The best-laid schemes of guerrilla gardeners

Posted on August 13, 2021 by Ian Kinross

While I was out of town, my community garden compatriot Ann McGuire kindly offered to check in on the little garden I had adopted and tended at a busy Toronto street corner.

Ann dropped by to water and check on the mix of existing perennials declaring themselves, as well as the new pots of geraniums I had added during my spring guerrilla garden mission.

The garden was coming into peak form — “filling in and looking summery,” as Ann put it. She identified a couple of perennials that were putting on a show — like the succulent sedum, with its touch-of-pink blooms, and two-toned phlox, vivid against the dark green of an ornamental conifer.

The site of the adopted garden is on the grounds of a local church that runs a weekly food bank program in this neighborhood. I decided to spill the beans to the church pastor. A few days later, Pastor Jim replied to my email:

“Thank you for your kindness and helpfulness in caring for our garden. I noticed that someone had beautified it! It has been a challenging time for a lot of people, and our food bank does keep us occupied.” The Pastor agreed to chat more later about the role of the food bank in this east end community.

Meanwhile, back-up guerrilla gardener Ann, a retired teacher and volunteer at the Toronto Botanical Garden, went down with a gardening injury. A misstep at her community garden plot resulted in some tendon damage. Ann soldiered on with her community garden plus watering trips to the guerrilla garden, while getting physio for her ankle. On a visit back to the big city, I swooped in to do some weeding to help out.

Ann quoted poet Robbie Burns’ line: “The best-laid schemes o’ mice and men gang aft agley.” Indeed, our best gardening intentions can often go awry, but we will find a way.

By August 2021, the bulk of work has already been done to improve the guerrilla garden. The injured Ann drove by to check on the site at Pape and Cosburn Avenues and reported that: “the garden looks quite full, lots of colour, small shrubs creeping and crawling into the empty spaces.” Mother nature also cooperated, with some rain through late summer.

The garden adjoins a busy bus stop and bright red public bench, where many local residents can take a load off in the hot summer.

The guerrilla garden will get more attention come this fall. Robbie Burns’ “Ode to a mouse” rings true — gardening plans often go sideways, and every which way, instead of straight ahead. But we will forge on.

Thanks Ann for the teamwork!

Imagining a Tree Corps for Thorncliffe Park

Posted on August 4, 2021 by Ian Kinross

On a smoking-hot summer day in Toronto, the cabbies hang out at the gritty East York Town Centre’s parking lot in Toronto’s Thorncliffe Park neighbourhood. They know where to stay cool — they’ve found a few small strips of cooling shade from the few trees planted in the mall’s vast concrete parking area.

The cabbies banter, have a smoke, and eat a brown-bag lunch. It feels livable here in the shade, on a scorching day when most folks are trying to stay inside and crank up the AC. Like a little oasis.

One steamy summer day in July, I decided to walk about 7 kilometers from our home in leafy Riverdale to my community garden at Thorncliffe Park. The heat kicked up across the O’Connor viaduct bridge. As I got across the valley bridge and turned into the Thorncliffe neighbourhood, my eyes scouted ahead to find the best shade. I instinctively adjusted my route to stick to the shady spots. I stopped once to take out my hearing devices, toweled down my sweaty head, and tromped on.

Next to the community sports field and playground, there was some great shade from mature trees. But as I got closer to the Thorncliffe mall, the task of finding shade was trickier. Trees were fewer, smaller, and sicker. I clung to some shade along the brick wall of the elementary school, then made a beeline across the heat blanket of the mall’s parking lot for a cluster of trees next to the Quick Lube oil change shop.

In this vast parking area, thousands have people have stood in a snaking line this year waiting for their covid vaccines — sandwiched between a hot sun, and the heat reflecting off the concrete.

Sign of the times: *Thorncliffe mall parking lot next to the elementary school.*

On the hottest summer day in Toronto in 2021, the temperature can top 36 degrees Celsius. But with climate changes underway, that peak is expected to edge well over 40 degrees by mid-century.

Middle income or wealthy neighborhoods have more cooling shade — their tree canopy is older and better maintained. Lower-income neighborhoods like Thorncliffe Park are hotter. It’s tougher to find the shady, liveable spaces on a hot day — the places that cool our bodies and ease our minds. In addition, wealthier neighbourhoods have better air-conditioning, and those AC systems pump hot air outside, increasing the temperatures for those coping with no AC.

It’s a small step, but we need more trees in Thorncliffe Park, I thought.

As I returned to guerrilla gardening this summer, I got some inspiration on the topic of guerrilla tree planting as one way to keep our city liveable in the years ahead. The first story came from my fellow community gardener Debi Rudoph. In the space of about 15 years, a small maple tree she planted clandestinely at a local grocery store now shaded a public sidewalk nearby. It created gorgeous colour in the fall.

