Tag Archives: guerilla gardening

May 2, 2016 · 3:47 pm

Propagating

2016-04-12 08.15.12

It is time to get cuttings in or miss the season completely… so I was out again before work looking for likely prospects.  As I mentioned last time I was writing about guerilla gardening, there is some severe pruning when plants try to take over roads in my neighbourhood, and here is myoporum parvifolium trimmed back off the kerb to prove the point.

2016-04-12 08.09.22

I collected seed while I was out.  This bluebush is still fruiting but not ripe.  I collected from one near the tram where the seeds have turned black (indicating ripeness), much to the interest of one commuter.  The rest seemed blessedly uninterested and one was sleeping while almost upright.

2016-04-12 08.19.12

I collected seed from the bladder saltbush.

2016-04-12 08.07.56

I admired the spread of some myoporum I planted at least a year ago.

2016-04-12 08.04.37

This one was so big I took cuttings from it! So far, it has been overlooked in the pruning regime and is happily out onto the road.

2016-04-12 08.01.48

So, now I have all manner of cuttings hopefully sending out roots as I write…

2016-04-16 10.03.21

As well as seedlings still waiting their turn to go out into the big wide world now it has started to rain.  Ah, blessed rain.

2016-04-16 10.03.10

9 Comments

Filed under Neighbourhood pleasures

Tagged as , ,

April 11, 2016 · 2:39 pm

Tram stop plantings

2016-03-26 15.53.13.jpg

This time, I went out ready to plant seaberry saltbush (rhagodia candolleana) as well as ruby saltbush (enchylaena tomentosa).  I decided to take the benefit of a long weekend and go further afield than usual.  There is a local tram stop where most of the understorey plantings that might ever have gone in have died.  And, there is a plan afoot to upgrade the tram fencing which might well result in plantings along the tram line being dug out.  The evidence that digging is imminent was parked by the tram stop, actually!

2016-03-26 16.07.31.jpg

Here is the best part of the site.  Some things are holding on for dear life.

2016-03-26 16.10.32.jpg

There are some trees still here too.  And plenty of empty space where native plants could be growing.  I planted the larger seaberry saltbush toward the platform.  Some of the soil is very sandy so this plant might be happy here!

2016-03-26 16.38.20

I weeded, collected rubbish, and had a chat with a few passersby, one of whom is clearly a regular tram user who said he’d keep his eye on the plantings, bless him!  He wanted to know where the water I was using had come from and was clearly very surprised to think I had brought it with me. But needs must, and I have a bike trailer.

2016-03-26 16.38.32

You can see all the little disturbed and damp spots where new plants have gone in, about 20 in all.  Homeward bound, I collected all this from the site itself and then, since I had gloves on and a receptacle to hand, I picked up all I could manage or stow in a nearby bin on my way home .  To care for land is a special thing, I’ve decided.

2016-03-26 16.48.04

6 Comments

Filed under Neighbourhood pleasures

Tagged as , , ,

March 29, 2016 · 10:45 am

More autumn plantings and some plants in progress!

2016-03-22 07.21.48

On a cool, autumn morning I set out with yet more ruby saltbush plants and water to help them settle in.

2016-03-22 07.41.35

Some went in here replacing those who didn’t make it through the summer.

2016-03-22 07.41.44

The truly surprising thing is that many did make it through summer.  Some have held on with the tiniest of plant toenails.  But others have grown a good deal.  Even one boobialla (myoporum) made it in this inhospitable spot!

2016-03-22 07.42.03

Here are some of the many survivors.

2016-03-22 07.43.25

I also planted some more on the border of this space, which was bare earth when I started in on it.  It is so settled now I am considering putting some trees in quietly, among the ground covers and shrubs.

2016-03-22 07.53.36

After that, I headed off with secateurs to start some cuttings. These plants are thriving in local public plantings and they are regularly trimmed off the street by council workers or passing cars.  So I took cuttings from the street side and went home to put them in! Fingers crossed for spring planting…

2016-03-22 07.55.52

4 Comments

Filed under Neighbourhood pleasures

Tagged as , ,

March 15, 2016 · 9:30 am

Guerilla gardening after the rain

2016-03-10 07.50.17

We had some quite substantial rain overnight last week, the first of autumn.  I took it as a sign!

2016-03-10 08.07.24

These little ruby saltbush plants are destined for a spot along the tram line where contractors have planted tiny plants into deep mulch, so that their roots never touch the earth below (which is packed hard).  It is amazing that any survived, but some did.  And there are lots of barren patches.  The mulch is starting to convert to soil.  So… in they went.

2016-03-10 08.07.15

And then some more.  I would like to expand out from this point into an area that is colonised by pest tree seedlings and weeds at present, but it gets poisoned.  So I am thinking it might need to be done slowly, edging out rather than interplanting the whole patch and risking losing all those seedlings when the weeds get poisoned.

