Location: Stamford Street, London, SE1
Guerrilla Gardening: Sunday 19 April 2009
This central London patch has been guerrilla gardened for two years now. Sunflowers have been the primary crop and a few strawberries but we’ve been keen to grow more food here for a while. The impetus to get going came from my visit to the National Vegetable Society in Canterbury. I talked about guerrilla gardening and afterwards Brian gave me trays of young veg seedlings. So Andrew 1679, Sunny 1600, Susannah 2877 and I gathered at 6.30pm to weed, plant and sow our veg and mulch a bit. Who gets the eat the veg is the big question? Us or passers by? To be frank we’d rather passers by didn’t harvest the cabbages, mangetout, spring onions, green beans and strawberries, which is why we’ve hidden them amongst our snap dragons, pot marigolds (good for deterring bugs) and small (but growing) clumps of montbretia. As for their nutritional value… well there is the issue of pollution to reconcile. Two years of growing sunflowers here should have taken some of the possible lead out of the soil and we believe a good wash should suffice - all part of a well balanced diet of poisons.
Location: St George’s Hill Surrey, UK.
Guerrilla Gardening: 1 April 2009
On 1 April 1649 on the outskirts of the village of Cobham Gerrard Winstanley led a group up St George’s Hill to plant vegetables on what was common ground - for grazing but not for gardening. It was a response to rising food prices and sense of political injustice. I see this as an early act of guerrilla gardening and find Winstanley’s story inspiring. His political aims went beyond those of most guerrilla gardeners I have met and his legacy lives on within a wide range of movements. By coincidence perhaps, the G20 protests in London took place on the 360th anniversary of this guerrilla gardening but I spotted his name cited as inspiration for the “Black Horse” march from Cannon Street. It made sense to go along, to mark the day, and discuss Winstanley’s ideas. Despite media reports and some brutal incidents elsewhere that day, the march I attended was tense but chatty. I handed out sunflower seeds and discussed guerrilla gardening with all sorts of people who were, there to raise awareness of homelessness, inequitable land distribution, the need for land tax and housing policy. Later in the day Lyla 1046, and Heather 1986 headed for the St George Hill to mark the day and make our mark. A small stone memorial was erected ten years ago in commemoration and we set about sowing a few sunflowers around it. Unfortunately directly opposite this symbolic location was a layby in which a police car was parked. Within a few minutes of a pottering around with trowels and seeds the car drove over to pull in next to us and an officer got out to enquire about our actions. After we had shared our horticultural tips with him he left (but like the officers in London, he refused my gift of sunflower seeds) we continued on towards Redhill Road, which is marked as near the location of Gerrard’s dig in 1649. We planted a few more symbolic sunflowers (optimistically hoping a few might survive this shady location). The opportunity to plant further up St George’s Hill is not available without break in and trespass (so we didn’t). Compared with 1649 the hill is now a gated community of luxurious homes. So we finished our journey at the nearby Silvermere golf and leisure complex, and told the barman about his local history. With some satisfying curiosity, he took our sunflower seeds.
Location: Hazel / College Road London NW10
What was to be a dig with four of us turned into a force of more than ten today as Jenny 1636, a new and local recruit via Al Jazeera TV brought along her extended family. Also new (though less local) were two Japanese women who had heard about us on TV back home. So it was spooky, given the impact of TV at recruiting for this dig, that a TV was there littering the garden! You can view my very short video snap of the dig here.
As holiday weekend arrives I invite you to wander around your neighbourhood on the look out both for potential places to guerrilla garden - hey why not even plant something, go for sunflowers if you’re a northerner (by which I mean hemisphere), bulbs if you’re down south (please excuse my sweeping horticultural generalisations) - and also see if you can spot some existing guerrilla gardens. Here its great to see our scarlet tulips rise again and here’s a short video of the ‘Greatest Hits’ around London, England in the last few years.
NEWS: Engagement
Location: Westminster Bridge Rd, London, SE1
Back in February 2008 I planted a cherry tree in our big guerrilla lavender shrubbery. It was a gift from Claire 2812 and Stephen 2819 (one might have expected lilac from them) to mark their engagement. And now, like the confetti at a wedding, I’m glad to report it’s blooming brilliantly and even thought it’s an autumn flowering variety it still gives its main blossom in spring. What with the fresh red tips of the Photinia this corner of London is looking splendid already this year. Tulips next.
