Dylan Cicero
URI Internship Year:
2017
Graduation Year:
2019
Degree:
MEM
Dylan is an incoming student to Yale F&ES. He is interested in geospatial technologies as applied to agriculture and forestry. Before coming to Yale he worked on organic farms in the US and abroad. He is excited to be in New Haven this summer, and looking forward to starting coursework in August!
Group
Fair Haven Neighbors In Action
Truman Street Clean/Green Project
Greenspace Log
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08/24/2017 |
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End-of-season party for the Truman Street greenspace! Hotdogs on the grill, chips, cupcakes and watermelon! Carnival games for the kids, soccer and horseshoes, and a beautiful wrap-up to a successful season! |
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08/05/2017 |
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Last workday on Monroe Street! We tidied up the green triangle on Monroe- weeding, raking, sweeping, cleaning dead foliage from the Yuccas! I'll miss this crew! |
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08/03/2017 |
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Last workday on Truman! We added mulch to the North west garden bed, planted 4 Mouse-ear Hostas, watered heavily, and had some time for snacks and tag! |
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08/03/2017 |
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Great effort by the high school team and Pat at Dover Beach. We weeded and mulched the butterfly garden, took down two dead trees, removed sod and added doughnut rings around previously planted trees, watered recent plantings, weeded the garden south of the I-91 overpass, and philosophized about weeds, gardening, and purpose! |
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08/02/2017 |
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Cut short by T-Storms, but not before we were able to offload a yard of wood chips onto site, and begin to complete mulching the perimeter of the butterfly garden! |
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08/01/2017 |
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Stewardship day to water and mulch curb strips on Exchange Street! |
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07/29/2017 |
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This group knows how to work! We planted a Horse Chestnut and a Japanese Tree Lilac on Castle Street. We also weeded and mulched a street tree from years prior, and provided a heavy watering to trees that were planted this season and years prior. |
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07/28/2017 |
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Good work session on Friday evening. We planted three Itea shrubs in the garden south of 91, provided a heavy watering to the corner garden shrubs as well as in the garden south of I-91, and added more mulch into the garden space. |
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07/27/2017 |
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Fewer than usual at the Truman Street garden this week, which allowed for a slower pace of work. We weeded the northwest plot and pathway by the Truman Street entrance to the garden. We took some time at the end of the workday to quiet down, explore the space, discuss things that we found interesting, and listen to the birds! |
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07/26/2017 |
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All core team members present at Fairmont Park on Wednesday evening. Paul and I dropped a yard of pine mulch on an area where we had removed invasive species. We wanted to "unwild" this area before invasives returned and our work was for naught! Sylvia and Leslie continued to weed the butterfly garden space, and add mulch around the stone-dust pathway. For our last week we will heavily mulch the perimeter of the garden space. |
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07/25/2017 |
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We planted a Royal Burgundy Kwanzan Cherry outside of 180 Exchange Street. After a season of work, the planting was quick and fluid. We also added perennials to the mulch ring. Exchange street is looking good! |
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07/22/2017 |
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Tough work session on Monroe Street. We planted two Kwanzan Cherry trees outside of 76 Monroe. The soil was thick with roots, and we also had to bust asphalt to make the pits large enough for trees. After lots of effort, the streetscape looks transformed! |
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07/21/2017 |
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Hard work by the Dover Beach Park crew and the high school intern team. We planted an American Holly in the garden south of the I-91 overpass. We also collected trash and hauled two yards of pine mulch off the work truck for future use. |
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07/21/2017 |
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We finished inserting the brick path through the butterfly garden and in-filling it with rock dust. We also offloaded a yard of wood chips, in preparation of a heavy mulch job around the perimeter of the garden space next week. |
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07/20/2017 |
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Good workday Thursday night. Lots of energy from the kids. We cleared brush and picked up trash around the perimeter of the lot, watered plants in, drew a chalk mural in preparation for movie night and practiced a mindfulness breathing exercise. |
