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A CYCLE TOUR OF SOUTHWARK’S GUERRILLA GARDENS
Verbena Bonariensis and purple poppies in flower at The St George’s Circus Guerrilla Garden. Started August 2005. Photograph: 27 June 2012London Festival of Architecture
News: 7 July 2012 Thousands of people go past guerrilla gardens every day all over the world. But few have any idea that they thrive their without permission, tolerated by the landowner either through ignorance or because of a supportive blind eye or quiet nudge and a wink instead of formal agreement for fear vocal tolerance would createa dangerous precedent for anarchic urban creativity. Some guerrilla gardeners signpost their work, I seldom do, preferring instead for the garden to be assumed as official and for the truth to be spread a little more subtly, by word of mouth or media or just because it looks so unlike what what usually be there. From time to time however I do tours, pointing the gardens out and telling the stories about how they came to be there, the highs and the lows of being at horticulture’s front line. In May I did a walking tour which you can read about on
The Guardian'swebsite. On 7 July will be my first cycle tour, taking in a much larger
area of Southwark from the Thames to deep into the Elephant and Castle’s zone of re-Sign up here
GuerrillaGardening.org
Location: Beirut, Lebanon Abdul Wahab El Inglizi Guerrilla Gardening: 9 June 12 Lyla and I were in Beirut for our honeymoon, and as is habit, we packed a trowel, just in case we spotted an opportunity for a bit of guerrilla gardening. Digging up a foreign street is a great conversation starter I’ve found Beirut's Potty
previously. We found a cheerful
city, one adorned with hundreds of flower pots on pavements and in the street, delightfully plonked as decoration, as defensive bollards, and as parking space protection. We planted a yarrow, which the adjacent shoe shop will tend, not that this perennial needs much looking after
My research concluded that most of these are done by local people, that there is no relevant health and safety legislation preventing this, and that the city authorities create some of these too. Beirut is not the most pedestrian friendly city, but in a place ravaged by civil war and now massive high rise reconstruction, the greenery you get from these pimped pavements is a cost I think worth paying in a pavement assault course. The video below tells of my planting of one empty concrete planter.
8.48pm The streets were quiet, too quiet for a chance encounter
Some of the many pots all over Beirut's pavements and kerbs
GuerrillaGardening.org
Pimp Your PavementNews: 20 May 2012 Pimp Your Pavement is a campaign I launched in 2010 to “plant life in your streets”. Whether as a guerrilla gardener or with permission, it’s about making the most of the potential in our streets in these most public of potential community gardens. This weekend I relaunched the website to showcase pimped pavements, mostly in London, but also further afield, and to map them. I invite you to both pimp your pavement but also to keep your eyes peeled for anonymous pimping and
to share what you do and find here.
GuerrillaGardening.org
Exhibition in LondonNews: 19 May 2012 As I garden I photograph, documenting the development, the successes and the disasters. Much of the imagery ends up here and in the press but now over 70 of my guerrilla gardening photographs are hanging
on the walls of the Garden Museum
for the month long exhibtion
It's one of my contributions to the Fringe. About
the development of the Lavender Field, May 1 sunflower planting and some of the pimped pavements, mostly around SE1. There is also a walking tour of guerrilla gardens of SE1 on Sunday 20 May, meeting at 2pm at the north roundabout of Elephant and Castle.
GuerrillaGardening.org
International Tulip Guerrilla Gardening Day 9 OctoberBologna, Italy, Terra di Nettuno guerrilla tulips
Elephant and Castle north roundabout guerrilla tulips
Location: London and beyond Guerrilla Gardening: Mostly around 9 Oct ‘11 The Results: March and April 2012 While thoughts soon turn to spring’s great simultaneous sunflower seed sowing, now is the time to soak in the success of autumn’s efforts as we marvel at the survival of the tulip, a most prized of spring bulbs, even Westminster Bridge Road guerrilla tulips
though bores tell me it’s of no benefit except beautification... but isn’t that good enough for one night’s gardening? This is a mission to plant joy and dare your local environment of flower pickers and trampling pedestrians to stay away so we can all enjoy the triumph when your bulb bursts into bloom five months later. The gallery shows the results of my planting cycle ride on 9/10/11 with the results of other guerrilla gardeners further beyond. London Road guerrilla tulips
Please share your success on Facebook.
