Guerrilla gardening:
 

I just learned this term yesterday, watching a new cable TV station Current TV.

They had a clip about a fellow in England doing Guerrilla gardening.
http://www.guerrillagardening.org/

Well, I was surprised! I looked at my husband and said...am I a Guerrilla now?

I've had a garden across the street on the city's property for over 20 years (at my expense and effort). I am now restoring the part that was damaged by the street repaving/sewer replacement last spring/summer.

On the corner 2 houses away, they put up a new fire hydrant and some new stones, so I just obtained permission to pretty that spot up too. For the past 2 weeks I've been waiting for the poison ivy to die back. But so far I've put in perennial sweet peas, corepsis seedlings, ox-eye daisy seedlings, and two
Artemesia silver mound young plants.

These two pics are the portion across the street from our home, in progress with new plantings.
from left to right... one tansy, one yarrow, globe thistle(came back after the damage),
in front left to right are silver mound, upright sedum cuttings,
creeping yellow and red sedums, some daisy, some cuttings of creeping phlox.
Since this first photo, I've put in some seedlings of Pearly everlasting, and black eyed susans. (still pretty small).

Second photo is looking down the 150 ft we are fixing..as the shade increases the plants change.
Near where Oreo is supervising, it changes to snow on the mountain (ground cover) and Chinese lanterns. In the background are wild daylilies, myrtle and some goldenrod, not damaged by the crews. Further down out of sight is sweet woodruff from my yard, and some violets, and more daylilies and myrtle. The daylilies seem to grow anywhere ;) and the myrtle is not fussy. Behind this garden my spring things came back, unaffected...trillium, mayapple, some mertensia, daffs, and some scilla.

3rd picture is of the corner garden before I started. Don't have a progress one yet. Things are still small and don't show up.

Any others here doing Guerrilla work? LOL

I guess that makes my bf a gorilla weeder - he can't pass a weed without pulling it. Living in the city we walk everywhere, means it takes forever to get anywhere as he is pulling weeds the whole way (muttering under his breath about it).

I think it is nice that you are taking care of the public space. it looks really nice.

lol, you're now part of an underground (and above ground ;) ) movement, mrsD.
They had a guerrilla gardening show on our tv in recent times. They were getting in all sorts of trouble from the local councils but I really don't know why because they were doing a great job. So are you. You certainly have a green thumb. Those flowers and gardens look just great! Thank you

Lara...thanks and also to Bets:

I am I guess not technically a Guerrilla...I have "permission".

But I did start the larger garden across from us without it.
The new fixes did have permission.

I have a bit of a selfish motive...since I live here. It is nicer to
look at nice things than weeds and nuisance bushes.
Besides, my husband's grandfather lived here since 1917 and was the first mayor of our town. So we have a 4th generation stake here...more than just living, like the new people who move in and don't really care.

I totally understand.

Actually I spent yesterday afternoon out in the drizzling rain here trying to tidy up the garden at the back. I live in a unit attached to a large home but it's vacant at the moment and it just looked shocking. I couldn't bear it any longer and got out there to trim the plants and dig out the weeds.

I'm not going to plant anything in there of course, but it looks so much better than it did before I started. If new tenants come to check it out (or potential buyers) then at least they're not going to be welcomed by an unfortunate sight.

I'll do some more today. I guess it's guerrilla gardening because I didn't get permission to do it, but the real estate people probably won't even notice I've done it. LOL :rolleyes:

I totally understand,Lara.

The joy is in the doing/process...not in what others think.

If it pleases YOU and makes the area nicer, that is all that matters, IMO. The "others" come around and if it happens, that is just gravy.