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07/18/2017 |
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Tree planting was halted this week at Fair Haven Neighbors in Action. Instead, Me, Ben, and Desmond did some outreach to locate opportunities for future plantings. We founds some promising tree pits on Richards Street, and we will be trying to get in contact with stewards for those sites in coming weeks. |
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07/15/2017 |
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We worked with the high school interns to weed alongside the pebble path, weed the garden beds, removed dead branches from the oak trees and shrubs, and fluff up the mulch layer around the garden. The space has clearly had much love pumped into it over the years, but is happy with a bit of a touch-up! |
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07/15/2017 |
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We continued weeding and mulching the triangular green space alongside Monroe Street. Weeding was thorough, and mulching was tough work (2 yards offloaded and spread around). The space looks completely transformed! Hopefully, we will get a tree planted next week! |
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07/14/2017 |
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Weeding and mulching! Thats the name of the game at Dover Beach! We continued working on the fenced in garden area south of the I-91 bridge, clearing out weeds and brush and wheeling in pine mulch. The place is starting to shape up nicely. We also added mulch rings around previous year's tree plantings all the was down the park. |
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07/13/2017 |
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Fair Haven Neighbors in Action and another successful stewardship day. We did maintenance on 5 street trees high up on Exchange (before Poplar), including heavy weeding, building mulch rings, planting perennials, watering, trash collection, and raking out leaf litter from against the sidewalk fence. The space looks clean and tidy. People care about this neighborhood and it shows! |
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07/12/2017 |
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Butterfly garden shaping up really nicely. Flowers in full bloom and tons of color!! We added more bricks and hauled stone dust to create new paths to meander through the garden space. The paths ad a really nice element- we discussed that the site is becoming a destination for people to visit instead of just a space for the locals. We'll continue to finish up the paths and then mulch, mulch, mulch for the rest of the season! |
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07/01/2017 |
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Great day on Monroe Street. We began work on the planted triangle on Monroe that we becoming overgrown with weeds. We weeded and added red mulch to provide some "pop" in the neighborhood. We also worked on another curbside strip along Monroe, planting 8 shade tolerant perennials, marking out a spot for a tree, and adding mulch. |
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06/30/2017 |
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We tackled the garden south of 91 tonight. It really needed a good weeding and the space is looking a lot cleaner after some TLC. We will try to get Parks to dump wood chips on the site to continue to fortify the site against weeds. |
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06/29/2017 |
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Lots of energy on Truman Street tonight! Productive session watering the perennials in the Southwest corner garden, weeding and mulching the southwest corner garden, and weeding and mulching the Southeast corner garden. With lots of hands we were able to get a lot done. Looking forward to continuing to work our way around the garden space, cleaning up weedy areas, and providing mulch buffers. |
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06/28/2017 |
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Butterfly garden is looking fantastic! Its now fully weeded and mulched- next step will be the addition of bricks and pea stone for the paths through the garden. Invasives have been successfully suppressed by the forestry crew headed by Paul. Great work by all! |
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06/27/2017 |
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The garden at the corner of Front and Middletown is looking really great! We spent some productive time weeding resilient grass roots that had poked through the layer of wood chips that we dumped last week. We also added another yard of wood chips into the space to thicken our mulch layer and claim additional territory from the weeds. We will continue to expand out in this manner, to make room for additional plantings. |
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06/27/2017 |
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Another successful planting with the Fair Haven Neighbors in Action. We planted a Japanese Tree Lilac at 172 poplar street, watered in previous weeks' plantings, and added perennials to the street trees that needed them. Lots of people came out to help, which made the planted especially vibrant! |
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06/24/2017 |