2016-03-10 08.07.52

Some of the little eucalypts that went in here are doing well.  They are almost as tall as I am now.

2016-03-10 08.07.46

Ah, the joy that is rain!

3 Comments

Filed under Neighbourhood pleasures

Tagged as ,

February 11, 2016 · 10:58 am

This week in guerilla gardening

2016-02-11 07.34.39

This morning, I went out with some saltbush I’ve grown from seed and some other plants a friend has grown and given me for guerilla gardening.  She comes from a coastal area and is growing plants well adapted (and mostly endemic) to her local sandy soils.  They are thriving in sandy areas of our suburb.  So the saltbush went in under a large river red gum in our neighbourhood, the better to protect the root zone of this giant tree.  Then I trundled around to a spot in the neighbourhood where the pattern of what will grow is very different to the rest of the patches I’m working, partly because the new beds created here in the wake of major infrastructure works are very sandy.

2016-02-11 07.59.34

In went several of these native hibiscus, an olearia, a kangaroo apple and a rhagodia (seaberry saltbush).  Out came weeds, alive and dead, and feral tree seedlings.

2016-02-11 08.00.28

The tiny E Scoparias that my friends and I planted months ago are thriving here but still small.  The council has planted a random eucalypt and a Manchurian Pear since we put them in, and they were much bigger–but they left the E Scoparias to live, bless them.  Let’s see how it goes.

Where previously nothing grew, now there are a lot of boobiallas (myoporum), some good sized olearias, a few saltbush and a couple of feijoas as well as the trees.  One saltbush is loving it here and has set fruit.

2016-02-11 07.59.59

As I finished watering the new plants in and set off to weed invasive grass out of a very successful patch nearby, one of the cyclists whizzing past called out ‘good work!’  It was a good way to start the day: kneeling in the earth and planting things that might help it heal.

6 Comments

Filed under Eucalypts, Neighbourhood pleasures

Tagged as , , , , , ,

January 25, 2016 · 12:35 pm

New year’s guerilla gardening

2016-01-14 17.42.31

Some of the guerilla plantings from last year are coming along very well indeed!  Shrubs are looking shrub like.  Ground covers are bushing out.

2016-01-14 17.23.03

I made two trips with silver leaved saltbush plants (two trips doubles the amount of water I can apply, and there is a parched planting nearby).  This is prime growing time for saltbush so hopefully they will take off!

2016-01-14 17.38.25

I have continued adding to this area. I think it is looking great, and I have larger plants in seedling form that I can add now that they will be protected.  There is another spot in the neighbourhood where a house has been bought and sold and the new owner really likes the plantings I have made beside his driveway.  He has given them little sticks so that no one can miss the fact of their existence, and my beloved has seen him watering them–and had a chat!  They are really growing well now.  And all of this is a comfort because last week the council came through weeding and tending, and the next day an entire planting of twenty or thirty plants began to wilt in the way that plants that have been poisoned do.  I have no idea why they decided on poison after almost a year in which they have come by several times.  The plants were getting to a nice solid size… and perhaps they were judged to be too big.  I guess a guerilla gardener has to take casualties in her stride and keep propagating…

2016-01-14 17.37.48

6 Comments

Filed under Neighbourhood pleasures

Tagged as , ,

January 4, 2016 · 9:14 am

Propagation for the guerilla garden

There have been a few questions about how I propagate plants for guerilla gardening.  So here it is, with pictures!  I collect seeds, often from public plantings, and then I plant them.  Preferably in spring.  For plants I haven’t tried before, spring is my first choice to grow from seed.  I plant close to the surface, because so many seem to me to come up at the edges of garden beds, beside rocks… some of them are coming up without being buried.

2015-12-20 16.58.01

I was originally planting seed direct into each pot.  However, I’ve had a lot of success with pricking them out, something I have never bothered with doing for vegetables!  So in the front here you can see tiny nitre bushes that have been pricked out at two leaves.

2015-12-20 16.58.08

In the front here there are wattles that have gone a little further.

2015-12-20 16.58.11

From there I just let them grown until they are big enough to hold their own if planted out into the world of passing dogs and foot traffic and the council poisoner.

2015-12-20 16.58.30

I am really pretty amazed at what I have been able to grow so simply.

2015-12-20 16.58.48

And now for quite unrelated eye candy of eucalypts flowering in my neighbourhood, and some bee happiness.

2015-12-21 14.07.05

So glorious!

2015-12-21 14.08.25

6 Comments

Filed under Neighbourhood pleasures

Tagged as

December 15, 2015 · 1:34 pm

Guerilla gardening resumes

It was a modest week in guerilla gardening, some weeks ago.  Action on one of my patches that was barren for years and then suddenly mulched and given a watering system seems to have stopped.  So I decided it might be safe to do some more planting.  Bladder saltbush, which has a lovely silver leaf, was the plant of choice, and I decided to try another creeping boobialla.  All those previously planted here were lost in the mulching.

