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A Handbook For Gardening WithOut Boundaries

 
Construction inadvertently causes havoc Project Five: St George’s Circus, London, SE1  Guerrilla pedestrian diversion: 2 April 2008. You may recall that the long term problem of pedestrians stamping across the flanks of this guerrilla garden was solved with the installation of a gravel path along their route which we called “The Road To Nowhere”, because it led directly into the busy traffic. Well now it leads nowhere at both ends! Workmen have erected a big fence to stop people falling in their huge The Guerrilla Garden of St George's Circus London
hole where they repairing the Victorian water mains. Unfortunately this has inadvertently caused havoc as pedestrians have navigated a new route directly through the flower bed, trampling tulips (Tulipa ‘Isle de France’), the lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) and the young foxgloves (Digitalis purpurea). The workmen say this hole is going to be here for a long time, so a new gravel path may be needed. In the mean time I found a stripy barricade and wedged it in the fence to redirect intrepid pedestrians. Pedestrian diversion in response to fence
Books in, weeds and litter out. Project Ten: Westminster Bridge Road, London, SE1  Guerrilla Gardening: Tuesday 25 March 2008 I got the call from my publishers that finished copies of my forthcoming book On Guerrilla Gardening had arrived at their offices so I headed straight there to pick up my ten free copies. One of my favourite pages is the double page spread of tulips on Westminster Bridge road last spring so to mark the occasion Lyla 1046 and I headed out there for some light weeding and litter collection Natalie Hunt and Erica Jarnes unveil On Guerrilla Gardening
(which included a bottle of aftershave and cans of gin and tonic - a noticeable increase in ‘class’ of rubbish since guerrilla gardening began on this patch in 2006). We also added a young acacia (Acacia dealbata) and Siberian Dogwood (Cornus alba ‘Sibirica’) to provide a colourful beacon at the tip of this triangle. Karen 2876, a local, spotted us out there and joined in to help sow Californian poppy (Eschscholzia ‘Golden Values’) around the edge of the beds in the dry gravely soil which this plant loves. Gin and tonic and aftershave litter Westminster Bridge Road
NEWS: Rosa Rose Garden In Peril Last June Julia 013 showed me around the Rosa Rose Garten in Berlin’s Friedrichshain district. Sunflowers and the pink rose (that gives the garden its name) were blooming and Hans 1287 was digging a well to water the vegetable garden. Four years since the mounds of litter were cleared and spades struck soil it was a model guerrilla garden and optimistic about making the transition to legitimacy. Rosa Rose Garten was where the community gathered, both to grow things and eat things too - the garden even Rosa Rose Garten Berlin
boasted an al fresco pizza oven built by a youth group. This garden now needs your help! The owner Steffen Kreutzer wants the land back and after discussions failed, demolition began on 14 March. A human barrier of guerrilla gardeners failed to stop the police leading the charge to smash up the garden and the space is now once more a desolate waste ground - but guerrilla gardeners Help Save This Guerrilla Garden
know the potential in this land and will not let this patch be concreted over quietly or rapidly. If the land is eventually lost the Rosa Rose gardeners need help to rebuild elsewhere. The guerrillas pleaded successfully for access to save a few plants that have been planted elsewhere. Please help the
Rosa Rose guerrillas by offering your support. For details of how to help visit www.Rosarose-garten.net
Project Twenty Nine: Hawley Road, Camden, London, N18  Guerrilla Gardening: Sunday 9 March 2008  A week after the Great Fire of Camden Sarah 265 posted a note in the Community forum about another tragedy in the neighbourhood: a barren raised bed in a traffic island on  Hawley Road. A few lonely Phormium were hanging on in an expanse of compacted mud and needed company. Fortunately an ideal remedy came my way when Henrietta 2899 called to offer 25 elegant box hedge bushes (Buxus microphylla 'Faulkner') that she had recently lifted from her garden in west London. Evergreen, drought resistant, low Guerrilla gardenings (on Garden Guerrillas as some call us) in Hawley Road, Camden. in Hawley
maintenance and a canvas for topiary I hurried over to take the lot and stash them in a damp light corner of my tower block for a week (a stray shopping trolley meant getting them in the lift much easier). Once again a late afternoon mission was decided upon and once again I regretted this time - traffic wardens buzzed around like wasps for an hour and a half - if only it were possible to cycle with 25 hedges.
