Plants & Wildlife

Flowers attract bees, flies, question mark butterflies, clearwing moth larva eat foliage. Fruit are eaten by many birds including cedar waxwings.

Grows in high pH and compacted soils. Problem solver. Insects attract small birds. Thornless. Attractive yellow fall color. Young trees may have crossing limbs that need to be caught early so they don’t rub. Great for understory plants as it provides dappled shade. Will leaf out late spring and loses leaves early autumn, so balances well with trees of different species.

We have ‘Annabell’ who’s flowers have low ecological value due to sterility. BUT, stems are great for stem nesting bees. Plant is very dramatic about water. We use them as our “canaries” to figure out when to water.

With good care, this plant thrives. We’ve killed quite a few that received inadequate water upon planting, or were pot-bound. Can become leggy and not respond well to pruning when not properly sited. Seems to like to be planted in mass. Best in moist sunny sites. Dioecious. Female cultivars ‘Shamrock’ and ‘Compacta’ need male plant to produce berries. Male plants can be difficult to find in the trade. ‘Chamzin’(trade name: Nordic) is a male cultivar. Berries are not as ornamental as other Ilex species but do provide habitat value. Good alternative for boxwood. Beautiful evergreen glossy dark green foliage provides winter interest.

Highly ornamental bark. Beautiful, unappreciated form. Difficult to find specimens that have not been headed off at the nursery. Young trees form taproots making transplanting difficult. Very tolerant of urban conditions. Attracts many species of bees, lepidopterans and birds. Large seedpods require cleanup on paths. Many interesting ethnobotany and history facts for tours.

Does well in moist, well-drained soil

Attractive foliage, hardy, underused.

Evergreen, can tolerate deep shade and dry soil; slow to establish. Late to emerge. Cannot tolerate dog urine or wind.

Moss Phlox is an incredible ground cover for full sun as long as it has good drainage. It is happy growing in the cracks of the rocks at the Pier 1 salt marsh, or clinging to the sheer faces of our berms. The moss-like foliage creeps along fairly aggressively, cascading over walls and keeping out weeds. The evergreen foliage can be trimmed to help other plants compete or to stimulate redbloom. There are many cultivars available but Emerald Blue is our go-to.

Wonderful plant that is quite large. Give it space or you will have to coppice. Only returns from coppicing in the full sun. Susceptible to powdery mildew. Remove duff.

A Fragrant, easy to grow, and adaptable shrub. The flowers are aesthetically insignificant but the silvery berries are ornamental and of high habitat value, providing food for warblers and other birds. Tolerant of salt spray. Individual plants are sometimes monoecious and sometimes dioecious. Nursery stock is often selected for monoecious characteristics. Sometimes sexed dioecious selections are available. Often planted in mass to ensure berry production and avoid the issue of sexing individuals.

Northern variety. Grows much taller than bignonioides, with thinner leaf, less numerous white flowers.

Should be planted in a consistently medium moist area, will dry out fast if not kept watered. Tough fern and aggressive spreader. Incredibly ornamental showstopper.

Self-seeding space filler. Attractive seed heads. Only looks ornamental from flower to seed. Rare as far north as Pennsylvania

Ornamental. Fragrance blooms are a valuable addition to the winter garden and serve as a reminder of the coming spring. Plant next to evergreen to enhance the colors. More drought tolerant than H. virginiana.

Can handle dry shade, full sun, marsh conditions, edge conditions and dogs. Spreads reliably and can outcompete weaker plants. Can self-seed. Drought tolerant. Ground-nesting bees found nesting near edge of foliage. Beautiful texture, dense, clump form with unique tropical look. Can benefit from cutbacks or cut to ground as it will flop late season. Not NYC regionally native.

Great dry plant that can grow anywhere. Prefers open poor soil, cracks. Handles foot traffic, full sun, dry soils, salt tolerant, can seed in. Great moisture indicator plant- tolerates drought, grows taller the more water it gets. Tolerates a lot of disturbance.

Versatile hardy spreader that can survive wide range of conditions. A great space filler. Does better if given more space in mass planting, less competition, enough moisture. Can’t take foot traffic.

Dense strongly lateral branch growth habit make it an easy choice for developing good long term structure. Less susceptible to obscure scale than red oaks. Fast growing. Gorgeous flower. Attracts many birds.

Flops if mass planted, needs other plants to prop it up.

Thick foliage gives nice texture and form. Showy flower spike. One of best performing broadleafed sedges. Performs well in shade.

