Does anyone do any Guerrilla Gardening?

[Methe]

I've just been for a walk and littered my neighbourhood with aquilegia seeds from the plants in my garden - not people's gardens but the verges and any other unadorned or neglected space. I'm also planning to 'adopt' a verge in my street to plant some flowers as I've run out of space in the garden.

has anyone else done anything like this? I wonder how long it'd take to notice a difference if I just threw all my collected seeds about the place.

And, indeed, bird poo

ppea opium?!

TheMotherOfAllDilemmas

Sorry you're battling the weeds but it's unlikely to be someone purposefully seeding your plot. My MIL has a barren wasteland for a garden.. It's literally Just slabs and concrete.. It makes me depressed as hell, especially as it has a lovely SE facing sunny aspect with a beautiful view. Anyway.. Every year she has flowery imposters and spends a fortune on glyphophate to short lived effect.

Nature always finds a way :) Guerrilla Gardening is just helping it along.

Does anyone have a list of plants it would be ok to spread the seed of?

YOu may think an area looks bare and ugly, but that is just your opinion. It doesn't give you the right to impose your particular taste on it, particularly as some of the examples given here would be very damaging, and quite apart from that, I hate unnatural, garish, manmade vivid plastic looking garden flowers Don't impose your personal preferences on me.

Right back at ya.

Why don't you tell us which examples would be bad, rather than being rude and offensive?

uk natives and not too blousy . I also like dog rose, woodbine and wild clematis which take up a bit more space. Ivy is actually very good insect fodder too, though destructive to brickwork.

I would be extremely upset if someone dumped aquilegia in my garden, I have been trying to remove next door's from my back garden for 3 years, as well as taking their ivy off my wall and out of my gutter, so I can choose my own plants and not be swamped by someone else's choice.

Wildflowers are pretty and lovely to see, in the right environment, and naturally seeded by birds. Seeding verges is a nice idea but if they spread to gardens, unwanted, it is not so nice.

I like to see a solitary, brave forget me not growing at the base of a wall, or a cornflower in a paving crack, they make me smile, as do the mixed wildflowers on traffic roundabouts.

The problem with chucking seeds about is that they have a tendency to end up in places where they are not always welcome.

I adopted some planters in my old neighbourhood that were filling up with weeds, rubbish and fag ends. The soil was gash though, I had to completely redig and mulch to get anything to grow. I just planted wildflowers that I hoped would be self-seeding in time along with plenty of native bee-friendly cuttings from my garden. I used to walk past them twice every day to pick DD up from childcare, so I would just chuck any rubbish and weeds in the bin as I went past! Where I live now isn't so neglected, so I'm sticking to my garden :-)

I would be extremely upset if someone dumped aquilegia in my garden I agree, and I find the idea of it being scattered on verges and "unadorned and neglected space" utterly hideous.

I am not being rude methe. I am expressing my opinion. You, on the other hand are interfering with and damaging the environment , imposing your own private preferences where they are not wanted and it is none of your business, and as I said before, I would consider this vandalism.

More native and wild plants on abandoned unused land do not damage the environment. They are the environment.

Wildflower do best on bad soil, you should not have to dig and mulch to plant wildflowers.

Oh of course you're being rude!

Our local supermarket is giving out seed packets at the moment, with instruction to plant in your own garden, or on wasteland. They are flowers that bees like. Is encouraging bees not a good thing then?

Bees bring more income to the UK than the Royal family.

Yes you guessed meglet !!! In our 2nd home in mid west Fr. so you guessed too methe

There NEED to be weeds it's true totally but you can't control what flies over your garden, (I think the Aussies are funny trying to stop non-natives coming into their country ,are they going to shoot all the passerelles?)

True Doreen.

Interestingly, the aquilegia I collected my seeds from wasn't something I had planted myself so must have been a bird.

I have no idea how you'd get opium out of a poppy.. Is it the sap?

No I think it's the seeds ;there are enormous pods on them now!

Methe, it may have been like mine, and sneaked under the fence. I liked it at first as it was in a patch of strawberries and other assorted things, presumably grown by children of previous occupants, I cleared the patch, covered it with cardboard and carpets and thought I would put grass there.

All that remained was the aquilegia, and it simply would not go so I planted a patch of wild flowers there instead. They looked such a mess this year that I have taken them all out (to re-seed elsewhere, I have a wood pile and overgrown patch for wildlife) and still cannot get rid of the aquilegia. Currently have covered it in membrane and gravel.

It is a shame as some of them are pretty but it is not what I want, they take over my garden.

Are you absolutely sure that it's aquilegia?

ppeat I googled and apparently the opium is in the seed pod and the top few inches of the stem. Who know eh! The knowledge might come in handy one day, I guess!

There is a little dry slope under an Oak Tree at the top of our driveway. New houses have been built there and their side has all been planted up properly.

I've hunted around my garden and the little bit if grass next to it and planted it up. Taking ages for things to establish but it does now look a big green and just noticed a little Hypericum is flowering. Something for people to look at whilst waiting for the bus.

Methe There's a story

Hesterton - that would be because of Incredible Edible in Todmorden - who took all the spare land and turned it to food growing spaces...many other groups have followed suit since. www.incredible-edible-todmorden.co.uk/

Well I'd much rather look at poppies and daisies than a bit of scrubland so I love your idea, OP. And yes, will help the insects and bees too.

I think guerilla gardening is great,particularly bringing edibles to public spaces.
Miss Willmotts Ghost is a plant,called such,because wherever Miss Willmott went she would sprinkle the seeds.She died decades ago,but is well remembered and respected.

I've read that story about Miss Wilmott and having tried and failed to get her ghost to survive in my garden I'm mystified by her success at seeding it everywhere