Four new faces joined the force, eager for instruction on double digging, stone and dandelion root extraction and soil consolidation so it was a fine tilth in no time. An elegant man called Prosper stopped by to enquire what we were up to and when we pointed to the bags of hedge he expressed concern it might be handy cover for drug deals - but our vision was ornamental blobs not a raggedy mess and we spaced the box like candles on a cake leaving plenty of space for more low lying colour to be added later in the year.Midway through the dig
A Pebbly Concession To Suicidal Plant Tramplers Project Five: St George’s Circus, Southwark, London, SE1 Guerrilla Gardening: Sunday 24 February 2008Road To Nowhere
More than three years ago I put some plants into the bleak compacted mud of St George’s Circus in South London. We have lost some plants on the way to salt wash, wind burn and leaf drowning but it is now a lush healthy swathe of lavender (Lavandula angustifolia), tulips (Tulipa Isle de France) and an assortment of shurbs. BUT... the northern flank has been sadly, perpetually trampled by suicidal pedestrians who take a short cut across the flower bed after traversing a dual carriageway roundabout. Even a blockade of laurel (Laurus nobilis) failed to stop their tracks so this afternoon we implemented a radical change of strategy and cut a path in the ground, a crazy Road
To Nowhere that will channel our pests and protect the garden.red bus drives past the guerrilla gardened road to nowhere
St Georges Circus Southwark
Bike Attack at Perronet House Shrubbery!
Project Four: London Road, Southwark, SE1
Guerrilla Gardening: Sunday 24 February 2008
“Richard have you seen what’s going on outside?” my neighbour Dan phoned me to ask. A team of stunt cyclists were performing tricks all over the shrubbery outside our tower block where I have been guerrilla gardening for three years. I rushed downstairs and briefly contained my anger by first snapping them in action but then rushed for one of their bikes and grabbed it. “Hey” they shouted. “You’re stopping this now,” and in shock they did.Bike Attack
I explained the obvious: this was a flowerbed and not a bike park and that volunteers had planted it. Dan joined me. They sulked but left and an hour later a £5 donation dropped into my inboxThe DamageRestoration
from one of them together with an apology. Thanks! But the damage was worse. These pests were far worse than slugs. Most of the wallflowers had been crushed, the rhododendron snapped in two and the young tulip tips crushed. I set about a restoration project and on Sunday added lots of new Sweet William and Forget-me-not seedlings, a rose (‘Arther Bell’) and cut back the butteryfly bush. We will not be crushed.
Project Ten: Westminster Bridge Road, SE1, Guerrilla Gardening: Tuesday 5 February 2008
Guerrilla gardening with a cherry tree on Westminster Bridge Road
Claire 2812, who studies horticulture in Glynis’ class with me, shared her bad luck during a tea break ­ the Autumn Cherry (Prunus x subhirtella ‘Autumnalis’) she had recently bought for her back garden is too big. She wanted it to be planted somewhere it could mature into a 4m high beauty of bell-shaped semi-double white winter flowers and wondered if I knew of a suitable location. Of course I do - the expansive grand lavender fields in the middle of the busy junction of Westminster Bridge Road. So, with a particularly practical open top VW-Porsche to hand, I called by to pick it up from Tufnell Park and took it South. Driving through central London meant tolerating cab drivers bleating out gags about my supposedly “bio-fuel” car and my “wooden” passenger. I waited until the streets were quieter to dig a big hole and stake in the tree. The solo dig passed without adventure, though a passer by stopped to recall her delight at the sunflowers we had planted last year. Such encounters with other locals are of great encouragement.Guerrilla gardening in Westminster Bridge Road
Project Eleven: Perronet House Lobby Planter
Guerrilla Gardening: Friday 25 January 2008 “Burns Night”
I’ve been meaning to plant this bamboo palm (Chamaedorea seifrizii) for a while and chose to make Burns Night - a day for Scots to celebrate their national bard - the moment to do it. With its Scottish thistle-like appearance (after a whiskey or two perhaps) it seemed appropriate. Its new home would be the tropical lobby garden in Perronet House, which the councilLate on Burns Night
have planted but left to the mercy of local vandals. Lyla 1046 and I cleared a patch in the deep peat, and soon dug it in. We all toasted the occasion with a drink (whiskey for us, water for the palm.)Late on Burns Night guerrilla gardening at Perronet House

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