Like Pennsylvanica, light and spreading, but twice as big. Excellent shade ground cover, woodland, cool climate species, colonizes by rhizome, pest resistant, not palatable to herbivorous mammals. Slow to establish.

Great in full sun, dry areas, edge conditions. Best in mass groupings. Seeds readily. Good as part of the foundation for short, full sun plantings. Incredible color in late summer. Looks like crab grass when not flowering.

Large and aggressive. Climbs on other plants. But it has beautiful flowers with high ecological value. Bees nest in stems. Great for a wild spot.

Handsome grass with dramatic seedheads. Although a wetland species, does well when the soil dries out periodically. Prefers full sun, does well in slightly shadier conditions.

Insanely ornamental. Gets anthracnose. Needs good airflow. Remove duff.

Aquilegia’s blooms are thrilling because they welcome the return of our migratory Ruby Throated Hummingbirds to Brooklyn. All red and yellow flowers of this region are hummingbird pollinated and bloom when the birds fly in to town from overwintering in Mexico. This plant thrives in the park when given a little soil moisture and a dappled shade. But it is happily adaptable to full sun with moisture and dryness in shade. It needs almost no care and even survives on path edges, seeding in when happy.

Redbud might be the sweetest little tree in Brooklyn Bridge Park. The magenta flowers bloom in spring, supporting early emerging pollinators like queen bumble bees. Flowers are held on the trunk rather than the ends of the branches. The leaves emerge soon after, tiny folded hearts like valentines that grow to create a canopy of hearts. Typically found in forests, we’ve seen this tree adapt well to all urban park conditions, even full sun, high wind and drought if shaded. Branch unions break easily so find a specimen unpruned by the nursery and conduct any necessary pruning while young. Host to the rare Henry’s Elfin butterfly, which has not been seen recently in New York City.

Fine-textured clumping sedge, similar but more compact than radiata. Does well on slopes. Does well in dry shade.

Great light green foliage. Great plant for a wetland garden, doesn’t die back as much during really hot weather.

Good once established. Lower branches tend to die off in shade. Suckers easily. Can coppice and allow to regrow. Responds well to pruning. Great understory tree. Good fall colors, ornamental, fragrant, interesting for tours. Host plant for various butterflies.

Dependable, aggressive spreader. Can handle accidental foot traffic – will re-sprout. Lovely in the right area. Very hardy in deep shade.

Serviceberry is one of our most generous native plants: white flowers in spring, delicious berries in summer, and blazing fall color. Feel free to sample berries when they turn purple but remember to leave most of them for the birds who feed them to their young. Most of the Serviceberry at BBP is Amelanchier x ‘Autumn Brilliance’ but we have a few other species as well. All thrive easily in our urban conditions: they are salt, shade, sun pH tolerant. They do get Cedar Quince Rust and lacebug, so we clean up the fallen leaves in autumn. They tend to sucker and don’t compartmentalize well, so we prune when branches are thinner than 1″.

Seeds in well, happy with no irrigation. Can sometimes look messy. Rare in Northeast.

Evergreen attractive silver foliage. Best performing broadleaf sedge through winter. Tolerates dry soil but thrives in moist soil.

Great plant for dry shade. Host for clearwing hummingbird moth.

Strong architectural, vertical evergreen foliage. Can tolerate a range of wet to dry soils. Prefer wetter sites, but can volunteer in surprisingly dry places.

Fantastic evergreen tree. Low maintenance, surprisingly tough. Needs shelter in winter, as NYC is the top of its range. Cultivar ‘Edith Bogue’ is the most hardy. Survived flooding well. Do not prune. Amazing tree for the landscape, has wildlife value. Needs to be planted with enough space to grow and bloom.

A Large and wild looking shrub. Small early spring blooming yellow flowers provide important resources for pollinators. The leaves, twigs and fruit are all fantastically fragrant when bruised and in that way great for connecting people to nature. It is a host plant for the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail and Spicebush Swallowtail and the fruit is a food source for a variety of wildlife. The soft yellow fall color provides its most standout moment in the landscape.

Not a good choice for confined soil volume plantings. It will colonize an area by suckering roots and can bust through asphalt if not given room. After a rambunctious period of establishment the planted population at BBP has settled down. Plant size and stand density can be managed by coppice. Weak wooded. Susceptible to Botryosphaeria canker. Maintaining airflow may help. The fruit is a high value food source for overwintering birds and can be brewed into a delicious tea.