Guerrilla Gardening USA

I have long been convinced that much of the anger and unrest found in the inner-city is directly due to the lack of connection with the plant kingdom. Humans were after all created to live in a garden. Most downtown areas are a jungle of concrete and buildings with very little plant life save a few street trees planted in squares left for them in the sidewalk. One must go to the park or out to suburbia and beyond to get back in touch with the one thing that is naturally healing and therapeutic to the human psyche.

There is many places in the urban environment that there is soil that no one cares to do anything with. Barren, weed and rubbish strewn spaces abound within the United States. Oh they are widespread around the world, but across the Atlantic there are people who are doing something about the lack of plant beauty throughout large cities like London. Watch these covert activities in action ...



The addition of hope and a reason for tomorrow is something that only ornamental plants can communicate to humans. This is has been shown over and over again. In the urban jungle there is not much hope springing up on the streets. Trees are good, but they tower above humans and while important to cleaning urban air, there is so much more that can be done to change the bleak environment. Small patches of live color would be worth their weight in gold to many street corners and areas along the millions of miles of pavement that run through our cities.

Now if you visit the website where all the guerrilla gardeners around the world communicate you will find that there is very little activity in the USA. The majority of it is operating in California. What about the rest of this vast country? Why have we not taken the ugliness into our own hands yet? I doubt that in this country the police would actually try to arrest us for beautifying a space. City Beautification is important to the USA.

Please spread the word. Respond to this post by counting yourself in on a movement that American spaces are direly in need of. If I can get enough responders, perhaps we can make things happen as a group. It is a small thing to do yet it could change many people's outlook on the world they live in.

To learn more about the Guerrilla Gardening Movement around the globe, visit http://guerrillagardening.org

We can make a difference. I'll be waiting to hear from you.

UPDATE: 7-18-08 ... There is more activity in the USA than previously stated. All these are so covert in their actions they will not so much as answer a query about their site or digs. Wikipedia states that this is often viewed as a political action. Perhaps only the mis-aligned feel free to practice the playing forward of beautification of their communities? I find it very strange that no one is willing to share mere photos of such activity with the masses outside the sanctity of their choice of posting. I have just finished an in-depth article that will soon be published on a prominent internet gardening community regarding this topic. While those practicing this underground artistic movement with live plants and publicize it on YouTube hold no thought for the spreading of such a movement on a broader scale worldwide. If you want a friendly place to get more information on the practice of guerrilla gardening. Feel free to write to Mr. Stamen at www.LAGuerrillaGardening.org. He is the only person to step forward and share proof of the beautification of the digs his troops have done. G.G.

Tale of the Lilies

Image credit: Used under permission of GNU license

My dear friend Kelly, the marketing executive, built a fabulous house around the corner from me. As life has a way of doing to us all, half way through the construction phase, she lost her 6 figure a year job due to aggressive takeover when the original owner died. Instead of being able to plant the wonderful gardens that were part of her vision, she was reduced to scrounging sale tables and getting very crafty at how she obtained plants for her yard. Being artistic, she loves beautiful plants even though she has no idea what half of them are. For this technical stuff, she has moi as her personal gardening consultant.


Since we live in the middle of nowhere, there are countless sources for obtaining free plants if you get a hankering for something that grows wild along the fields and ditches. One day she was driving toward town and came to a screeching stop when a the quarter mile stretch of flamboyant tiger lilies blooming like mad along on the roadside came into view. She spun her Jag around and made a beeline for a sheet and her shovel. An hour later her trunk was packed to the gills with free plants and she was off to put something into the some bare areas in her vast vacant beds. The lilies thrived beyond their wildest dreams after she fertilized them and poured water on them daily. Kelly was ecstatic about the success of her ditch digging adventure.


A very talented hairstylist, she put herself through design school by doing hair. Kelly has a salon in her basement that women from miles around discovered and frequent no longer venturing to those higher priced shops in town. This is how she survived her job loss. One wintry day she was chatting with Lisa, while perming her hair, about her interest in gardening. Lisa invited her to join the garden club in town and Kelly jumped at the chance to meet more local women who liked pretty plants. Not only did the salon's business double, but Kelly got to see everyone else's gardens and landscaping.