Location: New Kent Road, London, SE1
Guerrilla Gardening: 22 March 2009 First we planted sunflower seeds (on 1 May, International Sunflower Guerrilla Gardening Day), and last October during the Guerrilla Gardens of SE1 Guided Tour I got a group of new troops digging in ‘Jet Fire’ daffodils (small yellow ones with an orange trumpet). This are now flowering, and I returned for a long over-due tidy up of the dead sunflower stalks (potentially useful stakes) now that the heads have shed all their seeds to the winter wildlife and hopefully self seeded for this year.
Location: Elephant & Castle roundabout, SE1
Guerrilla Gardening: 25 March 2009
Budget: £107.74
This narrow strip along the bottom of a fence on the roundabout opposite my tower block is what I’d call a seasonal bed. I’ve only ever successfully planted annuals here, cutting away the weedy turf and sowing ridiculously easy nasturtium (Tropaeolum majus) - which should you fancy it make a nice salad (I didn’t). My tentative digs here have been vulnerable to the occasional visit from an ad man who changes the hoarding above and ignores the bed beneath by plonking his truck stablisers on it unless the patch is in obviously tip top shape. So I decided a more permanent garden was needed here with more permanent and bigger plants. The first issue to resolve was the soil. It’s very shallow because the concrete foundations of the fence extend under the bed. So I stocked up with new top soil, peat-free compost and packed my string-on-sticks to cut the bed wider. At the appointed hour (roughly 8.30pm) Clara 005, Lyla 1046, Sunny 1600, Julia 2274 and I wheeled the old shopping trolley of ammo over the road and got digging, once again making elegant use of the ‘half moon’ spade to cut a neat edge. The police were soon there too but Julia and I saw them off with a few cheerful reassurances and got on with enriching the soil. As with the Steedman St dig earlier this month the planting scheme was a mixture of solely decorative plants and edible plants. Purple wallflowers (Erysimum ‘Bowles Mauve’) with aubretia made up the bulk, both are content in well drained soil, and both are perennials. In between we sowed lettuce seeds, red lollo rossa, that look great anyway, but amongst the purple flowers should be sufficiently disguised to be passed over by urban foragers (as if that was seriously a problem, neither humans nor slugs particularly like this part of the neighbourhood). Sunny brought along a small Azalea that she’d saved from the bins of the flower market (and we planted in a well of acidic soil which is likes) and we also found room for a couple of hollyhock (Althaea rosea). And even though we didn’t plant any more, like last year, there will probably be self seeded nasturtium appearing too. All in all an hour and a half front line action.
It’s traditional to plant vegetables in neat rows. This evening that was are only option, as our new guerrilla garden was one thin brown line on a side street a few minutes from my flat. The soil was compacted and sunken, a puddle sat in one part, a few shoots of grass in another. It was a blank canvas. For the first time in a while I called up troops through the Community and had a force of ten, mostly newcomers, several of them even more local than me gathering outside the nearby Chinese restaurant at 9pm wondering what patch we were going to strike. The ground didn’t look promising to the uninitiated but once the crust was broken it proved rich, wormy and speckled with lumps of dark compost, the remains of root balls from long gone plants. I left to pick up more fresh compost and while I was gone the police arrived. Meike 122 took charge and reassured them our actions were with good intentions. One of the officers knew of our activity in the area and was aware his colleagues had become unfortunate celebrities for their appearance on camera threatening us with arrest last year. Their minibus drove off just as I returned, remarkably avoiding the whole awkward incident! We continued with confidence. A student accommodation block is adjacent to this plot, and our gardening drew a small crowd of intrigued revelers. One girl joined in, another passer by stopped and gardened with us until we were finished. It was a text-book operation. The planting scheme was a mixture. As green bollards to give structure we used evergreen shrubs including Rosemary, Lavender and some unknown Australian conifers salvaged from last year’s Chelsea Flower Show and in the space between them we alternated between seed beds of parsnips and radishes and zig zags of Jerusalem artichoke tubers. And just to make it really clear this patch was now under new management we dotted clumps of cheerful yellow primroses. Then just a scattering of mulch and water and we were done.
