[image credit: Edible Brooklyn]
Cities lose sense of which plants belong there, allowing invasive plants to take over
As green spaces give way to urban ones, it can be easy for the locals to forget the underlying ecological context they live in. Often, they will then import invasive foreign plants that quickly take over the local flora.
Solution: Preserve historic farms to show what the land used to look like
The Wyckoff Historic Farm in Brooklyn, New York, gives visitors a glimpse of the land as it looked before high rises and asphalt took over. One component of the farm is the "weed garden." Visitors can learn the history and usefulness of various native plants. They may be seen as nuisances in urban environments, but local weeds are vastly preferable to foreign, invasive ones, and caretakers feel they are preserving an important component of the local landscape.
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- Edible Brooklyn | In Flatbush, a Farmhouse
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