Lisa M. Collins

At his house, instead of twinkling lights, rhododendrons, brass buckle, sprinter boxwood and heuchera black pearl celebrate the onset of winter. When the inflatable Mickey Mouse elves go back into storage, Brooks-Church’s display, completed just before Thanksgiving, will last year-round, with minimal care. An added benefit: as opposed to sucking electricity, the plants will help insulate the home, reducing heating and cooling bills.

The 600-square-foot green exterior is the latest addition to Brooks-Church’s show-home, which includes a stream on the roof. He lives there with his three children and the family dog.

This is an edited and condensed version of a recent conversation with him.

Q. What inspired you to create the wall?

A. It was a spiritual thing. The magic of nature for me is really strong. People don’t realize how starved for nature they are in this city.

I was reading a lot about global warming, and it was making me depressed. I decided I was going to create my own little world, and in that world, just do positive stuff. That’s why I created this oasis.

I’ve wanted to do this for 10 years, but the technology wasn’t there. I mean, I had a lot of living walls fail on me. The learning curve has been huge. An interior wall has been going strong for seven years.

I put a test wall outside for a year and a half and it worked.

Q: How does it survive the winter?

A: We picked evergreens habituated to the Northeast climate of hot summers and cold winters. They go semi-dormant, but don’t lose their leaves. When spring comes they pop right back.

The main thing is, I needed something to insulate the roots. They’re in a three-inch substrate of coconut coir, or fiber, and binder. The binder is some sort of silicon that is food-safe, safe to grow food in. I call them brownies because they look like brownies. They hold eight times their weight in water. I can go a week without watering and they are OK.

Q: How much water do you use?

A: This system is hooked into the water main, with horizontal irrigation along the roof and above and below the windows. The water is turned on for five minutes, twice a day. It’s kind of like having your kitchen faucet turned on. It’s definitely less than a shower.

Q: Won’t water damage the house?

A: I built it so that the water never touches the brick. There is a two-inch space between the living wall and the brick. This allows air to flow. Keeps moisture away. The brick is no longer exposed to the elements, so it’s protected and will last longer.

Q: Why are you doing this?

A: When I started my building company, I wanted to contribute to making New York City green. I do it through soil remediation and creating living walls.

We bought this house in 2008, and it needed a gut renovation. I did all of it with salvaged materials. People found me online and asked me to renovate their houses. Flooring, kitchens, roofs, insulation, I did it all.

I started doing facades. You’ve got limited options. Brownstone, wood paneling, siding, that’s it. They’re dead surfaces that contribute to the heat island effect.

Q: How much would a living wall cost a town house owner in New York City?

A: About $60,000. That’s a lot, but it’s about the same cost to redo your exterior. Including the plants and irrigation, and six months’ free maintenance. After it’s been installed, we need to get up there twice a year to clean up and replace dead plants. It’s about $300 a visit.

Q: What are the pros and cons?

A: My sex appeal has definitely increased. I’m on social dating apps and they love my living walls.

We haven’t talked about the cons. The plants are living creatures. They require some attention. For example, if there is a break in the timer or clog in the irrigation lines. Some walls require almost no maintenance, and some require more. People are afraid of bugs and wildlife. But we need lots of bugs and birds and butterflies. Diversity should extend further than the color of your skin. It should be diversity of creatures.

My secret desire is for a stork to make its nest on my facade. They make these really cool nests and come back every year. I’m dying for that to happen. Or a falcon.

Q: Besides attracting large nesting birds, what is your goal?

A: For living walls to cover the city. Living walls are perfect for New York City. We have all this wall space and we aren’t taking advantage of it.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/20/nyregion/a-brooklyn-green-builder-and-his-wonderwall.html" id="dacf24f0-7860-3fa6-ac91-c07ceda40f7d">The New York Times</a>.

NEW YORK — While many town houses in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, are tricked out with glowing Santas and elaborate Nativity scenes, one homeowner has put forth a different decorative concept. Gennaro Brooks-Church, 47, a “green” builder, has covered his house with a patterned wall of plants. He maintains that it is one of the first living facades in New York.

A Brooklyn 'Green' Builder Shares His Wonderwall

On a recent morning in Staten Island’s Willowbrook Park, she waved some bread to lure a goose that had a plastic six-pack ring wrapped tightly around its neck. Nearby stood two New York City parks rangers and a group of animal rescuers who had already collected five white ducks into pens.