2015-11-24 06.56.21

They look small in this big space right now.

2015-11-24 07.15.54

However, the weather is warm and this is growing season.  Some of the plants I put in during the cooler months are now a lot larger.

2015-11-24 07.16.09

Someone else seems to have planted a few things in this patch too!  This is all I took home.

2015-11-24 07.21.50

Then–a weekend planting spree after a long break.  We have already had out first day over 40C and there are more coming.  These little plants need to get into the ground.  So, there was pricking out of nitraria billardiera and dianella seedlings.

2015-12-13 12.10.34

I gathered up ‘old man’ saltbush, creeping boobialla, seaberry saltbush, water, and headed out.

2015-12-13 11.20.51

Baby seaberry saltbush went in in front of some I planted about a year ago. Thanks to the council for putting in a watering system, and connecting it to water (hence that brown pipe you can see)!

2015-12-13 12.08.23

Creeping boobialla went in beside a tall fence where some ruby saltbush are coming along.  Here is the close up:

2015-12-13 12.05.06

And here is the fence!

2015-12-13 12.05.11

You can see the new ‘old man’ saltbush in the darker patches near top right.  I have planted everything you can see growing in this patch.  An elderly man leaning on a walker came past, doing what must feel like a marathon through the neighborhood to him.  He congratulated me on my cleverness, bless him.

2015-12-13 12.06.38

With the summer weather, these plants are visibly growing despite the council not having connected the new watering system they put in here to any water source.  Three cheers for the hardiness of native plants!

 

 

 

 

 

 

9 Comments

Filed under Neighbourhood pleasures

Tagged as , , ,

November 9, 2015 · 10:49 am

Workwear for a suburban guerilla gardener

2015-10-27 18.50.54

Some months ago I had an idea.  I thought I would embroider my gardening shirt, or one of them. Once I had the idea, I couldn’t let it go.

2015-10-27 17.54.22

I had my beloved’s gift of Japanese indigo dyed thread and it felt so perfect for the job…

2015-10-27 18.50.34

But when I spoke with a friend about it she gently suggested that investing so much time and effort in something on the verge of falling apart might not be wise use.  She is a wise woman and gentleness is her way.

2015-10-27 17.44.02

I began thinking of the fabrics I already had, offcuts of linen, canvas and stout cottons.  It occurred to me that I had a Merchant and Mills pattern (The Top #64) that struck me as pieced, and that called for quite stout fabrics.  I thought over a kind comment here on the blog about using more than one type of fabric as a potential feature rather than a problem (thankyou!).  I started dyeing more fabric.

2015-11-06 14.51.31

And so two sets of offcuts from different generous friends found their way into various dyepots.

2015-11-06 14.52.18

I found that I didn’t have pieces big enough for the pattern pieces anyway–even with front and back each being made up of 4 different pieces of fabric, some parts of this garment were still pieced together from smaller segments.

2015-11-06 14.52.32

And now, here it is.  Embroidered with dye plants of the neighbourhood and the names of plants I have been propagating and planting.

2015-11-06 15.16.08

And a few other phrases of note.  There may be more yet to come!  And now you know how I came by so many scraps that I needed to Make patchwork as I went…

2015-11-06 15.16.21

20 Comments

Filed under Leaf prints, Natural dyeing, Neighbourhood pleasures, Sewing

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

November 6, 2015 · 9:35 am

More local planting

It was another beautiful pre-work morning…

2015-10-29 07.35.16

So I chose fine-leaved creeping boobialla and headed out into the neighbourhood.

2015-10-29 07.35.21

I was accompanied by a neighbour who spends a lot of time on the street and he talked a lot about what he thinks needs to happen about the place.  I kept planting.  He appreciates the plants, though he has a lot of grievances.  I guess we both think things could go better and we have different ways of trying to achieve improvement!

2015-10-29 08.02.31

I weeded out some of these patches, as it looks to me as though the plants that have died have been lost to poison and not natural causes. Those that were larger and further from the kerb have mostly made it.  The Olearias are bushing out.

2015-10-29 08.02.22

My earlier boobialla plantings are mostly doing well.

2015-10-29 08.02.16

Some of the rhagodias look good too.  I gave this one some company.

2015-10-29 08.11.06

It’s pleasing to see the places where my friends and I have been at work on this project for longer and there is now a leafy understorey.  The E Scoparias we have planted have all lived thus far too!

2015-10-29 08.10.42

Home again after some weeding and litter removal.

2015-10-29 08.10.53

I even scored some local lemons on my way home.  Extra good!

2015-10-29 08.15.26

12 Comments

Filed under Neighbourhood pleasures

Tagged as ,