The incredible guerrilla garden of giant Sunflowers of Parliament

We must thank either negligence or tolerance by the horticultural contractors for the triumphant blooming of giant sunflowers in guerrilla gardens in central London. We planted the seeds back in May and hoped the young plants would not be strimmed away. As you can see we have been successful. Best of all, the sunflowers in the tatty rose bed opposite parliament have now bloomed too as defiant cheerfulness facing our miserable leaders. You may recall International Sunflower Guerrilla Day on May 1… well these pictures are the result in London. You can see more pictures on Flickr and view a short film I recorded of them on YouTube. Share pictures of your guerrilla sunflowers in the boards of the Community.

Sunflowers on the Embankment opposite Parliament

Community support officers pass by the Parliament sunflowers

Sunflowers below Albert Barnes House, SE1.

Sunflowers below Perronet House, SE1

Sunflowers on the New Kent Road, SE1

Sunflowers on the ledges of Perronet House, SE1

Sunflowers and Rowan on Stamford Street

Project Ten: Westminster Bridge Road

The third annual lavender harvest from our two traffic islands in central London began at the civilised hour of 4pm. The sun dried blooms were ready for picking, stalks and all, back to where the pale new growth is coming through. Six of us divided into two crops, of “grabber”,“cutter” and “bundler”, which turned into a race down each side of the largest bed. Pam 184, Sarah 265 and GreenSpirit 4925 easily beat me, Lyla 1046 and new-comer Hypatia 5367. The aroma was verging on the nauseous but the drivers at the traffic lights seemed to enjoy the sweet breeze and a passer by came over to thrust £10 in my hand as thanks. Expect new Lavender Pillows for sale by October.

GreenSpirit and Sarah with the huge back of harvested lavender

After guerrilla gardening for two and half years. 7 August 2008

Before guerrilla gardening. 10 March 2006

I get enquiries from all sorts of different media asking to come guerrilla gardening but it is rare they offer to pay for a lot of plants. This contribution came from a highly unlikely source: a TV show fronted by Noel Edmonds (a celebrity famous for fronting a gambling game show, inventing a pink monster called Mr Blobby and being an advocate of Cosmic Ordering). So I said yes and agreed to their help with a new dig in Scotland on the grounds that the suitable plot must be found by an active local guerrilla gardener who would be up for keeping the ‘fight for flowers’ going after we had left. I found the brilliant Clairwill 3163 who in turn found orphaned land in an historic district of Rennie Mackintosh’s birthplace. Word was put out on the Community page for local support and the TV people enlisted Gail Porter to bring some glamour and enthusiasm to what they feared might be rather dull dig. (perhaps because late in the preparations they sought approval from the local council). Thankfully permission was given, (the power of TV / cosmic ordering perhaps) but this also meant the presence of St Andrew’s Ambulance and a pair of security guards was needed. So it was quite unlike any other dig I’ve done, not guerrilla gardening but still a struggle against the urban wilderness. We uncovered some roses amongst the rampant green dogwood and planted Heuchera, Cyclamen, Vinca and Montbretia to tolerate the shady conditions. The dig began at 8pm but was not complete until past 2.30am, but gardening at this time enabled more people to turn up. Enlistment was fantastic. The local troops were not just pleased to be getting stuck into a dig but also for being triggered into finally getting together and share ideas for future projects. The film of the dig will be broadcast within Noel’s HQ on Sky 1 in the evening of Sunday 14 September 2008.

Gail Porter and troops

Clairwill 3163

Dr Wilson 3457

The morning after

Project Five: St George’s Circus, Southwark, London, SE1

Last time we were here a Transport for London foreman thundered over to ask “what are you doing with my plants”. He was out late resurfacing the road, which was unfortunate for us, but we took the chance to tell him these were really more our plants, since we had planted them (all but the two old Cordyline that is). It was a reminder, that even though we have been regularly gardening this roadside location, territory is never secure.

Regardless, we continue to take responsibility for this old circus (clown free mind you) and it’s slowly maturing into quite a show. Since our last big visit in mid June my brief stops have been insufficient to keep the performance up to scratch so I called up five troops to do a clear out and mulching. Several previously thriving specimens (euyonumous, heather and sunflowers) had prematurely succumbed to the hot blasts of bus exhaust fumes and wayward stomps of stray short-cutters so with bright rakes and forks (looking strangely similar to the Star Wars lightsabers on a passing bus) we ripped them out and made space for new planting with a couple more dark spiky phormium.

BEFORE 31.01.06

AFTER 08.08.08