There is an air of death and destruction in gardens across the northern hemisphere in recent weeks because of startlingly savage frosts (yes, even in bucolic central London). They finally put to rest the unseasonably cheerful sunflowers and nasturtium plants and left a satisfying wake of mess to tackle and holes to fill. I stocked up with a few treats from a garden centre (spending prize vouchers from last years London Green Corners competition win yes siree) and left with pots that appeared to have nothing in them except for wet mud. They do of course hold herbaceous promise (Echinacea ‘Vintage Wine’ and ‘Sunrise’ as well as Eupatorium rugosum ‘Chocolate’ - do an internet image search if you can’t wait until summer). I also found some more immediate fillers, a couple of flowering Hellebores that are now at home in the Elephant & Castle. But mostly January is a time to be tidying up not risking new planting. Plastic bags are particularly cloying and destructive plant stranglers in the rain and I have noticed, in this post Christmas detox period, that the count of fruit juice bottles, orange peel and banana skins is also on the rise (all those ads for healthy eating must be having a positive impact… just not on my gardens!) Now is also a good time to get pernickety about your lawn edging. I’m a great believer of clear demarcation for a guerrilla garden - it avoids confusion between a lawn mowing contractor and a plant growing guerrilla - I hopefully need not remind you of the devastating losses of wild flower guerrilla gardens in London and Torre due to the difficulty of territorial demarcation. And so, with the edge of our Stamford Street guerrilla garden looking increasingly ragged I invested in a half-moon lawn edger and called up Andrew 1679 to be chief engineer. Edging well is all about the line. You can ensure it’s straight by tying string between sticks and cutting away the ragged edge along it. And the end result is a garden a little bit bigger than it was before!

Our scattering of old sunflower seeds has all been eaten or washed away now and, as Andrew 1679 put it,”I’m always leaving apples to go a bit soft”, so he brought along some for the birds. But this
was no ordinary apple, oh no, it was a guerrilla gardeners’ sunflower-seed-encrusted apple, proudly pierced through with the young twig of a local ash and trussed on white cotton string from the low branch of an organically grown rowan (as a TV chef might say). Step back and enjoy the birds as they flock to the garden for dinner time.