I’d forgotten all about planting these sunflowers. Back in May I was passing here, pulled over and prodded in the contents of half a packet of seeds in what was a barren central reservation on the busy Denmark Hill. It’s a dicey location, not one to spend long on for fear of getting decapitated by a passing truck, but I forgot to even make a brief return visit for weeding or anything. It was down to nature to take on the fight to brighten up this road. Now, nearly five months on.they are towering as high as a double decker bus and look like they have weeks of life left in them yet. Slugs had no chance of tracking them down here on this island of fertility in a desert of tarmac. Some had been damaged by passing traffic but it just goes to show how easy guerrilla gardening can be!

The cascading gardens of Perronet House now contain plants from the RHS Hampton Court Palace flower show

Most guerrilla gardeners make use of neglected land and from time to time we make use of neglected plants too be they surplus, damaged or even a bit diseased. One place to find discarded plants is at a grand flower show - exhibitors bring more than they need to ensure only the best make it into their gardens and after the show some plants are discarded because the cost of removing them is too great. It’s all rather sad and embarrassing for them, but rich pickings for those who know where to look. So with all this in mind (and after having dispensed with the idea of protest stunts outside their shows) I wrote to the Royal Horticultural Society to see if I could make a garden entirely from discarded plants and materials from the Chelsea and Hampton Court Palace flower shows. They said yes.

The Recycled Garden

The drama of making this show garden is on another blog TheRecycledGarden.net, but once the show was over I had a great bounty of plants to distribute. Some went to a legitimate community garden in Brockwell Park, some to my first guerrilla gardens outside Perronet House, some to St Mathias primary school in Hackney, some to the guerrilla lavender field of Westminster Bridge Road, some to guerrilla gardening in Camden and some to my brother’s back garden in Herne Hill. If you have plants to spare please leave a note on the Community section of this website offering them to locals.

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Monarda 'Beauty of Cobham', Lavetera, Anthemis 'Sauce Hollandaise' from the RHS show in the Perronet House gardens.

Stunt cyclists vandalise the beds in Februrary

You may recall that in February the gardens I tend beneath my tower block were attacked by some youths on bikes. I’d forgotten all about their visit until this morning when I met one iof the vandals again in very different circustances. The encounter confirmed my approach of ‘bug a hoody’ (and not the ‘hug a hoody’ as some English politicians have been advocating recently). The technique involves interupting their mischief, aligning your self quickly with their flagrant disregard for law and appealing to their sense of recklessness (if only it was that easy, but in my case this time it was). So this morning I was in a bicycle shop buying a new inner tube and cycle pump and the attendant comes up tome and says “are you that guerrilla gardener?” I confirmed I was one of many, and he then reminded me that we‘d last met when he was trampling my shrubs. Remarkably he was keen to say how he and his stunt gang now avoid all flower beds when looking for urban corners to jump around in and when it came to totting up my bill he gave me a 10% discount. It just goes to show what comes of grabbing a vandals bicyle and shouting! (Of course I take no responsibility if your action in the garden leads to being stung by nettles or bottled by thugs.)

This is a new duplicate blog of the content at GuerrillaGardening.org. For entries earlier than 18 June please visit GuerrillaGardening.org and read the graphic version.