Moments later, there was a flash of stomping and quacking, as John Di Leonardo, executive director of the Long Island Orchestrating for Nature animal advocacy group, known as LION, sprinted after a brown duck with a broken wing. At the edge of the lake, Di Leonardo dove, arms outstretched, like a receiver flying into the end zone, and somehow grabbed the female mallard. “We rescue ducks like this all the time,” said Di Leonardo, panting.

“Yes, but have you saved 3,000?” said Caroline Lee, of Douglaston, New York, a retiree who is considered the godmother of duck rescue in New York City. She said she has taken so many to upstate sanctuaries that she stopped counting.

The birds in the pens — they were white Pekin ducks, raised for meat, and unable to fly — had been illegally dumped at the park a few days earlier.

The rescuers were dreading Easter season, when the number of domesticated ducks dumped in city parks increases. People give ducks as novelty Easter gifts, they said, and this time of year they are used in school hatching projects.

“Once those cute little ducklings grow up to be nonstop pooping machines who are a lot of work to care for, people dump them at their local pond, possibly not realizing they are not equipped to live on their own,” Lee said.

During the past five months, the city parks department has allowed these duck rescues. Abandoned domestic animals in the parks is “not a good thing for the park or the animals,” said Sarah Aucoin, chief of education and wildlife for the city Department of Parks and Recreation. But a new rule amendment, proposed by the city and meant to protect the animals, could get in the way of rescue efforts.

The Willowbrook rescue took place after a Staten Island woman contacted Di Leonardo’s organization when she noticed the Pekin ducks. She had learned about Di Leonardo a few weeks earlier, when she had come upon a different group of rescuers (who were not part of LION) and grew increasingly irate that they were capturing ducks.

“I found it shady,” said the woman, Edie DelVecchio, a retired government bond broker. She reported the rescuers to the park rangers. “I said, ‘This is New York City, you don’t take animals.’ ” The park rangers made the rescuers return the ducks to the pond. “We’re here all day long,” DelVecchio said. “We know what’s going on.”

Eventually, Di Leonardo explained LION’s mission to DelVecchio and gained her trust. The ducks that were rescued at Willowbrook were taken to JuneBug Lodge, a vegan bed-and-breakfast in the Finger Lakes region of New York. DelVecchio was able to see pictures of the ducks in the country.

The law is clear on keeping ducks as pets in New York City: It is illegal. Beyond that, Di Leonardo added, “It’s a criminal offense to abandon them — they can’t fly.”

But rescuers now have a new concern. Capturing ducks is legal, but the current rule on feeding wildlife in the parks (which makes an exception to allow feeding of squirrels and birds) may change. The Parks Department wants to ban feeding all animals, with some exceptions, and with a $50 fine and summons for violators.

This could affect rescuers, who sometimes feed fowl in order to capture them. The park’s interest in enforcing the new feeding ban, which is not yet on the books, seems to have intensified since the arrival in November of the celebrity Mandarin duck, who gets a lot of bread thrown at him from his adoring fans.

Many duck rescuers said they are concerned that the rule change will inhibit their work. But Aucoin said that’s not the plan, and exceptions will be made public. “Our intention is not to limit legitimate groups that want to rescue animals,” she said. “We ask that they coordinate with us.”

The rule change was originally proposed to curb the booming rat population, according to the Parks Department, but also to protect wild animals from human food, which can make them sick.

Wild animals fed by humans can become aggressive, Aucoin said. In 2017, there were a number of squirrel attacks in Prospect Park, and a raccoon bit a woman who was trying to feed it in Central Park.

Zafonte agrees with the feeding ban, she said, as long as it doesn’t curtail rescue efforts. But so far, she said that she has experienced a bit of tension with park rangers, some of whom are enforcing the feeding ban before it’s enacted, which can get in the way of her daily routine.

Every morning and afternoon, Zafonte, who lives and works near Central Park, heads to one of its well-known locations, “the Pond,” near Fifth Avenue and 60th Street to feed two large domestic Khaki Campbell ducks, that live there. They were raised for laying eggs, and neither can fly.

“Everyone knows a dog can’t survive in the wild, but they think it’s different when it comes to ducks,” Zafonte said from inside Central Park. “Basically, it’s a death sentence.”

As Zafonte spoke, her eyes widened. Some tourists had climbed onto the rocks near the water and started throwing food at the ducks.

“See! She’s throwing pretzels!” Zafonte said. “That’s the worst! People are lunatics.”

Around Easter is high season for duck rescuers

NEW YORK — New Yorkers have their passions. For Jessica Zafonte, a Manhattan attorney, hers is rescuing water fowl.

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Lisa M. Collins

Articles written by the author

A Brooklyn 'Green' Builder Shares His Wonderwall

Around Easter is high season for duck rescuers