So yesterday in their third-quarter statement, the Times announced that they needed to cut $14 to $16 million from their staffing budget. What better day than today, then, to announce an extravagant and unnecessary project? A press release just informed us that this weekend, Manhattan's first-ever "open-air birch and moss garden" will be installed on the ground floor of the Renzo Piano–designed Times building. To create this little plot of green, they're importing several tons of moss and seven 50-foot birch trees from New Jersey this weekend and will employ several large cranes to hoist them over the 70-foot glass wall that surrounds the area. Wow! That must be expensive, right? The trees alone cost $10,000 each, the nursery tells us, and the Times bought eleven of them. We don't how much the moss and labor and gas and trucks (which only carry two trees at a time) cost — guess that's something for Times staffers can contemplate in their new Zen garden! The remaining staffers, at least.

Related: 'Times' to Eliminate $15 Million in Staff This Quarter [Gawker]