrong. The trees should be red and orange.

“Push it through," David says.

David and Jeffrey slide a big piece of steel through the fence. It drops on Matt's finger. I stoop down beside his kneeling figure, fearing the worst. As he peels off the bloody glove the thick wide black gash clotted with blood bleeds freely. Later at St. Vincent Emergency Room we eat a turkey and bacon sandwich. It will only need stitches.

Next day at 7:00 a.m. We wait for the truck to deliver plants to St. Vincent's Catholic Medical Center. Danny picks a leaf off a tree and without thinking blows on it with all his might. Today we are making the autumn planting. The air has turned cold and the leaves on the trees are no longer green.

** All photos courtesy of John Cannizzo

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Behind Whitestone Library in Queens was a parking lot with a few volunteer trees. HSNY is developing the space as a learning Garden. Here interns are removing the impermeable surfaces. Usually this would be done by a machine but part of our effort includes doing as much as possible without the use of machines.

The space is almost cleared now. We are ready to start to lay out the garden. Here interns are pulling down an Ailanthus tree's top branches in preparation for removing the stumps. This is just a few weeks ago and it was so warm that day.

This soil has not seen the light of day in 40 years. When we removed the black top it was as hard as iron. We had to dig out the footings for the benches with a jack hammer. Now after a good rain and lots of digging it is something like soil again.

The interns -- these are our adolescents. They are doing so well. Their work is so fine. They bring to it such passion.

These pieces of steel are enormously heavy. They have to individually welded in place to form the bench and trellis. Danny is on the ladder. The fact that the interns are training while doing this project is part of the sophisticated method that we are using to help our interns to develop as individuals. This is a city project and it all has to be done to spec and code. The level of work must be that of a professional contractor or better. True self esteem develops in a person when they really understand a thing.

Mark directs our crew. The Garden at St. Vincent Catholic Medical Center has been neglected for a long time. This autumn we started to repair it with the purpose of creating a healing garden there. we will eventually prune all the old over grown shrubs and diseased or dying branches of the big trees. This picture was taken in November. The night before planting day, it turned very cold. By that morning the leaves had begun to turn orange and yellow.