Guerrilla Gardening: What the cool gardeners are doing these days

I was listening to NPR this morning and they had a piece on guerrilla gardening. This is actually not the first time I have heard about guerrilla gardening. Over at YGG, a few people have done some guerrilla gardening on their own and have talked about their experience.

It’s a fun concept and one that I have been wanting to do. Basically, guerrilla gardening is random acts of gardening without permission from the land’s owners. To be fair, most of the acts are done on abandoned or derelict properties. It is a way to beautify illegally. And since I already have an illegal garden (I promise I will explain that someday), the thought of doing even more illegal gardening is just cool.

I have my eye on a spot and had hoped to get my start with it, but life and the rain has kept me from getting there. The spot I have been eyeing actually was a flower bed at one time in front of an old historical building. I think whoever the caretaker was is unable to care for the place anymore, but it breaks my heart to see such a venerable old building with a bed of quackgrass out front. I thought it might be nice to clear out the bed and plant some flowers.

Once I get that done, I am thinking I need to do something a little more ambitious. I don’t know what yet, but I am going to keep my eye out.

When I lived in Cincy, I lived in a house in the middle of a bad neighborhood. The houses were falling apart and the yards were filled with more trash than plants. I rented my house, but I still cleared the yard out and created a mishmash garden that had things planted all in the wrong spots. But that garden was one of my favorite gardens as I received many comments on how nice it was to see flowers growing in the neighborhood. It was my first lesson in how flowers seem to cheer no matter where they are. That’s what guerrilla gardening is all about.

Guerrilla gardeners tend to work in groups. I would love to form a group here in Cleveland or if there is already one, I would like to join. This is something I should look into.