Guerrilla Gardening

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Seedbomb, seedbomb, you’re my seedbomb

“You can give it to me when I need to bomb along
Seedbomb seedbomb you’re my seedbomb
And baby you can grow me on”

Let’s sing along, all together now…. tee hee.

My lovely daughter Rhiannon Cara reminded me this weekend that I wanted to call her either “Fang” or “Blind lemon melon”, until sense and Fleetwood Mac prevailed.

Anyhoo we have just spent a pleasant afternoon throwing away her Christmas present to me, three hand grenade shaped clay seed bombs (see exhibit 1 below M’Lud):

Seed bombs

The clay bombs are filled with flower seeds and rye grass and are designed to be thrown into areas needing some colour – perfect guerilla gardening tools. They are deployed with aplomb:

Guerilla Gardener number 1

The result is shattered clay which will dissolve as soon as there is rain and a great spreading of seeds:

I’ll keep you posted as (hopefully) the seeds germinate and this little derelict spot gets lively! Gizmo looked on in disgust from a tree as this was all rather interrupting his afternoon gallop:

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A Guerrilla Gardening dilemma

Not sure what to do or think, I have something small with a halo on one shoulder whispering at me and something horny on the other shoulder jumping up and down.

We did some semi guerrilla gardening in our local park (see earlier blog entry), and got nice but unnecessary recognition for a job well done. We suggested that planting some bulbs in the renovated areas might be a nice idea and the local Council agreed. Today small old man from Council turns up and gives us several large bags of daffodil bulbs, amounting, and I may be slightly exaggerating, to about a gazillion bulbs for us to plant.

At what point does a personal activity to help others get turned by those others into an obligation?

So, little angel says ” Carry on and plant them and continue your good work for the community”

And little devil says ” Bloody cheek”

If we follow a Pirsig type argument that there are three answers to a yes/no question then perhaps we should plant tulips somewhere else in the park – what do you reckon?

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That time of year again

Well it is, for me at least, a time of great energy. I think I never got over the excitement in September of was going back to school, meeting new people and just getting going again after the summer.

Today is a slightly sunny, slightly cool day in Wales and the trees are beginning to shed their leaves – the good news will be more acorn and conkers to collect and plant. I'm off shortly to work on some ground we are recovering around the edges of our local park – removing old privet roots and ivy to create extra grass, planted with small raised borders for herbs. Hopefully these will be left to grow rather than be kicked to death or stolen, and the community will have some herbs to smell and pick a little of as they walk through the park next year.

It's not all joy – I have a nice bump on my face where a Hawthorn stump we were removing yesterday fought back and whacked me in the jaw. Tree 1, me 0 !

Just loading the ipod with the Stephen Fry Podgram for company until Ruth comes out to join in. It's mattock time.

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And I got to use a mattock!

Just got interested in guerilla gardening, or perhaps I should more accurately say semi-guerilla gardening. In our case this is where we see a neglected piece of land around a local park and fix it, but with the unofficial permission of the local council (thanks guys).We got sick of looking at a small area of ground at the start of our park where an old Hawthorn tree was overrun by brambles. They were encroaching across the path and we were a little worried for some of the less sure-footed local residents.

It started like this:

And went through this:

To become this: (dog not included)

Shortly after this the area was grassed, but we have plans for spring plantings – watch this space for more. Richard Reynolds would have been proud, and I got to use a mattock!