12 Urban Planting Tips From a Gardener on the Greenest Block in Brooklyn

Anu Prestonia, 58, is surrounded by an abundance of her own making.

Outside the stunning old Bed-Stuy brownstone she bought 19 years ago on Bainbridge Street — back when the Notorious B.I.G. still roamed the neighborhood, and crime was at its peak — a weeping cedar dips its tentacles into a sea of flower pots. In a vase on her dining-room table, a bouquet of lilies, a gift from her ”sweetheart,” fills the room with fragrance. On her kitchen counter, a watermelon too big for her refrigerator goes under the knife; sun bounces through her windows off the ferns, maples, spruces and herbs in her lush backyard.

“I’m a gardening addict,” she said on a recent Saturday as she offered this reporter a slice of melon.

Earlier this August, Prestonia’s block — Bainbridge between Malcolm X Boulevard and Stuyvesant Avenue — was named the “Greenest Block in Brooklyn” by the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. The prize was accepted by the Bainbridge Street Homeowners and Tenants Block Association, of which Prestonia is a member.

In light of the big win, Prestonia agreed to give Patch a tour of her urban gardening grounds — and reveal what it took to grow the greenest block in Brooklyn.

1. Get the neighbors involved.

“First of all, you have to have a group effort,” Prestonia said. ”No one person can do it. You have to band together.” On award-winning Bainbridge, she estimates that about 20 neighbors from the block’s 75 houses are active contributors to the street garden.

2. Start small.

Before attempting to tackle your block’s sidewalk situation, Prestonia recommends starting with window boxes, planters and garden beds inside your own gate. (In fact, more than a decade before Bainbridge won the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s grand prize, Prestonia’s window boxes won the 2004 title for “Best Window Box.” Today, her boxes hold two bushy rows of white petunias, dressing up the air conditioner in the window.)

3. First, plant your perennials.

In other words, start by putting in plants that will rarely need re-planting. They’ll only bloom for a few weeks each year, but if you stagger perennials with different blooming times, at least one of them will be blooming at some point in the year. Examples: evergreens, sweet potatoes, hydrangeas.

4. Next, plant your annuals.

“Your filler are the annuals,” Prestonia said. As opposed to the perennials, their blooming windows will last for four or five months; however, they’ll need to be replanted each year. Examples: marigolds, petunias.

5. Fight vandalism with a sense of pride.

In the early days, Prestonia said, “vandalism was a huge challenge. People used to just go by and pull stuff out of the pots. I think people were a little envious.” But over years of planting and re-planting with pride, Prestonia said she and her neighbors have built up an urban garden ”so rich that no one wants to steal from it. People assume that the people who live here care — and they’re watching.”

6. Put up guards around sidewalk tree plots.

The little green fences that Bainbridge residents erected around their sidewalk tree plots “make such a huge difference,” Prestonia said. “They have added to the amount of greenery and colorful flowers we have, because now the soil is gated in. It makes it a little more challenging for people to allow their dogs to urinate there — which causes damage to the trees and the flowers.”

The fences also host an array of cutesy signage, including “Your dog’s cute but its poop is not. Please clean up” and ”The poo fair doesn’t live here... Scoop your poop” and “Your dog did his duty — please do yours.”

7. Have patience.

In years past, Prestonia’s block has repeatedly placed either 2nd or 3rd for Greenest Block. This year’s win, she believes, is a product of the time and patience it took to let the block’s greenery settle into old growth. “It took us 12 years to win,” Prestonia said. “One of the appeals to the block is that there’s a different look — a look that plants have when they’re well-established.”

8. Leadership is key.

Gary Shuford, former president of the Bainbridge Street Homeowners and Tenants Block Association, has been widely credited with the 2015 win. Although he died two years ago, neighbors said he taught them to be better gardeners. “He was so wonderful,” Prestonia said. “At one point he had a wagon, like a regular red wagon, and he would fill gallon jars with water and take them up the block on his wagon, watering the pots that nobody watered.”

Upon receiving their award this month, the block association said of Shuford in a statement: “He inspired us all with his vision and led by example with his ever-present overalls and the watering wagon. The rest of us have just been doing our best to pick up where he left off.”

9. Know your block’s shady and sunny spots; plant accordingly.

On Prestonia’s block, the south side of the street is shadier than the north side. Annuals flourishing on the shady side include bright-green sweet potato plants and red-and-green-spotted coleus. On the sunny side, yellow sunflowers and fuchsia “crepe myrtles” thrive.

10. Outsmart the squirrels.

“Squirrels love bulbs, and most of the perennials are bulbs,” Prestonia said. ”So you have to plant the bulbs with chicken wire.” In other words, wrap your bulbs with chicken wire and plant them in their mini cages. Squirrel paws will be no match.

11. Check with the neighbors.

Prestonia said she paid a fortune for a ”beautiful cherry blossom with pink flowers” to plant in her front yard. Although it was the envy of passerby, her next-door neighbor was not a fan. “My neighbor would harass me about it going onto her stoop,” Prestonia said. So she had to trash the plant and replace it with a weeping cedar (which, by nature, points downward).

12. Shop smart.

“Gardening is not cheap, especially if you become an addict like myself,” Prestonia said. For Brooklynites, she recommends making bulk purchases at the Brooklyn Terminal Market in Flatbush, at Foster Avenue and Avenue D. “That’s where you’ll get the best bang for your buck,” she said. “You buy the plants in a flat. That’s where all the growers go.” For a quick nursery stop, she recommends the nursery on New York Avenue, near Kings County Hospital in Prospect-Lefferts Garden.

As for farmers markers: The Saturday market at Grand Army Plaza in Prospect Park “has the staples — marigolds, sweet potatoes, petunias, evergreens.” But for more exotic plants to dress up the basics — roses, gardenias, jasmines — Prestonia always makes a Saturday trip to the Union Square farmer’s market in Manhattan.