Urban Nature - Page 24

#203 April 2026/Featured/Publisher's Notes/Urban Nature

Publisher’s Notes: Fields of Plenty

As a parent of a 13-year-old and a 10-year-old who play baseball in West Philly’s Philadelphia Athletics Youth Sports Association (PAYSA), I know firsthand how hard it can be to find space to play organized sports. The league has grown from 170 kids in 2014 to around 300 today, with a waiting list of 20.

April 4, 2026

2 mins read

#134 July 2020/All Topics/Environment/Urban Nature

Volunteer group rebuilds the canopy in the Wissahickon, one tree at a time

I don’t think i would have noticed that the patch of forest off Livesey Lane had been restored if Steve Jones, president of Wissahickon Restoration Volunteers (WRV), hadn’t told me. I visited the area on a humid morning in late May. The canopy was complete, shading out the sun completely. I heard the usual forest

July 15, 2020

2 mins read

#133 June 2020/All Topics/Environment/Urban Nature

City Nature Challenge shifts from competition to collaboration.

Looking back at the start of the pandemic, I’ll remember everything closing in March. Walks around my neighborhood took me past locked storefronts with apologies taped to the doors, and almost every email announced a cancellation. I got an email about the City Nature Challenge the evening of March 12. The City Nature Challenge (CNC)

June 4, 2020

2 mins read

#132 May 2020/All Topics/Environment/Urban Nature

Philly fungi enthusiasts are on the hunt for mushrooms around the city.

I had low expectations for the fungus walk that the Philadelphia Mycology Club hosted last year in April. I showed up as part of the City Nature Challenge, an international urban citizen science event that connects people to nature while documenting urban biodiversity. I sit on the Challenge’s local organizing committee, and while we welcomed

May 8, 2020

3 mins read

#131 April 2020/All Topics/Environment/Farming/gardening/Urban Nature

Mount Airy gardener makes native plants more available to birds, bugs and humans.

John Janick was an obsessive gardener packing every square inch outside his family’s Mount Airy twin home with native plants when I first wrote about him in Grid in July 2014. He had filled his backyard and the area around his driveway, and was running out of space in his front yard. I found Janick,

April 2, 2020

3 mins read