Featured Story: “Trash to Treasure,” by Jonathan Lerner. Residents of East New York have been promised a new park over a pair of landfills for years. With a hard push from the governor and an award-winning design by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, a new state park to honor the civil rights legend Shirley Chisholm has arrived.

Also in the issue:

• NOW: New tools help early childhood educators see the change of nature-based play (online February 2); London’s Royal Parks are letting things go, a little bit; a new comprehensive tree survey could help diversify urban tree canopies, and floating planters augment land for Indigenous people in Louisiana (online February 9).
• Plants: “Home Grown,” by Jared Brey. The clipped and orderly mid-Atlantic suburbs are slowly coming around to the idea of native plants, thanks in part to Refugia’s persuasive approach to residential design (online February 16).
• Goods: “On the Surface,” by Laurie A. Shuster. The latest elements to help landscape designs come out on top.
• “Storm Warnings,” by Laurie A. Shuster. The landscape architecture profession in Puerto Rico has ideas about defending the island against hurricanes. Now if they could just get the federal government to listen (online February 23).
• Book Review: “Right Plant, Any Place,” by Jack Ahern, FASLA. A review of Plants in Design: A Guide to Designing with Southern Landscape Plants, by Brad E. Davis, ASLA, and David Nichols, ASLA.
• Backstory: A brief for a natural pool let Roche+Roche Landscape Architecture dig deep.