The second inspiration was a video shared by my brother-in-law Darcy McGovern. It tells the tale of guerrilla gardening efforts in New York City. One of the most inspiring was the story of Hattie Carthan. She had witnessed her beloved Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn slowly fall into disrepair. As its black population increased, mortgage lenders used the discriminatory practice of “red-lining” to deny loans to residents. Homes fell into disrepair, as did city streets, sidewalks and infrastructure.

One of the saddest declines was in the neighborhood’s tree canopy, as older trees were not maintained or replaced. With a fierce determination, Hattie became an activist. She formed a local Tree Corps. The group not only saved some existing trees, including an ancient and magnificent Magnolia, but over the course of years planted and maintained more than 1,500 new trees in public areas of their neighborhood.

The Tree Corps. engaged people of all ages to understand and nurture their tree canopy. Slowly, they brought back some beauty, pride, and cooling shade to their beloved “Bed-Stuy”.

As I wandered through the central section of Thorncliffe Park — the mall, school and park that are its lifeblood — I imagined how more trees could enrich this community.

My first thought was selfish — I could plant trees along my own walking route, to keep me cooler in the summers ahead. But I also thought about the thousands of people getting around on foot in Thorncliffe Park on a hot summer day. Coming through the park walkway to the mall. Taking the sidewalks to catch a bus, often in the scorching heat of the sun. Waiting for the bus with no shade in sight, like I have done many times.

I thought about community engagement in Thorncliffe through its Neighborhood Office, community gardens and businesses. And about the immense goodwill of its people.

I imagined a tiny band of willing guerrilla gardeners who would form the first-ever Thorncliffe Park Tree Corps.

Kudos to our guerrilla garden challenge winners

Posted on July 25, 2021 by Ian Kinross

This spring, I threw down the gauntlet. As I mucked about in my gardening gear to try to beautify a city intersection, I made a call for others to take up the guerrilla garden challenge.

Congrats to our five winners — Jayne Rutledge-Fogarty, Debi Rudolph, Donna Spreitzer, Ann McGuire, and my Mom, Sheila Kinross. They’ve all inspired us in different ways.

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— Jayne cast seeds originally saved by her Dad, creating floral colour on a hiking trail near her home in B.C.

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— Debi took covert action to plant a young maple tree on a grassy spot at a nearby grocery store; as it matures, the tree now shades folks on the public sidewalk nearby.

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— Donna has been on a mission to weed out invasive species such as the dog-strangling vine — to protect native species in the Don Valley eco-scape.

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— Ann donated teamwork and horticultural knowledge at this year’s guerrilla gardening mission — providing some TLC to a little perennial garden at an intersection near the neighbourhood’s biggest food bank. As a community gardener, Ann has also donated her produce to the food program at the Scott Mission.

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— And my Mom, Sheila, and some fellow residents at her TO retirement home, rolled up their sleeves to beautify a local parkette. Their colourful annuals such as begonias, geraniums and impatiens complement existing plants like white hydrangea — a little oasis after a long winter and the latest covid lockdown.

Our winners received some herbs and flowers from my private collection, and copies of my blockbuster: The tiny gardens that could — a tale of two guerrilla gardeners in the heart of the big city.

Making us think

But more importantly, they made us think about our environment, about public and private space, about food security, and our natural world.

Thanks also to my brother-in-law Darcy McGovern for sending along a video about the Tree Corps project in gritty area of New York City. Citizens banded together to plant trees to increase the urban canopy — to level the playing field in poor neighborhoods where a lack of trees amps up the heat. I will profile this and add some thoughts in a subsequent blog.

Also to Tim Reynolds who sent along a cool piece about “guerrilla grafters” — who secretly grafted fruit-bearing branches onto ornamental city trees.

Kudos to my fellow guerrilla gardeners, past, present and future — thanks for the inspiration.

Garden revelations

Posted on July 12, 2021 by Ian Kinross

It’s a steamy 30-degree summer day in Toronto but the little parkette next to Mom’s retirement home offers some shade and a breeze. Five seniors, two volunteers and the program director have gathered again for the weekly garden club. We’re beautifying a parkette that has now hosted the home’s first live music event — a violin and cello duet — since the start of the pandemic.

As the summer hits its peak, some perennials, like big-leafed green hosta and blooming white hydrangea, are revealing themselves in glorious displays.

Meanwhile, the seniors have been busy planting annuals to add seasonal contrast and fill in empty spaces. Mom finishes up planting impatiens and begonias between green-and-white euonymus shrubs circling the water fountain. I follow her, weeding out maple-seedling interlopers. She may not remember today’s garden activity but next time we are here I will point out her garden handiwork.

Resident Lee and volunteer Nadine plant some multi-coloured begonias in a tall planter next to a garden bench. Down the walkway, Mark, the recreation program director, is digging over some soil to fill in a bed of impatiens, with assistance from residents Elaine, Mary and Jane. The garden bed there is more than waist high and much easier for seniors to reach and work. Two other resident members of the weekly garden club — Chrystia and Merle — couldn’t attend today but have already helped the group create magic in this tiny garden.

