Spring Cutback

We did it! Despite the unseasonably cold weather, two snowstorms, several days of rain, and yesterday's hail shower, we completed this year's High Line Spring Cutback in record time. These horticulture enthusiasts from REI were among the 80 volunteers who helped get the job done. Photo by Liz Ligon

We have just completed the fourth and final week of High Line Spring Cutback!

The High Line’s plants are not trimmed back at the onset of cold weather in the fall. Instead the landscape is left intact to provide structure, beauty, and habitat throughout the winter. As spring arrives, Friends of the High Line staff and volunteers work together to cut back the plants to prepare for the new growing season. This horticultural effort, called High Line Spring Cutback, takes place throughout the entire month of March.

See photos from our last week of Spring Cutback after the jump.

Earlier this week, High Line Photographer Beverly Israely captured this interesting shot of the hollow stems of the Equisetum hyemale, or giant horsetail. This wetland species grows along the water feature on the Diller – von Furstenberg Sundeck, between West 14th and West 15th Streets.

As one of the park’s neighbors and a member of Friends of the High Line, Beverly has been working to build a portfolio of photographs that celebrate the High Line’s myriad textures and changes in the landscape's color and form over the four seasons.

With Spring Cutback nearly complete, you will find unusual textures along the High Line’s landscape. The High Line’s wild grasses, shrubs, and flowering perennials have been trimmed back to make way for the new growing season, and that means over the next couple of weeks, you’ll see the landscape transform itself, as fresh green growth pops up all along the park.

Learn more about the High Line’s planting design.

Share your photos with us in the High Line Flickr Pool, or tag @highlinnyc on Instagram or Twitter.

It’s alternative spring break week at the High Line. Pictured here are the teens participating in this year’s High Line Green Corps, an education and job-training program by Friends of the High Line. Photo by Beverly Israely

Sixteen-year-old Winona Kay Holderbaum was amazed the first time she visited the High Line. “As a little girl, I used to pass by the overgrown bridge with my father, and I always wondered why no one could go up there,” she says.

Winona is one of ten teens selected from among 90 applicants for this year’s Green Corps program. Since January, the teens have been spending their afternoons at the High Line, earning a paycheck and receiving valuable job experience in fields like urban ecology, horticulture, and sustainability. This week is the teens’ spring break, and they’ve been working daily at the park, helping the High Line Gardeners and High Line Educators complete Spring Cutback.