When the wild daylilies were in full bloom again, Lisa came in for a highlighting touch up. When they walked out to the car together Lisa was admiring a hosta flourishing beside the deck steps. Kelly proudly pointed out her passel of orange lilies across the walk.


"Why those are JUST ditch lilies!" Lisa haughtily exclaimed. Though she didn't say anything in reply and changed the subject, Kelly was fuming inside. Trust me, I heard all about it after dinner. The politics of this particular small town garden club became fodder for our entertainment for years to come. Though I had several times been a featured speaker, I did not have time to join and attend meetings. Time went by and the ditch lily incident was forgotten - once the initial telephone line buzzing slacked off. Kelly weathered the several snide comments overheard at monthly gatherings before winter set in.


The following summer, Lisa arrived for a cut and style while the lowly, undesirable "ditch lilies" were in full bloom. When her designer clogs hit the bottom stair at the entrance of the salon area. She found Kelly around the stair wall cleaning the sink from her just departed client's dye residue. At that precise moment history was made...


"You daylilies are just gorgeous! Were they expensive? That color would be the jazziest accent to my Bloodgood Maple! Where did you get them?" Lisa always talks like that, never letting a person get a word in until she is done with solo act. It is amazing what some good fertilizer and consistent watering can do to a plant that is used to fending for itself! .... And thats the rest of the rest of the story.

The Plant Money Fund

Yesterday was cleaning day, but after a few hours of that I was struck by a streak of rebellion. Nothing like a little dancing with danger to brighten a Sunday afternoon. So I took myself off to the garden center to investigate the scenery. I vowed not to return there again this season unless I required some more potting soil as dwellers of the porch jungle got too big for their britches.

Lord have mercy! There was a boatload of fresh off the truck fantasies to behold. I drifted about considering this and that. Checked for bigger containers that might be on sale. Then made a beeline back to the six heavily preening little vixens that summoned me from afar. I considered which of them I might not be able to leave unadopted. Tallied the register total mentally and looked in my wallet to find that I had less cash left than originally assumed.

"Smooth move, sister," I scolded my rebellious side. I needed all of that $20 to put gas in my tank. Why the heck didn't I just stay home where no true source of disgust could rear it's ugly head? So much for the pleasure of diversion on a weekend afternoon. Instead I inwardly am cursing the oil companies as I walk quickly to the parking lot ... EMPTY HANDED!

After fuming all the way home, I reverted to surfing the web to take my mind off my mood. With the increasing prices on everything today, it is hard to come up with enough spare cash to buy all the beautiful plants you really want. Cruising along reading this and that I found the perfect way to create more plant money without finding an additional job. If I could cut down on the amount of money I had to pour into my gas tank, I would have more weekend cash.

How would I accomplish this at over $4 a gallon for gas? I found the coolest way to actually save money. Its called HHO and any vehicle can be converted to save money on gas. The equipment only costs about $50 and after you get it all hooked up your engine can actually run better and used far less gas. Imagine being able to convert your gas hog to run on hydrogen power, a renewable fuel. Go green! Save some cash to support you plant habit. Click Here!

To make having more cash at the end of the week sweeter, you also are owed an IRS refund for using green technology in your vehicle. This refund is not available to people with factory assembled hybrid cars. You can't buy a hybrid car for $100 more than a gasoline powered one either. Before you start muttering about it being a scam...

I have done a lot of research on this since finding that first little blip. It kept me up half the night! This is the way to fight back and save money to buy what you want to. For the best hydrogen engine system available read the consumer report. To see the views of the experts watch the videos below.



Isn't it time you regain some of the control of your own money? Saving 15% to 70% on gasoline is something we all need to do immediately. The price is going up and it will never go back down. Why would it? We can't live without it no matter how much they charge per gallon. (Like they don't KNOW this already?) Plus, the IRS has to refund you the full cost of the conversion with a maximum deduction of $2000 for a private car or small truck. (You will need to save all your receipts to take the deduction.)



