Spread a little happiness
An article in the Observer recently featured an altruistic gardening technique that could change our urban and rural environment for the better (if global warming allows).
Richard Reynolds, living in that well-known haven of horticulture - South London's Elephant and Castle - decided to realise the potential of municipal flowerbeds. Instead of litter they could be filled with lavenders and tulips. Seeds of native wild flowers could be scattered secretly onto grass verges, neglected sites stealthily planted up under cover of darkness.
The Guerrilla Gardening (a term coined over thirty years ago by New York's Green Guerrillas) website catalogues the before and after of many of these transformations - with tips on how you might embark on your own mission and links to various worldwide projects.
Reading about this illicit cultivation brought to mind train travellers from the days when train windows could still be opened - 'accidental' guerrilla gardeners who would throw apples cores or plum stones onto the railway embankments, sometimes germinating to create a welcome break from the endless banks of rosebay willow herb and brambles.
For useful tips and to see what' guerrilla gardeners have planted from Leeds to Milan go to:
