Glasgow Guerrilla Gardening

Late last year we had our 10,000 bulb challenge. Earlier in spring we had hundreds of daffodils, snowdrops and crocus flowering away. Right now, it is the turn of the Tulips to flower. It is a wonderful splash of colour. A big thank you again if you were involved in any way with the bulb planting.

Hello All,
If you were at our Saturday event you’ll know it was a piece of textbook Guerrilla Gardening. A great turnout, everyone brought plants,
seeds and water, got down to the job at hand and had a great time. So thanks to all who attended. If you weren’t there and want to know
what happened click here.

For those who didn’t attend, fret not. We’ll be at Townhead this Saturday 08/05/10 -a great turnout would be lovely, not to mention much needed.
Poor Mark and I have been holding the fort the last few weeks so it would be great to see new and old faces rally round. Our efforts over
winter have certainly paid of and there is no reason why summer can’t look as good as spring at Townhead provided we all pull together.

There is tons to do. Weeds need to be pulled, plants need dug up and moved, seeds need sown and palnts need planted.
Any help at all you can offer would be great.

If you want to bring a plant along we’re after Columbines, Oriental Poppies, Hostas, Foxgloves, Hollyhocks, Mexican Fleabane,
Sweet Woodruff, Ferns, Solomons Seal, Scabious or Campanula or see ‘What to Bring’ here.

If you want to bring seeds Dwarf Sunflowers, Poppies, Forget me nots, Candytuft, Nigella and Nasturtiums are all much needed and more than
welcome.

If you don’t want to bring anything but would like to help there are tons of weeds and litter killing the collective buzz and any help
in shifting them is always welcome.

Hope to see you all on Saturday.

Cheers

J.C

could you use a plentiful supply of these wild flowers?

National Guerrilla Gardening Sunflower day

Guerrilla Gardening / Seedbombing

Sat 1st May – 6pm onward

Location: Clyde walkway – Clyde St (just south of city centre) View Map

WAR ON TERRA

A subversive act of reclaiming a small part of the city that needs attention with interaction and fun. Working with nature to beautify an abandoned urban area in a short term mission with a long term outlook.

Get involved in some guerrilla gardening, seedbombing or both to make a positive impact in your urban environment!

What to bring (optional): a bedding plant / gloves / a trowel / sunflower seeds

No experience nessesary, just drop by and join in the responsible rebellion!

This is a Radius event in association with Kabloom and Glasgow Guerrilla Gardening

Facebook event page

Radius map

kabloom

A big thanks to everyone who turned out at the weekend to get the rest of the bulbs planted. The site is looking great just now and hopefully everyone’s continued hard work in 2010 will keep the site colourful all through summer and into autumn.

In addition to bulbs we also added Brook Thistle, Anemones, French Marigolds, Garden Pinks and a very generously donated conifer. The conifer wasn’t our only donation, a passer by impressed with the job that we’ve done over the last couple years on the site stopped to hand over a fiver which was used to purchase the Garden Pinks.

We next meet at Townhead on Saturday 24th April at 11:30am. There’s lots to do with plenty weeds and litter needing removed from the site. We will also be starting to plant out seeds -if you’d like to bring some seeds along we’re looking for poppies, nasturtiums, nigella and dwarf sunflowers. If you are bringing seeds you must also bring some water along to water them in with otherwise it’s highly unlikely they’ll germinate. As I do not drive I have to carry everything along to the site and cannot carry enough water for everyone so if everyone can bring along some water hopefully we’ll have enough for our seeds.

If you’d prefer to bring a plant we’re looking for Campanula, ferns (ideally Soft Shield Ferns or Common Polypody), Aquilegias (Columbines), Oriental Poppies, Foxgloves, Mexican Fleabane and Sweet Woodruff. Please note the links above are just for information for anyone unfamiliar with the above plants -I’m not suggesting you use these suppliers -though they are very good, if pricey. You should also be able to find most, if not all of the above plants and seeds from big DIY stores, garden centres, supermarkets, poundshops and the like.

I’ve been up at the site several times over the Easter weekend and have been very pleased to see that our hard work over winter is paying off with a fine display of daffodils and plenty other green shoots popping up meaning a lot of the site will be in bloom for the next couple of months. I have added 40 Alchemilla Mollis, 15 Foxgloves and 3 Columbines to the already colourful display and hope to have some Anemones, Burnet, Brook Thistle, Ox Eye Daisy, Echinacea, Musk Mallow, Wild Strawberry, Bee Balm and Red Valerian arriving later on in the week.

With that in mind it’s time to turn our attention to filling the gaps that will open up once the late winter/spring blooms have faded. We still have a couple of hundred monbretia bulbs which need planted before the end of April so any help at all with planting these would be greatly appreciated -we had hoped to get about 1000 of these planted this year, however there isn’t the time or the money to do so now but I’m sure the 250 added to the site will make for a fine display.

For those of you who are heartily sick of bulbs, you’ll be relieved to hear that once the monbretia go in we won’t be planting any other bulbs until August this year and will instead be focusing our energies on plants and seeds between now and August.

Seed wise we’re after Nasturtium and Dwarf Sunflower seeds as these both did well on the site last year-the various poundshops and supermarkets have lots of these seeds in stock quite cheaply if you fancy bring a packet along. With regard to plants the full list for Townhead can be seen here.

If that list offer to much choice to be going on with, you might want to focus your attention on perennials -ideally perennials that self seed/spread as these are the best way to make a big and lasting impact on the site without breaking the bank. Aquilegias (Columbines), Foxgloves, Sweet Woodruff, Oriental Poppies and Campanula are all fairly easy to lay hands on and would help us cover a lot of ground fairly quickly. So if you can help out by donating one or more of these plants it would be very much appreciated. Failing that a donation to the plant fund never goes wrong.

We next meet up on Saturday 10th April at 11:30am at Townhead, hope to see you all there.

I stumbled across this letter from an Anne Peters recently published in the Evening Times;

“If Selfridges aren’t going to do anything with their overgrown gap site in the Merchant City then perhaps it’s time Glasgow City Council called in the guerrilla gardeners.

It would be great to have somewhere nice to sit out, or a permanent base for the farmers’ market which regularly appears in Candleriggs.”

An excellent suggestion!

We next meet on 10/04/2010 at 11:30am at Townhead to plant Crocosmia bulbs, continue removing leaves and sow nasturtium seeds.

I was tending the plot at Wilson Street today when I was surprised to discover two small bushes had been added to the garden. It would appear that I am not alone in tending this patch. I’m delighted to be receiving help and would love to know who’s responsible. Can anyone help?