Aren't you ready to fight back too? Cut down on environment pollution and save cash to buy more plants!......... Click Here!

Watching Flowers Grow

Look what I stumbled across in my travels. None of us have time to actually sit and watch a bud actually open. It happens so slowly we can't just site there and watch for 24 or 48 hours. But here you can watch the miracle of fat colorful buds breaking forth into full bloom in a matter of a minute or two. Its amazing that some of them do it slowly like a dance and others just pop open.

GROWING FLOWERS

G.G.

Dusky Haze

Colors in the garden are so surreal when the sun rides low on the western horizon. Dusk is the most magical time to wander amidst the flowers. Each blossom seems to glow as if it were lit from within. The hues witnessed in the soft changing light are far more beautiful than the same flowers looked just an hour earlier.

Over the years, I have wasted countless rolls of film attempting to record the moments. Most likely one needs a special lense to accomplish this feat. It seems so bright to the human eye, yet the camera is incapable of the same sight. Makes one sad that the camera has missed it and the mystical evening garden cannot be shared unless you are lucky enough to be physically in the scene.

Occasionally, there was one frame that rendered a murky, yet captivating frozen moment like the one above. It is more like a painting than a photograph with nary a flower to be found. I highly doubt this is what my naked saw when the scene was shot. Photos are wonderful, but they lack the depth of reality in so many ways.

Having been transplanted from the north to the south, I am amazed to find that there are only seconds of dusk 1000 miles lower. Where does it go too? The sun hits the far horizon at the same time of day, yet it is dark within minutes. Pitch black here and in the same moment so far to the north people are still mowing their grass and enjoying the cooler time of day to waltz about the yard. Dark descends differently the farther you travel away from the North Pole.

A Gardening Hobby?

Obviously, the person(s) who arrived at this notion were not gardeners! I wonder if they also felt that parenthood was a past time too. Is being an accomplished cellist also considered a hobby? A hobby would be building tiny ship models inside a bottle or creating airplane out of beer cans. A hobby is something that is inanimate, a past time you could put away and pay no attention to for weeks or months on end.

Gardening is done in the soil. It is the daily care and life support of living things that are literally stuck in the mud. Gardening is sweating and getting dirty. It is feeding hundreds, even thousands of thirsty or hungry souls whatever and whenever they require it. Gardening is like being the conductor of the most beautiful orchestra anywhere.

Gardening is a lifestyle. A passion that creates an entirely unique world where ever the bug takes root. You cannot be a part-time gardener; if you try that you will quickly be without a garden. Anyone with any understanding of what is entailed in gardening would never be so silly as to call it a hobby. A hobby does not require one to learn so many things of widely varying subjects in order to succeed. A hobby comes with simple to follow instructions, not vague signals one must interpret without so much as a word in print or spoken.

True gardening is rewarding on a level that I just cannot see being compared to the thrill of say creating a picture from little stitches in fabric. Once done it is framed, hung on the wall or laid across the bed and never changes at all and so becomes static - a predictable never wavering thing that becomes unnoticeable. One could never say anything remotely like this about a garden. It is not the same for more than two days in a row! Gardens constantly change and never seem to lack something new and captivating. I mean when was the last time you felt the magic of a cross-stitch kit overwhelm you completely?

You really shouldn't dine on a hobby, unless it is baking sumptuous cookies. Plastic and glue are said to not be good for your health. Yet a garden can sustain your heart, mind, soul and erase hunger pangs all from one small piece of earth. There is more good packed into a garden than any other place of equal size found anywhere else. Gardens are a place to find healing, peace, love and charity growing so comfortably beside obsession. None of this is found in an airplane fashioned from empty beer cans!

Get down and dirty gardeners are guilty of allowing their passion to spill over into containers. Potted extensions of the soiled world will litter the cleaner outdoor spaces connected to and adjacent from their house. They would not settle for one or two vessels crammed with 20 different plants all fighting over food, foot space and air to breathe. Though this would be the only time they would consider growing a new adoptee in something other that real gritty dirt. Bonafide gardeners start their seeds and cuttings on the deck, front porch and patio ... anywhere they can keep a close eye on and protect from the elements those small and helpless things they are patiently raising to a point they can survive out there in the jungle of planting beds.

