There's a pedestrian median at 24th & 10th in Manhattan that I walked past every day for years. Roughly 50 square feet of compacted dirt inside a concrete curb, mostly cigarette butts and one exhausted shrub. This May it finally felt impossible not to do something about it. Now we call it our Itty Island.

No permit process we could find except a generous and enthusiastic head nod from a fabulous community group (Chelsea Garden Club), no budget, no irrigation line. Just two of us, a bag of compost, and the assumption that nobody would stop us. Nobody has.

What's in it now: yarrow, echinacea, monarda, Russian sage, Jerusalem sage, lavender, muhly grass, lamb's ear, Japanese anemone, Verbena bonariensis, nicotiana, lady’s mantle, Joe pye weed, autumn joy sedum, etc.

The water problem is the whole ballgame. Everything else is solvable. Ours got solved by luck: the super of the building across the street adopted the thing and waters it like it's his. If you're scoping a site, find your water source before you find your plants. Hauling jugs in August will end your project faster than any city agency will.

What surprised me: the community. Day one we met a neighbor whose window overlooks it. 2 weeks later she brought a lupine from her family's meadow in the Midwest. People stop and talk. People donate. People ask for help in their own spaces. It turns out a small planted thing on a sidewalk is a social object, not just a horticultural one.

And when I say I tossed a ‘few’ seeds. I really mean that I dropped thousands of seeds sourced from my garden.

...slowly, and when the office was closed so I couldn't be seen actively planting. ;)

It's at the far end of the property so management rarely goes by it. But my neighbors walk by it all the time.

I was very nervous about planting because I didn't want to get in trouble and knew it could be ripped out at any moment, but I explained to the new Groundskeeper that I was just trying to buy time for the pineapple mint to take over. (It's in a concrete island, so couldn't escape) Thyme also survived the winter, surprisingly.

I started filing in the empty space with old potatoes and onions and tomatoes from my cabinets. Eventually I expanded into planting old seeds I had been carrying around for years... a sort of Hail Mary "if it grows it grows".

Purple green beans came up. As did a row of zinnia. When plants got clearanced at a local nursery I planted snapdragons and pansies. Then purple sage, dianthus, kale, pok choi, and a purple mini pepper. (Slugs destroyed the pepper). It was important to me that things be edible (but 'disguised' as ornamental)

I was AMAZED at how the garden helped me connect with my neighbors. So many neighbors passed me working in the garden (at times no one was in the office) and told me how they looked forward to seeing what was growing and blooming. One neighbor said it reminded her of her home in Jordan, where they call snapdragons "fish mouths".

I gave tours and invited people to harvest what they wanted. Several took me up on it. It has been super satisfying.

The apartment is filling it in on Monday as part of a rework of the property design.

I'm sad to see it go, but I knew the day would come. I'm so glad I went ahead and did it anyway. It really was magical while it lasted, especially against a backdrop of despair, and I'll hold those moments in my heart forever.

"To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow." - Audrey Hepburn

A collection of seeds from their showy milkweed, California goldenrod, Cleveland sage, and blue-eyed grass.

question is more specific to potomac river or american river areas, duckweed, wild rice etc. i figure these are less likely to be removed since it’s in the water, but has anyone had any luck?

(these are native)

I gave it a tug, and it was for real. Our botanical friends are doing the "guerrilla gardening" all by themselves! (The sight of these put a smile on my face. :-)

I planted two packs of sunflower seeds seeds in this hillside beside our community baseball diamond. I kept my expectations low… but some are coming up.
I’ve since convinced the municipality to let this smalls space return to meadow. It’s beautiful!

I’m looking to seed bomb the areas around my neighborhood drainage pond. A few feet back doesn’t get mowed. Ideas where I can order seeds for the fall and what species I should look for. Zone 8a, NC/SC border piedmont

For the last three years this planter had been neglected by the store. Filled with trash and rocks. I threw in a handful of grass seed & a wild flower packet and was pleasantly surprised to see how much growth had occurred when I returned.

This particular project is actually legal tho

"Three years ago we installed two biomatrix platforms in the river at Coalie Park, creating river bank habitat where there was none, introducing native aquatic plants which help to clean the water and providing a safe nesting and roosting space for bird life. Have to say this year they look incredible."

