Guerilla Gardening

BroomBurner

Anyone try this before? Any success?

It's not illegal, before anyone says, or at least I don't think it is (please correct me if I'm wrong). It's planting native herbs, flowers, veg, etc. in public spaces that are not managed.

mikom

Guerilla Gardening, the refuge of activists who think regular gardening is boring. Yet most who get enthused about it are running before they can walk, horticulturally speaking.

rediguana

That's a bit rough! I was wondering about this myself, though I wasn't clever enough to come up with "Guerilla Gardening"!

I live up in Sandyford-Kilternan (Dub 18) but I'm moving back to Cork next month. The wife and I were thinking we'd plant apple seeds, chilli seeds, strawberries etc in the "wasteland" (rock, hills and heather) around our apartment before we go.

We're not hippies at all - she has way too many Louboutin shoes for that - but surely it's a good to scatter the seed before we leave? I reckon there's a good chance many of them will germinate.

And even if none makes it to maturity, at least the shoots will make for nutritious eating for the rabbits and deer that populate this area?

Anything's better than landfill, no?

sorella

There was a thread about this on Irish Gardens....

http://www.gardenplansireland.com/forum/about1403.html

Sonnenblumen

Indiscriminate planting is potentially worse than the problem of unsightly 'wasteground'. What would your view be if you were to discover someone had planted Knotweed in your site?

My point being that GG supporters might be motivated to make the environment better looking and make use of available space, but a free for all might create more problems. Scattering meadow flower seed or planting non invasive species might seem like a fun and harmless thing to do for some anyway, but planting trees, non-native plants etc is IMO a step too far.

rediguana wrote: »

That's a bit rough! I was wondering about this myself, though I wasn't clever enough to come up with "Guerilla Gardening"!

I live up in Sandyford-Kilternan (Dub 18) but I'm moving back to Cork next month. The wife and I were thinking we'd plant apple seeds, chilli seeds, strawberries etc in the "wasteland" (rock, hills and heather) around our apartment before we go.

We're not hippies at all - she has way too many Louboutin shoes for that - but surely it's a good to scatter the seed before we leave? I reckon there's a good chance many of them will germinate.

And even if none makes it to maturity, at least the shoots will make for nutritious eating for the rabbits and deer that populate this area?

Anything's better than landfill, no?

golden

I have seen what non native plants can do to an area for exampe Agapanthus in New Zealand its all over the place and they have to try and irradicate it.

You dont have to go far to see non native species taking over you can for instance to down to Kerry and see the rhododendron taking over the native forest.

Also the gum trees in New Zealand also sterilise the ground after the cash crop has been harvested.

BroomBurner

But we're not talking about non-native species here. It would have to be native and able to be grown in that area. I don't think people that would be interested in doing this would be ignorant enough to just grow anything.

It would also be a means of community gardening, people could pick herbs, etc. from their local.

Sounds a bit hippyish, but that's not always a bad thing. Cheaper, also, than buying them

mikom

Found this video through the link on the Irish gardeners site. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/video/2008/apr/25/guerrilla.gardening . The group in the video, tossers to be honest.

The Sweeper

There's a new series just starting here in Oz, Guerilla Gardeners. Assume it's an Australian programme as opposed to a UK re-run being shown down here. In fairness, the Oz team don't just go for plants, they do landscaping - probably because we just don't get enough water down here for anyone to be able to plant a bed and then leave it untended - it would just die!

I saw them do one job, a concrete path runs through two patches of bare earth, connecting a building to something like a pedestrian crossing. The patches of earth are quite large, but lawns down here don't survive the winter so they're just scrubby dust.

The guerilla gardeners built a garden seat with a pergola for shade over it, laid most of the bare earth to coloured, patterned gravel and planted hardy, low-water things like cordyline grasses anywhere they were doing planting. Looked pretty good when they were done tbh. There's a huge emphasis down here on not allowing non-native plants and in fairness, since they're doing a TV show it would be pretty poor if they overlooked that bit!

EvilMonkey

Whats the difference between this and tidy towns people planting in villages and towns around Ireland? The only difference i can see is its in an urban area/city and has a snazzy name.

luckat

Oh, lighten up, lads. Far better to have people plant nice stuff than to have the usual ragwort and thistles.

Most people don't rush around planting invasive non-native species when guerrilla gardening. Herbs and flowers are more the mark. Never done it myself, but I'd be tempted.

mikom

luckat wrote: »

Oh, lighten up, lads. Far better to have people plant nice stuff than to have the usual ragwort and thistles.

Hungry Moths and butterflies would argue otherwise.

luckat wrote: »

Most people don't rush around planting invasive non-native species when guerrilla gardening. Herbs and flowers are more the mark.

Name two native Irish herbs we can plant.

magicbastarder

am thinking of going guerilla gardening soon with the hawthorn and blackthorn from this offer:
http://www.lidl.ie/ie/home.nsf/pages/c.o.20090226.p.TraditionalHedging
on a piece of waste ground beside a friend's estate.

fatchops

Heres a newspaper website link which also contains a link to a guerilla gardening web site if any is interested in having a look. It covers seed bombs and the like.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/sep/13/gardens2

BroomBurner

There is some good info aswell on www.ipcc.ie