Glasgow Guerrilla Gardening

This Saturday then, 11:30 am. The Townhead Site. Just outside St Mungo’s Primary School on the lane connecting Stirling Rd and Parson St. It is just down from the ‘A’ on this map:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=parson+street+glasgow&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=19.983648,38.979492&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Parson+St,+Glasgow,+Lanarkshire+G4,+United+Kingdom&t=h&z=16

Unsure what to bring, just ask,

Once again a massive thanks to everyone who came out on Saturday, despite falling short of the number of volunteers we were hoping for we still managed to plant an amazing 600 Snakeshead Fritallaries, 200 Tulips, 30 Daffodils and 50 bluebells -just short of 900 bulbs.

That still leaves us with lots of bulbs to get in the ground before new year. I shall be doing some planting at some stage on Christmas Day, inbetween the usual family commitments. As a group we only have a further two planting sessions before the New Year. We’ll next be meeting at Townhead on 26th December at 11:30am and again on Wednesday 30th December at 12pm to get the planting finished.

In order to get things finished and move on with the site it is important that anyone who is available to help out with the planting comes along -even if it’s just for 10 minutes.

If you’ve never been to the site before it’s just over the road from the Glasgow Royal Infirmary on the lane that connects Stirling Rd and Parson St -at the side entrance to St Mungo’s primary. As we have bulbs to plant all you need to bring is a pair of gloves and a hand fork, trowel or a bulb planter.

Any help you can offer with this really would be much appreciated, if you’d like to attend please email us to let us know if we can expect you along on either day.

A massive thank-you to everyone who came along last Saturday, your help is as ever very much appreciated. However there’s still tons to do we have daffodils, tulips, fritallaries, alliums anemones, grape hyacinths and hyacinths that urgently need planted before the New Year.

As things stand I’m pondering the very real possibility of having to spend the earlier part of Christmas Day planting to get everything in the ground before the end of the month. Much as I enjoy gardening I’d rather be in a position to take Christmas Day off!

We’ll be meeting up this Saturday 19th December to plant the above bulbs at the usual meeting place on the lane that connects Stirling Rd and Parson St outside St Mungos Primary in Townhead at 11:30am.

If we can get roughly twenty folk out for an hour this Saturday it’s very likely that we’ll get the planting finished ahead of deadline and it really would be a shame to have come this far and fall at the last hurdle.
So far four people have confirmed they’ll be attending, all we need is another sixteen folk and we’ll be done in no time. Provided everyone sticks to the planting plan and pitches in to help the site should be very impressive come next spring, not to mention highly attractive to both people and wildlife alike.

As you may be aware we are an unfunded group (though we hope this will change over the coming months). That means every bulb that has been bought and planted is down to the donations and hard work of everyone who has helped out this year. Everyone who has been involved can rightly feel proud of their amazing achievement so far, we just need one final big push to finish on schedule. If you haven’t been along so far it’s not too late to be part of this remarkable piece of community action.

We have plenty bulbs for you to plant so all you need bring are a pair of gardening gloves and a trowel, small fork or a bulb planter. If you haven’t been along before, lack of experience is not a problem as I’ll be on hand to explain the very simple planting plan and give a bit of guidance if you’re unsure of anything.

If you have any questions or would like to help out please do not hesitate to get in touch via email.

A big thanks to all who came along last Saturday to help get the bulbs planted. We’ve only a few weeks to go before the 31st December and are aiming to have all the bulbs planted by then. To do so we really, really need your help.

We are not looking for any further donations of bulbs! Whilst we haven’t managed to get 1000 bulbs of each of the ten varieties we asked for we have received over 10,000 bulbs all in and now urgently need to get these planted.

On average one person can plant plant roughly 300 bulbs in an hour. So even giving up just half an hour to an hour of your time would be a huge help to us. All you need to bring is a trowel or a bulb planter or a fork, a pair of gardening gloves and yourself. Bulbs will be provided for you to plant so there’s no need to worry about what varieties to bring.

We’ll be meeting up at Townhead on Saturday 12th December at 11:30am, Saturday 19th December at 11:30am and Saturday 26th December at 11:30am. If you’ve never been along before we meet in the lane that joins Parson St and Stirling Rd just outside St Mungo’s Primary School. You don’t need any previous gardening experience or knowledge at all and we’d be delighted to see you, even if it’s only for 10 minutes planting.

