The Soil
and Other Lessons
from a Tree Well
This bald cypress was planted by the city in 2020, when the ground was still barren. By the summer of 2025, a butterfly was spotted resting on a clover flower.
Beth sat on her living room couch, her silver hair glowing like clouds brushed with the still-bright evening sunlight pouring in through the window behind her. Seeing me walk in, she put down the New York Times and sighed:
“Don’t we just love how our government handles the Texas flood?”
Reading the news these days isn’t for the faint of heart. We commiserated over current affairs, and then I said, “Now, ready to do something within our sphere of influence?”
We live in a building called Trafalgar and share a love for gardening. That Saturday evening, Beth wanted to discuss where to place the hydrangeas she’d salvaged from the corner shop florist, and I wanted to talk about a lonely-looking conifer at the end of our street. So we convened.
At Trafalgar, we don’t have a yard—just two tree wells in front of the building. But over the years, neighbors have turned them into something we now call “our garden,” with ground covers, bulbs, and annuals planted like clockwork, supported by the co-op board’s generous budget approval.
The tree well at the east end of the street, beside St. Michael’s Church, didn’t receive this much love. It had been barren for years, filled with compact, pale, clay-like dirt, until another Trafalgar neighbor, Tim, called 311 to request a tree. A bald cypress sapling was planted by city staff in 2020. For a while, the tree looked as sad as the soil supporting it, because unlike most conifers, bald cypress goes bald in winter. In the second year, green shoots emerged. In 2023, we planted a few daffodil bulbs donated by the neighborhood park service. They bloomed once, then vanished.
It’s the summer of 2025 now. Clover has started to grow. Little purple and white flowers poke through the cracks. A tiny wild carrot has bloomed. The soil seems to be healing, and I want to help speed up its regeneration.
After examining all the tree wells, Beth and I agreed it was best to transplant the shrubs from in front of our building to the bald cypress well, and then replace them with the hydrangeas. We began digging.
While we worked, I noticed shattered glass near the edge of the plot. I looked up and gasped—the car parked next to us had its backseat window smashed! Inside were clothes—jackets, shirts—strewn about. Two parking tickets sat on the windshield: one fresh, one already fading. The license plate said Maryland. The car had clearly been abandoned for at least ten days.
As we stood there, stunned, a middle-aged couple walked over.
“That’s bad,” the man said. “Our car got hit too—just around the corner.”
They pointed to their vehicle; the back window was patched with blue painter’s tape.
“Someone’s been slashing tires around here. Got caught the other day,” Beth said. “I haven’t seen anything like this in New York for decades.”
“Never seen something like this,” the couple echoed.
“Well, I’m sorry for your loss,” Beth added. “I wish I could do something for you.”
“Nah. All good. Good to talk to you.” They walked away.
“Looks like the ’70s are coming back,” I murmured to Beth.
“That’s what I thought.”
The smashed window somehow added a sense of urgency to my vague idea of improving the soil. I didn’t know much about outdoor gardening, but this could no longer wait. Dan, the church gardener, was working the flower beds that evening too. He lent us his garden fork to break into the clay and loosen the ground, and kindly offered to help water it twice a week when he came to work.
We kept working long after the sun had set—well past 9 PM, far beyond what we’d planned.
With a cart lent by our building staff, David, Beth transported shrubs and buckets of water. Garden tools from various neighbors lay on the ground.
The next morning, I measured the tree well: 50 by 110 inches. My vision is to let wild and native flowers fill it out. That way, it won’t need constant watering or weeding, and it may not even need the annual refill of commercially made soil like many gardens do. Commercial soil made for houseplants is sterilized, so its nutrients run out after a year or two and need to be replenished. But if wildflowers, worms, bugs, and bacteria work together, the soil can regenerate itself—just like in a forest—and be more resistant to drought and flood.
“I need to research what to plant and where to source them,” I told myself. “I should create a spreadsheet.”
Then I walked over to the West Side Community Garden to harvest compost. I’ve been volunteering with the composting team there for five years. Rashimi, the compost lead, taught me how to read soil—not as lifeless dirt, but as a living ecosystem. Worms, bugs, texture, smell—all are indicators of health.
As I collected the compost, I ran into Emiko and Kimiko, two Japanese women I’d become friends with. They grow vegetables in the garden: shiso leaves, myoga ginger, Japanese eggplant… They also help Alison, who leads the native plant initiative, by tending the wildflower bed.
Before I left, they packed my bag with mint, shiso, and wild carrot flowers.
“Take them! We have more than enough. Also, talk to Alison! I’m sure she won’t mind giving you a few stalks of wildflowers. They’re just weeds, you know?”
So there I was, returning to the tree well with pounds of compost, worms, a pot of herbs, a stalk of woodland sunflower, and a squash seedling that had sprouted next to the compost bin.
Scratch the spreadsheet.
This bald cypress garden is catching life on its own, thanks to the good neighbors of the Upper West Side.
It’s not the prettiest garden on the block. Half the herbs here may die, but the soil improves either way. Something better will come next season.
Now, the car with a smashed window and two parking tickets—it could’ve become a breeding ground for more petty crimes. I went to 311’s website and filed a request. Within an hour, the car was removed.
Are we happy with how our government handles things? Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. But I think the more important question is: Am we happy with how we handle things—every day, in each moment?
