Guerrilla Gardening
It’s the end of a planting cycle here in Arizona–I just scrambled to get some peas, beans, and greens in the ground this morning. And, I have to admit, it got me thinking about some…subversive activities.
I am tempted. Anyone out there done any guerrilla gardening? Want to learn more?
Surely that empty lot on my commute could use a couple giant sunflowers..don’t you think?
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YES! I LOVE GUERILLA GARDENING! There are so many different ways of going about this! Every morning, I drain the gluten from my oatmeal and keep it in a jar to use as a bonding agent for seeds. I mix the gluten & seeds (some specifically nitrogen-fixing plants and some wildflowers) with soil and wrap it in compost scraps. I also read recently about green graffiti - where you can use something similar to the gluten and mix with moss spores and when you paint the mixture onto the side of a wall, the result will be moss graffiti. LOVE it!
Moss graffiti?? That sounds amazing, especially since I know a couple few artists that could have fun with that. The trick right now is deciding where we’ll guerrilla garden, since there aren’t too many plants that can make it by themselves in Phoenix. I guess we could plant a bunch of rosemary…
I have hopes for the desert sunflowers I have, though. I also have a couple people on the lookout for dead spaces that are getting runoff from neighbors’ sprinkler systems, so we’ll see.
Moss graffiti sounds awesome…I’d love to see what that looks like.
When I take walks I will often gather seeds like Desert Marigold, Brittlebush, and others to spread on more barren patches along my walk. Most of the seeds probably get eaten by birds, but who knows…even if one plant grows its a success!
There’s also a Phoenix Thread created at http://guerrillagardening.org/ …you might be able to team up with other Phoenicians.
Yeah! Go for it. I’ll seed bomb with you when I visit! Am I allowed to do this to the neighbor with the “pristine” lawn?????
Good grief. I’m corrupting my own mum.
Yes, you are allowed to do this with me when you visit.
No, you are not allowed to do this to someone else’s lawn, unless you get the impression s/he wouldn’t notice or mind. (Experience suggests that your eastern neighbors, for example, probably wouldn’t mind if a rogue watermelon plant showed up between your driveways, but observation implies that your northern neighbor would object most heartily to any stray clover.)
Kim–Yay! I like the seed gathering idea. I think I’ll start doing that. We’ve got a lot of Baja fairy duster down this way that could be fun.
Oh, yes, that’s a good plant if you can get the seeds before they explode! Exploding seeds, yay!
[...] true—I have a seed habit. I have been gathering native seed pods of late in hopes of going guerrilla gardening in the winter rainy season. In particular, I have picked up a fair few Baja fairy duster pods for [...]