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Guerrilla Gardening with This Is Rubbish. They campaignWales 15 May 2011Mach Pimped
about the preventable scale of British food waste and invited me to Machynlleth for the first date of their summer tour of events: a Seedling Sunday in the school hall where people exchanged plants, learnt about all sorts of different approaches to gardening and ate Rachel’s delicious beet-Pimping pavements in Machynlleth
root soup and quiche made from salvaged ingredients. After my talk five of us braced the beautiful drizzle and pimped some pavements. Mach’ has some naturally beautiful streets, Welsh poppies grow in the cracks between facades and the street but as I arrived I’d spotted several very sorry looking public planters that appeared wasted from long-term abandonment. So Lyla and I helped the locals remove a dead shrub and weeds. we left the remnants of some hardy lemon balm (which may yet take over!) and added
The day before and the day of pimping pavementsNearly finished
Chalk sign to Seedling Sunday and self sown Welsh poppiesThere are strawberries by the pavement here
a few immediately obvious plants (marigolds, petunias) and sowed seeds as well (bronze fennel and radicchio chicory). Sadly the Welsh rain didn’t follow us back to London where it’s been the driests spring since records began with below average rainfall since October last year! My already fairly drought tolerant planting will have to get even more serious and for now I’ve retreated from a couple of small tree pit plots for the
season rather than sustain them by trolleying in water.Like Pimp Your Pavement here
GuerrillaGardening.org
Location: Totnes, Devon Guerrilla Gardening: 8 May 2011 My grandmother was a guerrilla gardener and guerrilla litter pickerWatch guerrilla Granny on YouTube
in Totnes. She died in April on Palm Sunday. The shrubs in her guerrilla garden were still hanging on but the old cabbage palm was a miserable sight. After the memorial service we talked about the garden and some local friends expressed enthusiasm to help tend it. So the day after the memorial service Lyla and I went shopping for hollyhocks, lavender, curry plants, sedum and a black A Memorial To My Guerrilla Granny
currant (chosen to be fairly self sufficient and encouraging of wildlife). Our daylight dig almost instantly attracted attention, perhaps because I had begun sawing at the stump of the cabbage palm. At first the curiosity was not very welcoming, as a local resident felt our gardening gave South Hams District Council an excuse not to bother here (but they weren’t bothering any-
Pimping the pavements of Totnesway, hadn’t for years, and this action meant they could bother better else- where) and was anxious about the maintenance. Then by chance Diana
Cusack, who runs Totnes In Bloom
Passers by (including some of my relatives, by chance) join in!came past too. She was delighted by what she discovered, knew about guerrilla gardening, and helped turn around the debate. Soon we were being offered tea and blood fish and bone meal (for the garden that is, not as a snack). And then by chance an uncle, aunt and cousin wandered past and stopped for a while to help!
Before.The shrubs are OK, The cabbage palm isn't. Felling the palm and mulching.After the next day’s crematorium service we shopped for more mulch and added it to the bed to help contain the weeds and the moisture. (No, we did not scatter any ashes). Fatefully Diana arrived at the same time too with a broom and she took a picture to dispatch to the Totnes Times. It was as if my Granny was invisibly co-ordinating us all from her new home! Elsewhere in Totnes there’s lots of interesting pavement pimping going on. Old concrete planters by the pirate ship have been adopted by residents as pick your own salad gardens. A mum had just discovered them through her play group friends and we popped by to pick up some lettuce for dinner too. I’ll be back in June to see it’s all OK.
GuerrillaGardening.org
Join in this year's annual event:Facebook
International Sunflower Guerrilla Gardening Day 1 May 2011Guerrilla gardening sunflowers all over London
Share your photos and tales of guerrilla sunflower plantinghereGuerrilla grown sunflowers around London 2008 - 2010
Guerrilla Gardening: Sunday 1 May 2011 This year it’s the 5th International Sunflower Guerrilla Gardening Day, and for the first time it’s on a SUN-day, which not only sounds right but is eminently practical for spending time out and about planting sunflowers in your neighbourhood where ever you see the opportunity. Over 6000 signed up to the event last year and planted sunflowers all over the northern hemisphere and few optimists even went beyond those bounds of nature.
the enthusiasts on this year'sFacebookpage and from theFlickralbum compiling our previous
the successes of the first International Tulip Guerrilla Gardening Day too last October. You can take part by just doing it solo, perhaps sharing ideas and photos on the pages described above, or create your
or create you own local event. You can use and customise the day’s logo by copying here. Sow the idea
GuerrillaGardening.org
GuerrillaGardening.org
Location: Motorway service stations up the M1, England Guerrilla Gardening: April 9 Last October 9 was the first Servicing The M1 with Tulips
International Tulip Guerrilla Gardening Day and about 800
people planted tulips all over the place in neglected public places. Now it’s time to see how they’re blooming. For me the day coincided with giving a talk at Grand Designs in the National Exhibition Centre, so I took the opportunity to plant tulips on the way. Lyla 1046 and I stopped at every service station on the M1 towards Birmingham, foiled in only one location by our nerves at the prominent police presence. We learnt that these grotty pit stops Tulips growing at Newport Pagnell Services
are really wonderfully, passively permissive places. No one, staff nor customer batted an eyelid when we took out spades and without disguises as contractors started digging into the verges and flower beds. There is a long tradition of violence at these places, from their early days in London Gateway (North) 9 Oct' 10
the 1960s when gangs would convene the beat each other and the cafes up. Thankfully our more genteel damage had a better legacy. We returned for a day trip in April and found success everywhere except for the Watford Gap Northbound, where excessive use of gravel had meant we were limited to planting tulips where trampling was more likely. We took photos and planted a few sunflower seeds. You can see some of theGuerrilla gardening at Motorway service stations up the M1
results of the day in this video
and view photos on Flickr hereToddington (North)
GuerrillaGardening.org
NEWS: Exhibition on Oxford Street Window Display: March 8 - May 7 GuerrillaGardening.org curated five windows of London’s Selfridges department store during two months this spring. You can read more and see the contents of the windows onGuerrilla Gardening org Wonder Windows at Selfridges
the microsite here.They coincided
with Selfridges’ GROW department which sold a range of unusual tools for urban gardeners including the new kagools and tool bags made inOxford Street, London
partnership withWithInTent.co.uk
GuerrillaGardening.org


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