MulchFest in Astoria Park
CDoyle It’s time to take the Christmas tree down and New York City wants to turn your holiday greenery into mulch. The annual MulchFest event will be held at various locations throughout the city, including Astoria Park, on Saturday January 6 and Sunday January 7 from 10 a.m. to 2 pm.
If you bring trees and wreaths to Astoria Park this weekend, be sure to remove ornaments beforehand. You can watch your tree get chipped by the NYC Department of Parks—kids always enjoy seeing the chipper at work. Enter at the parking lot on 19th Street–Parks staff and Astoria Park Alliance volunteers will be on hand to direct you. Be sure to wrap up warmly, the predicted temperatures for the weekend are below zero!
You can take home a bag of mulch for your garden, and the remaining wood chips will be used by the city for trees and plants on streets and parks. Last year the MulchFest event chipped 26,000 trees.
If you can’t get to MulchFest you can leave your tree out on the curb for a mulching and recycling collection that will run through January 13th.
Chipping trees at MulchFest in Astoria Park; photo credit Clare Doyle
Clare Doyle
Clare Doyle is a graduate of the M.A. program in Museum Studies at the University of Leicester, UK. She also holds a Graduate Diploma in Library and Information Studies as well as a B.A. in Archaeology and History from University Dublin, Ireland. She has worked for 30 years in library reference publishing in New York. Clare is the Vice President of Green Shores NYC, a non-profit group that advocates for a cleaner, greener and more connected waterfront in Astoria and Long Island City