My grandmother is an inspiration to me. Her garden was a holiday playground, whether dancing round a sprinkler when I was little or wrestling with the rambling roses when I was a bit older. She’s helped out guerrilla gardening in London but at home in Devon her focus is on litter picking round her local recreational ground. It’s a chore the local authorities do not do enough for her liking, but one she sees as a healthy part of her weekly routine to get out of the house. But she’s been making plans to get back to the guerrilla gardening front line. She told me about a shabby triangular bed near her home, one the local council plant twice a year with sparse bedding but then abandon, but needed help to get it going. So on a recent visit I joined her for a night of action and planted a couple of Viburnum and a Golden Holly. Gardening alongside my 93 year old grandmother was great fun, not just because of all her experience but because it’s a pedestrian stopping spectacle. She even got a kiss from a stranger!
My name is Elise. I am a French woman, aged 71. Sometimes last Spring, I heard on one of the French radios a report of your activities. I was immediately delighted and interested, being by nature strongly independent and against any form of authority and conformism. Challenging authority is for me a must (with a wink & great pleasure for doing so!), I know it might sound stupid at my age, but this is so! So, I immediately sensed that Guerrilla Gardening was something just for me. In addition, we are in my family (contrarily to most French people) strongly interested in gardening and plants. I lived in the country when I was young, link with nature is very important to me, and I always run to the window when I wake up for weather & wind direction. Anyway, this was just to introduce myself and now, here comes my own story.
Soon after having heard about you and G. Gardening, I spotted in a nearby street from where I live a forlorn concrete planter with no plants in it. At that time, I earnestly thought it belonged to the Direction of the Paris Parks & Gardens Department called “Département des Espaces verts de la Ville
de Paris”. It was not so, but since I thought then that it was an “official” planter, this was to be MY beginning in G. Gardening!!!!
At the end of the Summer and after having successfully grown Nasturtiums and Eruca Sativa, (both mix well for wonderful spicy salads!), I discovered that the planter belonged in fact to the building under which it was sheltered, alas, from rainfall and that it had been placed there to prevent bums from sleeping in this sheltered place. Of course, no inhabitant in the building had ever thought of cultivating flowers or other plants in it!! Anyway, at first, the excitement of the illicit worked on me like a rocket launcher! The planter was full of filth, cigarettes cadavers & so forth. The earth was bare and hard as stone.
Near the street where the planter is located (Rue Lhomond), there is a small flower shop owned by a very nice man, about 50, and since I needed help to start watering this big planter, I told him about Guerrilla Gardening and would he help me? He was enthusiastic and he came at night with big water cans and poured about 20 litres of water: then I could start literally ploughing that deep planter with a big knife I have bought especially for extracting plants in the woods and gardening in my windowsill garden. Hervé (that’s him) sold me first class Compost at a very good price. This Compost was of a supernatural quality. I spread a big quantity and finally I planted in Nasturtium and Erucasativa seeds. The only problem with this planter is that it is unfortunately protected from rainfall, which is exactly the reason why bums had adopted this place for sleeping … So I had to carry a lot of water from my home (about 10 m. on foot from the planter) during the whole summer.
It all turned out to be spectacular. All these pictures will show me Guerrilla Gardening in Paris, 5th area, called the Latin Quarter (quartier latin), which is where I live.
After last Summer’s experiment (I shall make it shorter) I was frustrated since I had done some work in a private planter, and I was very happy to discover last September that a big official planter from Direction des Parcs et Jardins sitting in my street, had a shrub in it which had practically died with the Summer drought, not being watered enough by the municipality. This time, it was in my street, opposite to where I live!!! So I did REAL guerrilla gardening this time just before Xmas, cleaned it from beer bottles & cigarettes, pruned the shrub, moved the earth with my knife, gave it Compost and planted red Tulips at Xmas. This time, I was able to have the pictures compressed, and I will send you some so that you can see what I did … Fortunately, a neighbour girlfriend accepted to act again as photographer while I was gardening!
In addition, I started planting some more tulips at the foot of Street Trees which are called by the Paris Parks Department “Arbres d’alignement” there are circular iron gates at each Tree Foot with very little earth and I am not sure I shall succeed this time. Fortunately, it rained a lot in the autumn, then we had now and hopefully, the tulips come out in a few months. I only planted about 12 tulip bulbs, for they cost quite a lot here, but if they come out, there will be 12 trees decorated with a tulip flame at their feet, great … A little later, when the frost is gone, I shall keep on planting sunflower seeds under the trees.
One last ting I must specify is that I do all this in day time (which makes it even more “dangerous”, since I would be so scared to go about roaming in town at night on my own doing G. Gardening, and on top, I am a “morning” person, not a “night” one, so there it is!
Grow Our Own