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Productive Day on Monroe Street, and great effort by all who attended! We planted a Japanese Tree Lilac on the corner of Castle Street and Monroe, and tidied a curbside strip outside 97 Monroe (including the addition of 1/2 yard of compost, 1/2 yard of pine mulch, and 8 Hostas). The space looks beautiful. Looking forward to keeping the momentum going next week with additional tree plantings. |
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06/23/2017 |
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Strong showing at Fairmont Park today. Lots of hands = lots of work completed! We're almost finished weeding , composting, and mulching the butterfly garden. One more session should do the job. We've also begun to build a buffer around the garden space using wood chips to ensure that next season we won't have to do some much weeding again! The hedge row of shrubs alongside Clifton St. is also starting to shape up very nicely. Paul has gotten out most of the Burning Bush and Eleanthus, and the natives are really being featured more prominently now. |
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06/22/2017 |
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Lots of weeding and mulching at the Truman Street Clean Green Project. The Southwest corner garden is starting to look really nice after turning the weeds and spreading a yard of pine mulch across the space. We also watered in previous week's plantings, and enjoyed some melon :) |
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06/21/2017 |
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We put in some more work on the lead remediation work for 1528 Ella T. Grasso Blvd. We added a yard of pine mulch on top of the shrub bed by the drip line of the house. We also added compost and grass seed to the front lawn and curbside strip and watered it in. Finishing touches will be the addition of three hypericum shrubs on the south side of the house. |
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06/20/2017 |
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Fair Haven Neighbors in Action took an intermission this weak from their stream of steady planting. The focus this week was on Garbage cleanup efforts. We also removed two dead trees from the neighborhood. |
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06/17/2017 |
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First group meeting for the Castle/Monroe Street team. We did some icebreakers and introductions, and then walked the neighborhood with printed street maps to plan out the vision for the neighborhood. We located a number of spots for Tree plantings as well as some spots for perennial bed creation alongside street trees. Looking forward to our first planting next week. |
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06/17/2017 |
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Front yard planting day! Myself, Stella, and Lulu put in a heavy-duty shift to overhaul the front yard of the Torres household. We planted 3 Spirea bushes, 3 Lilac bushes, a Japanese Holly evergreen, a Tree Hydrangea, and a few hypericum perennials. It looks really nice! We plan on finishing up the yard this week by adding a thick layer of pine mulch, reseeding the lawn with grass seed, and adding an additional 3 hypericum plantings. Fantastic effort all around- it really shows! |
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06/16/2017 |
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Dreary day on Friday which cut our participation levels, but we nevertheless got some good work done at the Dover Beach corner garden. We planted 6 perennials- 2 Joe Pie Weed plants, 1 Bee Balm plant, and 3 Black Eyed Susan's, which helped to fill the space out. We also added a yard of wood chips onto the garden to give the bed a nice full coat and prevent weeds from coming back through. Next week will be more weeding, more mulching, and perhaps a bit of pruning work for some of the Sumacs that are making their presence known. |
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06/15/2017 |
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Nice work at the Truman Street Community Garden last night. We gave a deep water to the southeast corner garden bed, where some of the newly planted perennials were starting to dry out. We also gave that bed a thorough weeding job- much needed to prevent mugwort invasion! Lastly, we used hoes to weed the front garden beds and clear up the pea-stone path from weeds starting to bust through. |
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06/14/2017 |
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The Fairmont Park team carried on the work at the butterfly garden. We've made some great progress with the weeding, composting, and mulching. In 2 sessions we should have the rest of the garden complete! On the forestry front, we will to tag the trees that we want to keep as well as invasives and others that we want to remove. This will enable the Park Dept to come in and give us a hand implementing a forest management plan. |
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06/13/2017 |
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Another great planting session with Fair Haven Neighbor's in Action. We planted a Kousa Dogwood and American Linden at the intersection of Poplar and Wolcott. Hydrant flushing added some extra excitement in the neighborhood and reeled in a few volunteers that were extremely helpful! Next week we will have a stewardship day to take care of previous year's plantings. |
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06/09/2017 |