Our aim is to have about ten volunteers turn up each Saturday between now and the New Year so feel free to bring friends, family and next door neighbours.

Bulb shoots are already popping up all over the site, we’re already on the way to spring 2010 being a blaze of colour but there is still room for improvement, so if you can spare just 10 minutes please come along and help out.

Let’s start off with a massive thank-you to all who braved the hellish weather at the weekend to get some more bulbs planted. Despite the low turnout and my abduction by the press an impressive amount of work was done with hundreds more bulbs planted.

Next week we’ll be back to our usual time of 11:30am up at Townhead and as ever there’s loads to do. This week should see the winter aconites and the last of the grape hyacinths planted. In addition I’ve been given a bag of daffodils and post permitting should have 1000 snowdrops, 50 wood anemone and 100 English Bluebells to add to the display.

We’ve done well to raise the funds we have but sadly we’re still short of our 10,000 target by some way. The council were in touch recently and made positive noises about helping us out with some tulips and daffodils which should hopefully see us reach our individual targets on those flowers. However we still urgently require 900 English Bluebells, 950 Wood Anemone and 300 Snakeshead Fritallaries. If the council let us down then we’re also still short by 600 mixed daffodils and 900 tulips. A total shortfall of around 3650 bulbs.

If you would like to donate to our funds then please do so via paypal. If you’d prefer to bring some bulbs along then we’ll be accepting donations of bulbs at Townhead if you’d like to come along and drop them off. We’ve only got until 31st December to meet our target and have done well despite some recent setbacks. It would be a shame to come this far and fall short so if you have any spare cash or bulbs we really would be very grateful for your donations.

We’ll be up at Townhead on Saturday 21st Nov at 11:30am, Saturday 28th November at 11:30am, December 5th 11:30am, December 12th 11:30am, December 19th 11:30am and Wednesday 30th December at 12pm. If you’d like to come along to any of these events with some bulbs of the still needed varieties, some gloves and trowel or bulb planter you’ll be more than welcome.

The next few weeks will see a big increase in activity as we get the rest of the bulbs planted. Already we’re on track for a bright and colourful spring 2010 having now planted over 5000 bulbs since launching our appeal. We’re still looking for more bulbs in order to reach our target so all donations of bulbs or cash are welcome.

We need the following bulbs in order to reach our 10,000 target – 1000 English Bluebells, 950 Wood Anemone, 700 Snakeheads and 500 Crocuses. If you can get your hands on any quantity of these no matter how small we’d be delighted to accept your donations.

We’ll next be meeting on the 7th November at 11:30 am to plant winter aconites and grape hyacinths as well as any donated bulbs you might have. We have 900 aconites and 1000 grape hyacinths waiting to go so the more folk who come along to help us with planting the better.

The next November meeting on the 14th November will be at a time later than usual because I’m taking part in a Gardeners Q & A at the Scottish Retirement show in the morning so we’ll be meeting up at 2pm at our Townhead site to plant some more bulbs and tidy up the falling leaves.

We’ll be back to our usual time of 11:30am on the 21st of November for more leaf removal and bulb planting.

The last dig for November will be at 11:30am on 28th November at Townhead and again the emphasis will be on bulb planting and leaf removal.

A big thanks to everyone who has donated or helped out throughout the year -it is thanks to your generosity and hard work that we are now so near our target. If you haven’t helped out yet but would like to become involved it’s not too late to join in. You can either come along to one of the digs to help out or even just to hand over some donated bulbs or make a donation via paypal using the donations button on this blog.

If you are coming along to a dig, please bring gloves and either a trowel, bulb planter or fork as these cannot usually be provided. If you’d like to bring bulbs any from the above list would be great or if you’d prefer to bring a plant we are very short of pansies, cyclamen and hellebores.

Thanks to those who turned up and especially the passers by who mucked in and helped plant the bulbs.

Thanks.

Location:   http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=parson+street+Glasgow&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=18.388688,30.717773&ie=UTF8&ll=55.864915,-4.237901&spn=0.00425,0.007499&t=h&z=17

Just south of the A on this map, on the path that links parson Street to Stirling Road.

What to bring???

A big thanks to all those who have been coming along and an even bigger thanks to those who have donated or contributed to the 10000 bulb campaign. As of Saturday we have planted around 4000 of our 10000 target.

some photos from Saturday 17th October 2009: