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.

Sorry Garlick, I hope I haven't dragged it down to AIBU level.

Oldraver those are like the ones I've been seeing around.. Loads more this year than in other years.

We're 'victims' of guerilla gardening and we blimming well love it!

Some local ladies have been sorting out the beds on our road, which were scrubby grass/weeds when we moved here six years ago. Now they are full of poppies/hollyhocks/um, other plants (not a gardener).

I would have done the same had I (a) green fingers and (b) time (I have children, work 60 miles away, DH is out most of the time) and (c) inclination.

we do water the beds when we can.

I think people like you, Methe, are fab. you give a shit. go for it.

Yes I've seen a lot of 'those' poppies. The street mine runs off has a very narrow grass strip between the pavement and hedges and many have let the poppies grow

There were a fair few in Morrisons car park as well

I love the thought of a silent invasion by Papaver Somniferum, and not only for its potentially calming effects on Mumsnetters Somebody's garden near me had a stunning display of them last week, but a heavy rain knocked them back.

I might have to buy some seeds and irresponsibly scatter them around a bit!

Oldraver They'll regrow (after being cut down) . They like ground disturbance apparently. Oh and full sun, mine have only appeared since we cut down a row of overgrown pines.

They're strong, mine bounced back after the rain storm and I now look out over a lot of pods!! Garlick

methe I reckon that a bit of positive reinforcement works with unreasonable people

Can I suggest that you try using seed from native uk wildflowers?There's lots of pretty ones to pick from and you'll support your local wildlife (particularly the insect populations) at the same time. Seed is cheap too!
Nothing beats a bank of oxeye daisies for me- soooo pretty.

www.wildflower.org.uk/wildflower-seeds/#ty;pagination_contents;/wildflower-seeds/page-8/

If you have any roads nearby with wildflower filled verges, have a look at them to get an idea of what will thrive in your area.

I love this idea. I have a box of wildflower seeds I'm going to mooch around the 'hood with the dog and see if anywhere is suitable to scatter them

TheOldest how lovely! It's nice to see people being engaged with their environment, and taking responsibility for making it nice, for us and for wildlife.

Garlick Ive never looked inside a poppy seed head - the seeds are tiny aren't they? I bet you'd get loads from one pod.. Maybe you could knock of the door of the house with the nice display and ask if you could have one and then spread the love.

ppeat I was really struggling to say anything positive

bolshy yes I think wildflower seeds would be a good idea. Until recently the verge was full'of litter and discarded bits of my charmng neighbours leylandii. The ground is very very dry and will be quite acidic too.. I live in the Black Country and its generally quite high ph and the verge is under a pine tree so there's a lot of pine cones and needles... It might be a challenge to get anything to grow there anyway. I will research.

I've got wild type poppies, foxgloves, lupines in the garden and I completely agree about the oxeye daisy.

Yes methe Not much will grow under pines, the seeds need to have the right conditions, if they grow happily who are we to say they shouldn't have been spread? (by whatever means)!! Try telling a hedgehog not to poo.!

Hmm, being able to spread itself really well isn't always a great thing in a plant, especially if it's an alien species with no natural predators. You could say the same about japanese knotweed or buddleia (both extremely invasive). If what you plant grows so successfully, then the chances are it is displacing and out competing a native plant. Please be careful about what you plant.

Plantlife and the RHS have some good advice on avoiding invasive plants.

www.plantlife.org.uk/uploads/documents/GARDENING_BOOK2.pdf

Birds guerilla garden so why shouldn't we? I love the way roundabouts and tree pits and verges are gardened more and more. I 'd rather see edibles and herbs though! We have a neglected verge which is a dandelion field in late spring. I would prefer cow parsley poppies wild orchids and cornflowers! I'm sure the birds and butterflies would too.

There's buddleia all over the place round here and himalayan balsam and I am trying to eradicate Japanese anemone from my garden without much success ( I wondered if this is what the PP was battling in her Garden as that and aquilegia have similar leaves and JN has a horrid ability to spread!] so I do have some understanding of invasive plants. I also work in housing so see the issues we have with knotweed!

