There are few spots in the city with more dedicated environmentalists than in northeast Queens and if the recent cleanups of Little Neck Bay, Udalls Cove and Ravine and Oakland Lake aren’t proof enough, the recent “It’s My Park Day” project in Douglaston should put the issue to rest.
About three dozen volunteers from the Douglaston Garden Club, ranging in age from three to 80, gathered at Catherine Turner Richardson Park in the Douglaston Hill section on May 16, just as in many other parks.
Except that this cleanup included the second installment of a five-year plan of extensive clearing and planting around the hillside triangle – and even some lumberjacking.
The club’s “Civic Beautification Chair” is local resident J. Douglas Montgomery, who is a New York City licensed tree-pruner, among other things.
“We raise about $5,000 a year to care for this park and other green spaces in the neighborhood,” he said, explaining that Richardson, a Douglaston resident, had been the local “environmental watchdog” for a generation an authored a history of what is now Douglaston and Little Neck in 1949. “She deserves a well-cared-for space.”
As other volunteers raked, cultivated and planted day lilies, Elephant Ears, Hostas and Caladiums to provide color during the year, Montgomery found a job for another neighbor, Fred Heitz, a local contractor.
Under (over, actually) Montgomery’s watchful eye, Heitz clambered up one of the few remaining Catalpa trees in the area, lopping off a large overhanging branch that had become infested with ants.
As the younger volunteers began paying more attention to the fund-raising bake sale just up the sidewalk and the older ones began cleaning up, Montgomery said to no one in particular, “That went well,” reviewed the “opened up” scene around the tree and then went off to check on another delivery of compost.