How can we define a hobby gardener? After giving this a bit of thought I have the answer to this misconception at labeling. A hobby gardener grows only in containers. Container gardening compared to digging in the dirt and pulling weeds on your day off while fending off Mother Nature's latest twist in your plot ... is NOT gardening. Container gardening is far too controlled and contrived to be truly called gardening.

While I realize that a huge number of people would not be able to enjoy the beauty and miracle of growing live plants without this container method, it really is nothing like gardening and should not be lumped into the same division as naturally dirt grown beauty or food. Two sets of rules govern each of these divisions until you come to pests and diseases, that unfortunately remains the same. One can not enjoy dinner inside a container, yet one can turn a garden into their own little outdoor world.

In conclusion, there is no such thing as a hobby in gardening, unless you have thrown in the trowel over the latest lesson in defeat. Gardening is more like being in charge of a wild little orphanage, though you personally have fallen in love with each being in residence and carted it home to watch it become so much more. Someone really needs to print a lot of retractions before more of the world at large is so grossly misinformed too far into the future. Though instinct tells me they get away with this labeling it a hobby because trying to make a living from growing plants has become almost impossible in today's retail environment. Though if you honestly consider the realities, a garden never was, nor never could be just a hobby.

G.G.

You know, it's great to see you here! So glad you came by.
Sure would be nice if you could help a poor girl buy one more plant.

The Perfect Posie

the list is long, the perfect colors all chosen

the fresh plot stretches out vast and open
visions of treasured blooms flitting about
it will be so beautiful - you have no doubt

the destination lies there, just ahead
fresh is the day, your wallet not yet bled
the scene of tinted chaos beckons you forth
to gleefully adopt far more than you're worth

rioting splotches, a quilt of squares marching
just one or two more, the mind's silent declare
list forgotten, abandoned, lost while crazed
gone - left somewhere in there, amid the maze

at least the plan so contrived was rigidly adhered to
proud of your solid stance as the plants choose you
carts (yes plural) through the register are rung
surprise! - it is clear that today the plants have won

hours have slipped away unnoticed, you in a daze
nose a tad blistered shopping beneath sun blaze
wallet and plastic now flatter, you arrive home
family looking at you like your mouth doth foam

big sale - great deals - just couldn't pass this by
uttered while plotting how hot dogs are disguised
of course, i found the perfect posie just as promised
defending today's purchase, hoard of blossoms

G.G.

Through The Eyes of a Child

A month ago the new season's plant selections arrived at every garden center in town. I decided to take my granddaughter to the "flower store". She was very excited at the idea which was huge in her two and half year old mind. While very intelligent she is still a beginner in our world, and I had no idea what to expect when we arrived at our destination.

It was nothing like my imagined trip. It exceeded anything I thought would happen. It was one of those days that you could kick yourself for not having a movie camera in your purse. Her first visit to a garden center was more exciting than Christmas morning. You see, most of her knowledge of ornamental plants was from photos and a few paltry pots on the porch.

She petted the Gerber Daisies, exclaiming over all the colors she saw in the rack. The first one gallon pot of May Night Salvia she saw was immediately hugged to her small, slim body. "Nonnie! We must have this one for Mommy!" She was persuaded to put it back and keep looking. So short of stature I don't think she realized there was much more to look at.

After I showed her how many different things there were to see beyond her level of view, she was everywhere. Darting about smelling this one, oohing over the color of that one and generally beside herself with all there was to discover. Next, she discovered scents which started a frenzied search for "that 'liscious smell' which after much searching turned out to be a table of Dianthus.

The entire live plant area was hugged and fondled as that developing mind skipped and sang through the aisles. The Barbie Princess Kitchen was very pale in comparison to this level of excitement. I was hard pressed to keep up with her and put back everything she had to have. I guess she has inherited more from me than my fingernails. Her poor parents aren't into plants, but thats okay, Nonnie is here for you kiddo.

The Guilty Gardener