Ooooh, MsBumble, that sounds like fun! I'd be right there with you if I weren't way down here in Monmouth County.

Actually, it sounds like the reverse of what I understood was "guerilla gardening", that being the collecting of plant material (seeds, cuttings, divisions) from roadsides, abandoned lots, or other locations - with permission, of course.

I hope some recruits will sign on soon so you can start your guerilla gardening. I know lots of areas could use a little care and beautification.

Diane

I want to say yes to this but I wonder how much time I have to do it? I've always thought about doing stuff like this.

Hmmmm. . .and after nearly thirty years of gardening in
Manhattan, I thought "guerilla gardening" was doing street
planting that discouraged and/or defeated vandals from
picking/stealing/destroying the gardens you created in public areas !

Learn something every day. . .

Carl

I've never heard of the term before.

I've always called it guerilla landscaping & I've done it at the college my daughter went to, & local roadsides, and a nearby state park. I do it with bulbs---daffs, muscari etc. Also orange daylilies to hold erosion prone banks.

I love the idea of reclaiming public space with gardens! I lean more towards tucking food-producing plants in nooks and crannies of the landscaping, since I am an apartment dweller with limited gardening space. Veggies are a bit high maintenance for guerilla gardening, but bulbs are great, and seedballs:

(http://permaculturetokyo.blogspot.com/2006/10/seed-balls.html)

are fun too, if you can get them to work.

I don't know if you all have read the book "Food Not Lawns" by H.C. Flores, but it is THE source for guerilla gardening/ community garden building inspiration. It's mostly about very outside-the-box permacultural food gardening, as well as community organizing and local activism. There is a loose knit organization formed around the idea of local gardening for food production-- mostly out west. I've been tossing around the idea of organizing a Food Not Lawns group here in NJ-- something like NYC's Green Guerillas (http://www.greenguerillas.org/) but out here in the suburbs and exurbs. Sounds like the responders to this post are spread all over Jersey (I'm in Trenton myself...) but if you'd like to talk about some ideas for regional projects, contact me!

foodnotlawnscentralnj@hotmail.com

The scouts did a seed ball experiment with wildflowers. Mostly they reported failure.