Things are coming up daffodils in Cadman Plaza next year.
The Cadman Plaza Park Conservancy planted 1,650 daffodil bulbs in the strip of green space that extends from Tillary Street to Prospect Street on Saturday. Green-thumbed volunteers showed up from around the borough to help, shoulder-to-shoulder with neighborhood residents, one park steward said.
“It was really nice to see a bunch of people who didn’t know each other before, working together,” said Toba Potosky, president of the conservancy.
This was Cadman Plaza’s second year participating in the Daffodil Project, part of a citywide program started by New Yorkers for Parks after the Sept. 11 attacks to remember those killed. This year, about 75 volunteers lent a hand, with some help from equipment provided by the Partnership for Parks.
One of the younger diggers was Alice Poliner, a Brooklyn Heights 3-year-old. Her mother Megan said the experience will help teach Alice about giving back to the places they enjoy.
“We see the parks as our extended living room,” the elder Poliner said. “And we wanted to show Alice that we have to take care of them.”
Daffodils come back year after year, and Potosky hopes to continue the annual fall plantings until the park is chock full of yellow flowers.
“We want to make it into something that people look forward to every year,” he said.
Clinton Hill resident Laura Sandall and her friends and family used the planting as an opportunity to honor Sandall’s late sister, Emily, who died in a hiking accident in Yosemite National Park eight years ago. Every year since then, the family has taken time out on Nov. 8 to do something in her memory.
“It’s a way to celebrate the wonderful life she had and the generous person that she was,” Sandall said.
