has anyone ever participatied in Guerrilla Gardening or Midnight Gardening? I have wanted to get people together to do this sort of thing, and perhaps I will actually have a chance to do it this coming spring/summer. Seedballs would be an excellent way to do this, without being noticed, but I also want to transplant native plants/flowers/herbs for an more immediate change. I think it would be a really great thing to do in Cincinnati, as there are a lot of lots that are abandoned which would b e perfect for this sort of thing…
Yes! …once…
I rode out at night with some aronia bushes in my backpack (no space left for them in the yard), a little bag of peat moss, and jug of water.
I found a good spot along a public trail, in the grass and close to the rest of the plants, and set about planting. The trowel broke on the first dig, so that made it a little harder, but I kept at it.
What a night! The bright moon, fast-moving clouds, a light breeze…
I probably didn’t need to be all secretive about it, but it made it more exciting.
Anyway! We’ve 3000 miles between us, now. I can only hope they’ve done well, and might offer some sustenance and more aronia plants (how about it, birdies?) come summer.
Now, I’ve got ~100 various fruiting trees and bushes in pots, waiting for spring and lazy me to find a place for them. I’d like to get more seeds, get some started indoors, and start doing seedballs with the rest.
It makes me happy to hear from someone else interested in this! I can’t offer any advice other than to just go for it! And send some pictures when the flowers start coming up
I haven’t participated in a group activity, but I carry clippers in my bag and take cuttings from natives and plant them around town. They appear to do well, and as a nice side effect, my little daughters recognize the starts and relate to them like adopted children.
last spring I decided to give this a shot. There were several dwarf fruit trees on sale at a home improvement store, and I had some spare cash, so I decided to buy some. The only problem being that I live on rental property, and I’m planning on moving out before the trees would be mature. So instead of planting them in my yard, I planted them by cover of night in some of the open “parks” and medians, places the city had set aside that would never be developed due to weird lot shapes. I have two apples and a nectarine tree out there. I also planted some wild onion, and a few potatoes. My potatoes were hidden in flower beds, and about midway into the season got weeded out. The ones that didn’t failed to produce anything edible. I’vve learned more about appletrees and how much trouble they can be since I planted, so I wonder if any of what I planted will ever produce food. But I had fun, there are more trees around now, and next year I’m going to spread some incredibly invasive blackberry species about my local parks.
Oh yeah, I also planted an oak tree sapling for “maximum damage.” I hope that 10 or 15 years from now it will be ripping through sidewalk and retaining wall.
Hey Andrew! Be careful about the invasive blackberries! they REALLY take over everything, but if they are native varieties, it may be a good idea (I will look into the different varieties)…
I think I will focus more on native edible/medicinal herbs and wild flowers this year around town… perhaps some berry bushes too, in order to attract birds and such! Also, I think these seeds are the ones that are more likely to survive and grow and they are also mostly perennials…
The thing I worry about with guerrilla gardening is that I may inadvertently promote more chemical usage to kill the stuff I’ve sown. Especially with something people despise as much as invasive blackberries – I worked on a cattle ranch where they sprayed every blackberrry bush relentlessly with Roundup, not caring whether the poison would work its way into the nearby streams and ponds. A lot of people see pretty much anything “broadleaf” as an enemy that they need to eradicate.
It’s true, that’s why it’s important that you know the location that you are planting in, if it’s abandoned and overgrown with “weeds” that no one has ever paid attention too, it’s probably safe to plant in and also, less likely that the plants will be destroyed. It’s definitely important to not plant anything that you think people would use pesticides to get rid of, focus on wildflowers and herbs, and non-invasive plants would be the best!
There is a story of an unused lot in Portland, where people just up and started a community garden, later getting the go-ahead from the owner. It thrived for many years (maybe over ten?), had fruit trees hand-planted by someone in the community, was a beautiful garden right across the street from People’s Food Co-op, until the owner sold the lot to developers and a new condo/apartment complex was planned to be built on it. I could not find the story online, but this is an example of guerrilla gardening that worked (at least for several years, until the owner got money-hungry)…
Planning on some guerrilla gardening, but the cops have been watching us lately so I might have to wait. I’m another one worried about just provoking more herbicide/pesticide use, especially with the zika hoax going around and the lifted regulations on such chemicals. But it’s not like the soil, air, and water aren’t already saturated with poison, so I guess our only option is to plant so much that the greenies win out and help clean up humanity’s mess. Anyone know any good sources for buying native Missouri/Illinois plants? So much has died off here that I can’t even find the seeds or cuttings to begin.
