Green Corner: Make Room for Sidewalks in Bloom

You may have noticed the new garden beds at street level in front of the Robertson Building? Early in July, it occurred to the urbanspace environmental team that it might be possible to reclaim the street level garden space that surrounds the two city trees in front of the building. We noticed that Paul Magder, a fur merchant across the street, had achieved this feat and that a colourful pocket of pansies surrounded the small city tree in front of his store.

Building on this community "greening" synergy, we were able to negotiate similar results with the City of Toronto. On July 11th, two City trucks and three City workers arrived to successfully lift and remove the concrete blocks that surrounded our two tree pits. The City provided some replacement soil, but we needed to bolster the nutrient load with our own organic mix and then add some flowering annuals and perennials to this new garden space at the base of the trees. In fact there's also a third garden planter beside the building - built atop the old hydro vault that is no longer in use. The plants in the planter box seated on the hydro vault were divided and taken from the greenroof on the Robertson building. It's been wonderful to see this area transform into a pleasant back-drop for visitors and tenants seeking some quiet space out-of-doors.

When Spacing, a magazine that acts as a hub for interesting news, events, and projects relevant to public space issues in Toronto and around the world discovered our planting efforts they wrote a story about it and dubbed us the "Tree Pit Gardening Angels." For more information try: http://spacing.ca/wire/?p=151

These three new garden spaces have softened the Robertson's concrete shoulder and added some rich colour, texture, and dimension to our immediate neighbourhood. We hope you find that they generate a welcoming feel to the exterior of the building.