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Great workday at Dover Beach Park! We made massive headway weeding the corner garden by Front St. and Middletown Ave. The garden looks really nice! Next week we will bring in additional plantings to fill out the space and mulch to keep the weeds down. Looking forward to it! |
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06/08/2017 |
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Great session in the garden! We planted two different varieties of St. John's Wort and three bee balm plants in the Southeast corner garden. We also continued to mulch the fruit trees in the back of the garden to give them a nice buffer against weeds and desiccation this season! I look forward to some more good work next week! |
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06/07/2017 |
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Great work all around by the Fairmont Park crew. Sylvia, Leslie, myself, and a few of the kids added compost and Pine mulch to the butterfly garden, and then continued weeding the far side of the bed. We also marked out boarders for the Pea-Stone pathway to go through the butterfly garden and defined the edge of the bed. Paul carried on the battle against invasive species on the woodland boarder. The space is really shaping up nicely. |
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06/06/2017 |
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Magical session planting at the intersection of Wolcott Street and Poplar. Lots of people came out to participate- a diverse crowd of kids, adults, men, women- this is what community beautification is all about! We planted a Japanese Tree Lilac, a Serviceberry Tree, and a few Hypericum perennials surrounding the planting. Fluid planting session, lots of great work, and fantastic result! Looking forward to additional plantings next week... |
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06/03/2017 |
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The group gave a heavy wood chip mulch job to last year's crabapple, and a few other curbside trees after giving them a thorough weeding job. We also mulched the curbside garden space in front of the Torres residence, pruned the curbside trees, and discussed strategy for upcoming weeks. |
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06/02/2017 |
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Me, Pat, and Brett surveyed the corner garden and came up with a plan of action for the season (we will split the garden in half to make it more manageable, provide heavy weeding, and a heavy mulch job...). We also did a bit of weeding around the periphery of the garden to ensure Parks knows that the garden is being tended! Afterwards, we walked the length of the park, looking at previous years' tree plantings and discussing the history of the site. |
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06/01/2017 |
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Great day of work at the Truman Street Garden! One team made the fruit trees in the back of the garden very happy by providing them with a heavy wood chip mulch job. Another team cleared the southwest corner garden of Mugwort and planted two perennials. It was a blast getting to know the kids, and seeing how capable they are as stewards of the space! |
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05/31/2017 |
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Me, Sylvia, and Leslie got to work weeding the butterfly garden! Paul hit the Burning Bush and Ailanthus! |
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05/30/2017 |
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Me and Ed canvassed the neighborhood with flyers advertising our first tree planting which will be next week (we also put up a sandwich board in front of Ed's house). While knocking on doors we also located spaces for this year's plantings and found enthusiastic stewards for the new trees. |
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05/27/2017 |
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Paul and Sylvia showed me around the park. We took a look at the butterfly garden and discussed strategy for the upcoming season (weed, compost, mulch!... some new plantings!...finish brick path!). Then we took a hike through the trail system looking at the invasive species that are dominating the forest. |
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05/26/2017 |
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Me and Stella got to work right away canvassing the neighborhood with flyers. Some people seemed interested to join our group (others happy about the work but unlikely they will join). Hopefully we get a nice crew at our first "hands-in-the-dirt" workday next Saturday! |
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05/24/2017 |
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Great getting to know Leslie, Stephanie, Jose (and little Andres!). Looking forward to the season working with the kids on Truman Street. Connecting young people to nature is something I am quite passionate about! |
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05/24/2017 |
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I enjoyed getting to know Christel, Pat, and Brett and strategizing for the season! It looks like the garden at the corner of Front St. and Middletown Ave. will be our priority for this year. |
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05/23/2017 |
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Ed showed me around his neighborhood. We discussed the history of the site (Ed has been in the neighborhood for 50 years!!), toured previous years' plantings, and discussed strategy for the upcoming season. |
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