Location: Alexandrovsky Park, Moscow, Russia
Guerrilla Gardening: Friday 31 October 08
I was in Moscow recently to speak about guerrilla gardening at a conference on the Indentity of Cities. This was a chance to plant a memorial to the first guerrilla gardener who is commemorated on a granite memorial right outside The Kremlin. He was an Englishman called Gerrard Winstanley, who in1649 began growing vegetables on a hillside in Surrey. He also wrote inspirational pamphlets on what his community of Diggers were up to, and this is how he came to be commemorated on a Russian memorial erected in 1918. After dark I visited the memorial, assisted by fellow delegates Ali 1210, Paula 1243 and Ekaterina 1244. I had a bag of red tulips (Tulipa ‘Oxford’) and a trowel and with out any hiccups cut a hole into the ground and planted the tribute. The location was sheltered so hopefully they’ll survive the Russian winter. To view a short video of the dig click here. (Please remember if you are gardening abroad do not try and take your trowel in aeroplane hand luggage. I forgot and mine was confiscated at Domodedovo)
Location: Half way up Denmark Hill, London SE5
Guerrilla Gardening: Saturday 25 October 08
I spent most of today cycling around Southwark planting. First stop was with The Southwark Cyclists at Southwark Park children’s allotment, then on to Nursery Row Park where the local community are campaigning to prevent construction. We planted some young saplings to thicken up the hedge. I cycled on solo to meet my brother Kit 018 for guerrilla gardening in the middle of the road on Denmark Hill. As blogged below this is the narrow median strip that I planted a packet of sunflowers in earlier in the year. It’s a perilous location but without so much as a honking horn or decapitation dug a trench along half its length (for now) and put in a long row of daffodils - not just any old daffodils but white ones with orange cups. We took turn with my little camera and videoed the mid day mission which is posted here. Then onto Herne Hill for leading the inaugural dig of the Regents & Railton Road Community Gardeners.
Location: Westminster Bridge Rd, London.
Guerrilla Gardening: Tuesday 21 October 08
It was crunch time on two accounts this evening. We planted an apple tree (Malus domestica ‘Windsor Red’) inspired by vague rumours of Apple Day. It’s a crunchy self-pollinating variety grown on miniature M27 root stock so it will suit this traffic island nicely. And down the road at St George’s Circus there was a deep drift of crunchy leaves drowning our shrubs, which we raked off leaving the rotten lower layer as a rich mulch.
A neighbour ambushes us with a tray of tea and biscuits
Location: Hazel Road, Kensal Green, London NW10.
Guerrilla Gardening: Sunday 19 21 October 08
At half past eight in the evening three of us were weeding the raised beds near Kensal Green tube station when a local resident startled us with the offer of hot tea. It’s been a while since we had a ‘comfort mission’ (this is the technical guerrilla jargon for refreshment). It fueled us for a long evening getting this embarrassingly weedy patch back under control. We planted daffodils (Narcissi ‘Sempre Avanti’) around the edge and adding to the still fairly empty patches under the trees with some shade tolerant plants including six beautiful Heuchera (‘Plum Pudding’, ‘Creme Brule’ and ‘Can Can’) and a few perky pink Cyclamen persicum.
Kensal Green tube station, the location for the dig.
Location: Marchmont St, London
Guerrilla Gardening: 15 October 08
I get asked to talk to all sorts of audiences about guerrilla gardening, (click here for more info). But this was my first that involved guerrilla gardening too. It was part of the Play course at The School of Life. Students brought spring bulbs which we planted in the bare soil beneath the renovated Brunswick Centre. I also experimented with a bit of seed bombing. Click here to learn how to make a seed bomb.
Location: A living room in Forest Hill and a flat in deepest Shepherd’s Bush
Stitching & Stuffing: Sunday 12 October 08 and for many days after that.
Our harvest of lavender is dry and this years linen has been printed so I gathered together the Haberdashery Division for an intoxicating afternoon of sewing little pillows of fragrant lavender. We sell these to raise money for more guerrilla gardening. You can buy them by clicking here. To see a short film I cobbled together about the making of the pillows click here and visit YouTube.
With a gloomy mood about the city we set out to make some solid investments that would be sure to bloom. So four of us came back to the lavender field to plant some little Crocus tomasianus bulbs around the edge and some pink Cyclamen persicum in an empty corner facing the oncoming traffic. We also found space for three pots of hydrangea that I’ve been nursing back to health since the Recycled Garden show. In case you’re wondering about the suitability of these I’ll admit these are a speculative gamble. Unlike most of what we plant these are thirsty plants, so although it’s wet now I’ll need to return
and give them a good drenching from time to time until they become well established and reward us with a show of pink, white and blue pom poms. The photo journalist Anna M Weaver joined us.
Moscow Memorial
