An Afternoon of Guerrilla Gardening

Saw a poster up a few days ago from the Kirkendall Guerrilla Gardeners, asking for people to come and help them do some bulb planting. 

I’m very familiar with the idea of guerrilla gardening, and I was thrilled to see it starting up in my little piece of the Earth. I guess it could almost be termed graffiti with flowers. Find abandoned, neglected, barren patches of land and plant flowers on them. That’s it. It’s members of a community taking matters into our own hands to make our surroundings a little more attractive. Not waiting for some bureaucratic body to get around to doing it – just showing some local initiative to have a positive impact on the world around us. And in doing so, strengthen the bonds between members of the community.

So I went and met with them and had a great afternoon. I like the neighbourhood I live in a lot and doing something proactive to beautify small corners of it feels good. Getting some exercise on a nice afternoon feels good. Meeting new people from my community and having interesting conversations with them feels good.

Pearl and Bold. Either side of the street. Some weeding got done, some periwinkle got put in, some cretinous grafitti was removed.

Besides their many other faults…

Bulbs and flowers planted and on to the next site.

Some of the selection of bulbs for planting. 

This half moon of very rocky, compacted soil at Aberdeen and Longwood, got worked over and dotted with bulbs and some forsythia was also planted.

Another area of urban blight on the opposite side of the street in need of some colour.

Surpisingly though someone who had similar ideas to us had already stuck some things in the ground. We extended it out a little further with bulbs and some perennials.

After that it was on to the eternally abandoned 220 Dundurn. Put in loads of tulip bulbs and planted scilla in the grass.

On the face of it, there wasn’t anything very visible to show for our efforts, but when spring rolls around, we hope that colour will bloom in a few different spots. And there was talk of another planting session taking place in a few more spots before the ground freezes solid. 

Fun day. Do it in your community.