Glasgow Guerrilla Gardening

After a long weather imposed break, we’ll be making a start on work for 2012. Despite the lack of gardening activity we’ve made good progress towards getting constituted with sufficient volunteers having at last made themselves known to allow us to meet the legal requirments for constitution.

As ever we’re always on the look out for new volunteers to help with gardening, litter picking, maintaining the website or committee/fundraising work. So please get in touch if you feel you have something to offer.

Our first dig of 2012 will be on Saturday 4th Feb at Townhead in Glasgow. There has been considerable storm damage at the site with a few trees being lost so any help at all you can offer would be appreciated. We’ll be meeting at Townhead outside St Mungos Primary on the lane that connects Stirling Rd to Parson St at 11:30am and expect to be there for about two hours.

We next meet up on Saturday 25th June at our Townhead site. There’s lots to do -weeding, sowing, litter removal and general tidying up so we’d love to have you along if you fancy helping out. We have lots in flower just now with plenty of bees and insects coming to see us, so the site is well worth a look.

We meet at 11:30am on the lane that connects Stirling Rd and Parson Street just outside St Mungos Primary School in Townhead.

You don’t need to bring anything though I’d recommend gloves as a minimum. If you have a trowel or fork these come in handy for planting and are worth bringing along. If you have any plants or seeds to spare feel free to bring them along but it isn’t essential.

A big thanks to everyone who helped out today and I hope to see you all next week.

I spent a very enjoyable few hours up at Townhead today, every week new shoots are appearing and more spring bulbs are blooming. We currently have a very nice display of hellebores and primroses on the site, so it’s well worth talking a stroll by if you’re in the area.

We continue to get great feedback from the public for all our hard work on the site. Today I was awarded a banana by a passer by which provided a welcome snack and excuse to pause for a break.

All in all I managed to get a fair bit done and have added teasel, hardy geraniums, quaking grass, yellow loosestrife, primula, poached eggs and sweet rocket to the beds for what fingers crossed should be a colourful display come summer. Removing the debris of autumn and winter continues and there is still loads to do so any help, even just a quick half hour is welcome.

We next meet as a group on the 26th Feb and it would be great to see a few old and new faces come along.

A big thanks to everyone who came out to garden this morning. Despite the sporadic showers it wasn’t a bad day and we got lots done with a selection of perennials, crocosmia and seeds planted. The bulbs we planted over winter are still looking good. The crocuses are beginning to die down but are being rapidly replaced by Winter Aconites, Snowdrops and Daffodils.

Not much to report in the way of wildlife this week just one large Queen Bee, a Wood Pigeon and a gaggle of ordinary Pigeons.

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

I spent a very happy and productive morning up at Townhead planting Cardoon, Brook Thistle, Mexican Fleabane, English Mace and Wild Garlic. The site continues to look very colourful with yet more crocuses in bloom, the first daffodils flowering and a few snowdrops popping up here and there.

I also saw my first bees of 2010, always a welcome sight! There were three very large bumblebees rolling about the crocuses like drunks as I arrived at the site and a few of their friends flew in and out during the course of the morning.

We also had a visit from a Thrush collecting leaves and twigs for her nest as well as some wood pigeons, common pigeons and a less welcome visit from some vast seagulls.

Oh I must say a big thank-you to whoever has been up at the site and given our roses a much needed prune. I’m slightly embarrassed at not having got round to this task myself but very grateful at being able to score something else off my to do list.

We’ll be meeting up again at 11:30am on Saturday 27th March, to see what we’ll be doing and what to bring please refer to this post.

A big thanks to everyone who came along on Saturday. For those of you weren’t there I can highly recommend a walk past the site over the next week or so, the first of the crocuses we planted over winter are out and the site is starting to look very colourful. The daffodils look set to bloom next and hopefully the other bulbs we planted will be following suit shortly. We also have a lot of primroses and a few hellebores in bloom just now as well which further enhance the cheerful look of the site. As if that wasn’t enough we had a brief visit from some blue tits as well as the usual pigeons. I felt quite tearful, in a joyous way at finally seeing our hard work over the bleak winter pay off.

Still a gardeners work is never done so we’ll next be meeting on 27th March at 11:30am at our Townhead site to continue planting. We’re hoping to add 1000 Crocosmia bulbs to the site between now and May. If you’d like to help out with this you can either donate via paypal on this site, buy some Crocosmia bulbs (any variety) to bring along or just turn up with gloves a trowel or bulb planter to help us get the bulbs in the ground. Crocosmia bulbs are also sometimes referred to as Monbretia and are available from garden centres and various online retailers. I purchased 250 from R&H Garden Supplies but there are other retailers selling them in smaller quantities. eBay is a good place to start if you’re stuck.

If bulbs don’t appeal we’re still on the look out for more primroses and hellebores. These are available from garden centres, online plant retailers and quite cheaply from Morrisons supermarket.

If you’re sick of Primroses and Hellebores then you might want to consider purchasing some of the following plants, Foxgloves, Solomons Seal, Ramsons, English Lavender, Alchemilla Mollis or Thyme. A word of warning on Foxgloves -you’ll often see these for sale individually in big pots at garden centres -ignore these expensive plants and instead look for the smaller ones sold in trays of six. They’re about half the price of the big Foxgloves sold singly and much better value for money.

Finally if you don’t want to bring a plant there’s still plenty for you to do to help out. We still have an alarming amount of leaves to be shifted, bulbs to be planted and litter needing picked up and help with these is always very much appreciated. Incidentially it would appear that we are attracting a better class of litter lout these days, on Saturday I was surprised to find an empty bottle of Chilean Merlot abandoned on our site rather than the usual Buckfast bottles and Transform-a-Snak packets we’re more used to.

Here is a short interview with Richard Reynolds on The Browser in which he discusses five books which have inspired him in his guerrilla gardening activities. It looks an interesting list and should be of interest to anyone involved in guerrilla gardening. I’ll certainly be adding a few of the titles to my never ending list of things to read.

Returning to books I have got round to reading I can highly recommend Richard Reynolds On Guerrilla Gardening: A Handbook for Gardening without Boundaries
and Chris Baines very readable How to Make a Wildlife Garden