Medicinal Plant Walking Tour at Ridgewood Reservoir

Join Jocelyn Perez-Blanco for a walk at Ridgewood Reservoir to learn about spring medicinal plants

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Join Jocelyn Perez-Blanco, a local educator, naturalist, conservationist, and Herbalists Without Borders (HWB) NYC Queens Chapter Coordinator on a tour about Ridgewood Reservoir’s spring medicinal plants. We will observe several native and non-native species and learn about their traditional uses, edibility, folklore, and their role in the park’s ecology.

The Ridgewood Reservoir in Highland Park is a 50+ acre natural oasis that straddles the border of Brooklyn and Queens. Built in 1859 to supply the once independent City of Brooklyn with high quality water, it became obsolete with the addition of new reservoirs in the Catskills in the 1950’s and was decommissioned in the 1980’s.

Since then, nature took its course in a perfect case study of ecological succession. A lush and dense forest has grown in its two outside basins while a freshwater pond with waterfowl sits in the middle basin. The area is now a federally recognized wetland. Wetlands are known as a “biological super systems” with the same level of biodiversity as coral reef and rainforests.