Rest assured it'll just be native species :)

And don't worry about the lack of weeds.. I Have a very lady back attitude to weeds I my garden. Live and let live i recon :)

Japanese anemone sounds nice Methe I agree about weeds, I'm always looking for good ground cover, (my friend the organic seasonal smallholder here calls weeds wild plants) I use ivy in my garden which is lovely for the insects and birds.

Buddleia is smashing for the insects, it also has a sweet perfume, I'd far rather see that by the railways than sprayed nothingness.

It can look lovely but it is an absolute thug. I bought once whicj was supposed to be white but came out a really insipid pink colour. It's proving harder to eradicate than I thought!

I agree about the strayed nothingness too. Our local councils have drastically reduced their grass cutting budget which has greatly benefited the local wildlife but greatly enraged the local residents. Lol. I'd rather look at the long grass teeming with insects any day of the week!

I am no expert on this but there are some interesting summaries of scientific data on verge management in this report:

www.snh.org.uk/pdfs/publications/commissioned_reports/551.pdf

Especially p 41-45.

It should be noted that none of the recommendations involve no management at all - mowing is advised in every case, and there seems to be conflicting data on how regularly this should occur depending on which type of wildlife you're trying to support. The benefits and disadvantages of hedgerows and planting with native wild flower species are briefly discussed.

It should also be noted that there is a wide difference between grass (often a monoculture, e.g. lawn) and grassland (biodiverse). The verges in question in this report are not monoculture grass ones which would inevitably be lower in biodiversity almost by definition. I suspect that growing (or encouraging) a wide variety of suitable native plants is pretty much indisputably better than soil with scrubby monoculture grass.

Fascinating link shove . Our councils are mowing but very infrequently. One of the worst things the council have done recently is begin to mow the verges but not remove the trimmings, meaning the trimmings stay on the grass and decompose, raising the fertility of the soil and excluding many tradition grassland species. I'd rather they just left it alone, they've obviously never heard the old adage "if something's worth doing it's worth doing properly". I've been known to rake our local borders after they've been cut because the look so terrible. The council don't care, I emailed them a couple of years ago about it to no avail. They should either do it sensibly or not at at all. Humans have too much say in what goes on with things like this.

Buddleia is a right royal PITA and causes damage to railways and historic buildings. There's no solid evidence that it actually benefits the insects that visit it either (found this lecture on invasives, which discusses buddleia, really interesting www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/non-native-plants-a-london-perspective). Pretty doesn't necessarily mean good. Agree about the spraying though, although it may have been done to clear knotweed or buddleia.

Plantlife have a campaign to get councils to manage road verges properly methe
www.plantlife.org.uk/roadvergecampaign

Maybe you could contact them?

You should rope me in to tackle your japanese anemones, I always seem to kill mine without trying . I've given up with them now.

I enjoyed reading that article, bolshy, thankyou.
It didnt mention dandelions, though.

Are they non-native? I'm intrigued!

Buddleia isn't native to the UK, although you could be forgiven for thinking it is, given how widespread its distribution is. I expect it's not hated because it's so good for wildlife but it does terrible damage to buildings and is, IMO really quite ugly for the vast majority of the time.

Another non native but widespread plant is Ragwort. I've just driven home from work and the verges round here are absolutely infested with the stuff. I think the councils have an obligation as the landowner to remove it it's seriously dangerous stuff to livestock. Actually it might be the highways agency? I feel a Google coming on.

Ahh, did you meant the Japanese anemone? No idea.. Or dandelions? I don't mind them to be honest, I've got 3 hungry guinea pigs who would be very unhappy if there were no more dandelions

Dandelions- I never knew that they were problematic (other than being a pain in the lawn for my DH). Maybe it's an agricultural weed?

Dandelions are invasive in grass verges round here if they arent mowed and not very nice imo. Whereas I like buddleia and butterflies a lot.

Not quite the same issue, but on channel 4 news yesterday there was an item about an organisation that wants to plant birch trees and reintroduce lynx and wolves where the sheep currently roam (and have roamed for centuries) in the Welsh hills on the grounds it is somehow more authentic.

It made me realise I really think it is ok for people to guerilla garden if they want. I'd rather have pretty flowers and sheep than wolves any day.

Living things have evolved, so we are told, and changed with time and this evolution continues.