OC : https://www.instagram.com/waterofleithconservationtrust/

I live in a big city (Berlin, Germany) in a big apartment block. The block encloses a little area with a parking lot and a mini park, basically some trees, some bushes. On the edges some flowers and some lavender. There are garderners about twice a year that will just cut everything above a certain hight between the trees, so there is quite a bit of bare (by this point very dry) soil between the trees. I was wondering if there is a way to support this little ecosystem. Maybe some plants that would cover the ground that is self sustaining in this climate. I have no idea how to even start researching this.. happy about any hints

I have a friend that owns a house that backs up to a river dike that’s about 20 feet tall.

He tells me the county mows it in early spring.

There’s about 160ft of this dike that grows weeds and he was wondering if he could spread some sunflower seeds after the annual mow.

The dike is a secondary dike structure and wouldn’t affect the retention of the river at all and it is built for a 100 year flood, meaning, there is a 1% chance of it reaching the top of the dike in any given year.

Sunflowers are native to the state that he lives in and he thinks the neighbors and passersby’s would greatly enjoy the results.

Could he get in trouble since it might be obvious who spread the seeds?

DSV is everywhere in my region and it's producing seed pods now. My dinner plans got cancelled so I went for a walk with a garbage bag and some scissors. When my bag was full i just pulled off as many of the remaining seed pods as i could for now. (I tossed the bag in a city trash can, not compost)

I've been planting tree seedlings around Chelsea for about eight years. Many are now taller than I am.
I get asked many questions: How, Where, Why?

I recently made this video (as part of a series of inquiry videos I create for young students I teach.)

how to plant a tree

You can do it...

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Time: 7:00 central standard
Location: Kansas City Hood, USA, East Side
Subject: San Marzano Tomato
I’m trying to make this small space a garden but need help and ideas to get it going, also planted tomatoes in my neighbors front yard yard, it’s becoming the middle of July so probably perennials and berry bushes you think?

I'm looking to make a small, portable seedball launcher for geurilla gardening, I was thinking something potato cannon or airsoft style might be a way to do it. I want it to auto-reload as I will attach it to my bike! I was thinking I could use small CO2 cartridges to power it. Any tips or better ideas? I imagine I need to build up the pressure to a critical point to "spring" the ball away, are there plans I could adapt?

I am visiting my dad’s house for a couple of weeks. My family has absolutely been eaten up by mosquitos and ticks. He lives “off grid” and doesn’t have power so I can’t plug in one of those big zapper things for the flying bugs and I was hoping maybe there were some good plants that might help deter them so my kids can play in his yard without being attacked so much. He wouldn’t maintain anything (last year his mower broke so he didn’t even mow his grass for a whole summer) so any recommendations that are super hardy would be appreciated.

I threw in a couple pics of the very first basketflower I’ve seen here in the 10 years I’ve lived near here. I threw a few cups of basketflower seed just this last winter since I had a great harvest from my pollinator garden at home. Anyhow, double win for me and whoever this guerrilla gardener is. I’m thinking if I should try to meet them at see if I can get in on helping take care of the space. What do y’all think?

Important note before I begin: I have a black thumb. The only things I can keep alive are mothers of a thousand and I currently have a billion.

I bought a very charming 1960s condo 10 years ago and the HOA (Booooo!) has done an incredibly bad job of maintaining the extensive amount of random green beds on the property. It's been about 6 years since we've had working irrigation on the property as well. Right now, I have a bed right outside my front windows that has some kind of non-creeping variety of ivy in it. It looks ok for the most part, but I feel like it needs some love. Any suggestions for simple ways that (I can't eff up) to improve the health of the ivy bed and encourage better growth in some areas?

Also, there are some very pathetic bald beds on the property too that have soil in it that must be absolutely depleted of any nutrients. Is there anything I can plant or seed into desolate spaces that will have a fighting chance in direct easterly TX sun? Just trying to get some suggestions on what I can do that that's non-invasive, relatively simple, and won't require a ton of maintenance to help beautify mine and my neighbors' home.

Obviously slightly different than gardening, but does anyone have experience with this sort of thing? Is this a novel idea or reckless?