Princess street guerrilla tulip plantingBorough Road guerrilla tulips 2012Brandon Street guerrilla gardening
Brooklyn New York guerrilla gardeningSutherland Avenue London W2Tabard Street guerrilla tulips
Navarino Grove, London E8St Georges Circus guerrilla tulipsAcacia Road London NW8 guerrilla gardening
Trinity Street London SE1 guerrilla gardening Clare Armstrong 4 April 2012Cantelowes Garden NW5, planted by friends of CG 13 April 2012
GuerrillaGardening.org
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On Tuesday 1 May it’s the 6th annual event of optimistic seed sowing across the northern hemisphere. Whether as solo operatives or massed groups thousands will be planting on Tuesday in the hope that golden beacons of cheerfulness and optimism will be blooming in their neighbourhood later thisInternational Sunflower Guerrilla Gardening Day
summer. You win some, you lose some with sunflowers, but the victory is sweet when they flourish. Get inspiration from our album of guerrilla sunflowers from previous years.guerrilla sunflower of Denmark Hill London
Join the international eventblank
GuerrillaGardening.org
In Memory. Daffodils in the central reservation of Denmark Hill, South London
planted by my brother and I in 2008. View video hereSteedman Street SE17
The late Cedric Frost 144 with his guerrilla daffodils in the lanes around Huby YorkshireA fringe guerrilla garden cut into the grass of the roundabout at the Elephant and Castle London
not change a great deal over time. Please share your guerrilla daffodil planting here
GuerrillaGardening.org
News: 25 March 2012 London has a new flower festival this year. I’ve been part of the team of volunteers led by Tim Richardson launching the Chelsea Fringe in London, encouraging gardeners of all sorts to contribute something to an open-access festival, one that celebrates the amateur and the rule breaker as well as designers with ideas that don’t fit into the conventions of theChelsea Fringe 2012
RHS Chelsea show. We've been
working since last summer on Tim’s vision of making London a garden city, I designed the logo and have helped shape the festival online and I hope to put on show the most wide-reaching and most involving feature of the festival! I’m not talking about a big garden. The aim is to create a map of all the pimped pavements of the capital, whether guerrilla gardens or ones done legitimately. These are the acts of enthusiasts, of people proud of their place who see the pavement as a blank canvas, a social space to tend and have the optimism to not fear flower pickers. If you know of a pimped pavementWhite tulips flourishing in a pimped pavement on St George’s Road, London SE1 24 March 2012
in London please contact me atrichard@pimpyourpavement.com and share your pictures of
post a note at Facebook.com/pimpyourpavementAs part of the fringe I'll lead
guided tour of guerrilla gardensThe Garden Museum
Sean's irises, Ryland Rd NW5Pimped pavements of NW5 and Elephant and Castle
GuerrillaGardening.org
Location: Westminster Bridge Rd Guerrilla Gardening: 16 March Lavender doesn’t age gracefully, even with an annual haircut it begins to get brittle and a bit bare. We planted about 100 on6 year old birthday dig
two traffic islands here in March 2006 over four very chilly nights where once there had just been scruffy grass. In the intervening six years our lavender fields have been through a lot - attacks from both Rosemary Beetle and even aGuerrilla gardening London
Volkswagen. Concrete blocks have been dumped on it and I sometimes wonder if people have just sat on it
Planting the new lavenderGreen Waste - transplanted poppies and for-get-me-nots
for an intense lavendery hit and, an unexpectedly prickly bottom. As you probably know, it’s even had a Royal prune. So it was with some reluctance that I planned a significant uprooting, to remove the worst of the show and invest in the future. After all, this guerrilla garden is our cash crop, the one which we
harvest to make lavender pillowsfor sale. Four new-comers, including one lovely couple bearing a hip
flask of Welsh mead, and four more of us took to the bushes with spades and forks, all but one fell out with surprising speed. It’s six years since we manured the soil, and while the wood chip we spread has long decomposed it was time to feed the ground again, with many more sacks of horse poo. The gardening was all done within the hour, but the big effort was clearing away the dead lavender. Five trips - even in the capacious boot of an Austin Maxi - were required to the Battersea recycled centre, I’d have loved to see what a bonfire of dry lavender would have smelled like. We also scattered a lot of seed - annual mallow, Californian poppies, hollyhock and the following day I added in transplants of Welsh poppies and for-get-me-nots from Niloufer’s garden which is over-run with them.
GuerrillaGardening.org


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