New York City is home to more than 883,000 trees, and every decade they get their own census. The high-tech gadgets cover the street trees, but the park trees still need hands-on care. Volunteers (like you and me!) can learn to ID species, check their health, and help keep the city’s green spaces thriving.

One Saturday at Inwood Hill Park, I joined volunteers pulling out goutweed, an invasive plant with roots that stretch for meters underground. As my teammate and I dug, we uncovered more than just rhizomes—we found ourselves in a conversation about migration, history, and belonging. The work was humbling, and the questions it raised lingered long after.

On a Saturday morning, I joined NYC Parks’ Tree Stewardship program to care for 19 street trees in my neighborhood. From loosening compacted soil to learning why healthy tree wells matter, I saw how small acts of care can make a city more resilient. Here’s how you can help your local trees—and the streets they shade—thrive.

What do daffodils, wildflower seeds, and a two-hour bus ride to Staten Island have in common? A surprising journey into New York City’s native plant movement. Join me on a visit to PECaN, the city’s native seed farm, and learn why restoring ecological resilience starts right beneath our feet—in the soil, in the sidewalk tree wells, and in the quiet work of local pollinators.

The story follows a spontaneous gardening effort that, over 24 hours, intersects with conversations about compost, safety, generosity, and what it means to quietly care for overlooked corners of the city.

The fourth annual East Village Zine Fair in New York took up the street of St Marks Pl! Let’s see what interesting zines and pamphlets and more importantly, noticeable artists I found!

Who doesn’t like a beautiful rendering of the anatomy of plants?? I collect a lot of botany books just to admire their pictures. Botany books are a good example of reference book design. Today let’s take a closer look at a few of these books to learn what it takes to compose a reference book.

There is information coming at us in different sensory forms. There is our five senses and their quirks in receiving and processing information. In this article, we’ll focus on visual information, examine different levels of abstraction of visual information, and how different people could sense and process the information differently.

A book that looks like a children’s book with the content that’s completely suitable for adult readers, this book celebrates all the people behind the bookmaking process. From the idea conceived in an author’s mind to the book held in a reader’s hand, this book is visually vibrant and verbally succinct. Informative, lighthearted, and educational.

If the "normal" books are on a mission to disseminate information as efficiently as possible, then we can say the artists’ books are here to push the boundary of human cognition. What can commercially produced and circulated books learn from artist’ books?

Architectural drawing can not be used directly as illustrations? Making of an informative book? Find out why and how in this book design review! Bonus: what to know about translation and localization!