In fact, this parkette is designed perfectly for seniors — its gentle switchback pathway affords lots of room for mobility devices. Those taking the path or the set of stairs now run a gauntlet of greenery and bold blooms.

The parkette is dedicated to Canadian composer Ernest Seitz, who once lived in the Bradgate Arms Hotel in this St. Clair West neighbourhood, long before the hotel became a retirement home. “Sunrise Park” is named after his hopeful and famous song from a hundred years ago: “The World is Waiting for the Sunrise.”

Elaine had showed up for this week’s session about 20 minutes early, so we chatted on a bench next to the fountain. I learned that her career was in social work with Children’s Aid in the Toronto area. She recalled the challenging circumstances of her young clients. Over the years, she helped so many of them navigate difficult early years.

Elaine’s sweetest story was about one of those young clients, a boy whom she worried about and cared about like many others — the boy who became her adopted son. These days, he is her “essential visitor” — driving down into the city to see his mom during the pandemic.

Because retirement homes were at high risk for covid particularly in the early days of the pandemic, each resident was allowed a maximum of two essential visitors under provincial regulations. Now that vaccination rates have risen and cases have fallen, retirement homes have been allowed to slowly loosen precautions. For example, small group programming resumed, and general visitors are now allowed with precautions.

Today’s garden session winds down. Mark has brought some bottled water to help us beat the heat.

The group takes a break in the shade after another afternoon of creativity — and garden revelations.

Good Samaritan — a true tale of guerrilla gardening

Posted on June 30, 2021 by Ian Kinross

Sometimes a guerrilla gardener needs back-up.

My friend Ann McGuire meets me at the southeast corner of Pape and Cosburn Avenues. This neighborhood mixes high-rise apartments, post-war homes, light industrial businesses such as autobody shops, as well as retail and restaurants. It is a gritty counterpoint to the tonier Danforth Avenue to the south.

Ann is seeking some shade on the steps of the Bethany Baptist Church on a steamy morning in late June. Underneath the church’s hand-painted Food Bank banner is the tiny garden that this guerrilla gardener has chosen to nurture this year. Nothing fancy, but over the course of several covert missions this spring, the garden has been:

— watered and weeded, revealing an eclectic mix of perennials

— received minor repairs to its brick perimeter

— welcomed two new red geranium arrangements, adding a splash of colour, and

— refreshed with a new cover of forest-brown mulch to preserve moisture and keep down weeds.

As a truck pulls up to deliver pallets of food for this week’s food bank (supplying local residents in need, “no questions asked”), Ann and I inspect the tiny garden.

Ann knows her stuff. As a retired teacher and long-time community gardener, she is also a volunteer at Toronto’s Botanical Garden. I point to a mystery perennial that is arising from the mulch. Buds are forming above its thick, light green leaves. “That’s Sedum,” Ann says, noting the star-shaped flowers emerging on stems.

She has a closer look at two shrubs growing around my token pot of geraniums and declares that they are a dwarf variety of cedar. Vigorous hostas show off their wide leaves and first white flowers. A volunteer milkweed plant rises, perhaps to attract the Monarch butterflies that have reached the city from their winter home in Mexico.

The church has obviously put some care into designing and planting this garden. Our mission this year is simply to give it some TLC. The garden fronts a tiny but popular public space. Many area residents take advantage of the red city bench nearby to take a load off, sometimes on the way home from a shopping trip. Others wait on the bench, or in the bus stop close by, for a TTC bus. An artist has beautified a drab hydro box at this corner, using it as the canvas for a colourful mural.

In the wee hours, the city bench on this gritty street corner hosts a few impromptu parties. The guerrilla knows this because he sometimes must dispose of the evidence — like a cigarette lighter or a Mars bar wrapper tossed into the shrubs.

*Hosta and geraniums bloom at the tiny garden*

The guerrilla gardener will be out of town for awhile, and Ann has kindly agreed to check in on the tiny garden periodically to do some weeding and watering. She is truly a guerrilla garden Good Samaritan.

To beat the heat, we walk half a block north to the Serano Cafe, a nice meeting spot on the east side of Pape Avenue, with a patio offering morning shade. This cafe is an offshoot of the popular Serano Greek bakery further south on Pape.

As we chat, I learn that Ann is also being a Good Samaritan to one of our fellow community gardeners, Mike Murakami. While Mike recovers from some health issues, Ann has kept in touch with him to offer help. This week she made some tasty cake featuring the red currants from Mike’s Thorncliffe garden plot — and delivered it to Mike in his apartment.

Ann must head off for her volunteer shift in the library of the botanical garden. We part ways. The tiny garden at Pape and Cosburn is in good hands.

Ann is the fifth friend to take up the Guerrilla Garden challenge in 2021. For more on the exploits of this year’s brave band of guerrilla gardeners, see previous posts in this blog.

And here’s to Good Samaritans.

My Mom — the original Guerrilla Gardener

Posted on June 23, 2021 by Ian Kinross

Mom is at it again. With a group of half a dozen fellow gardeners living at her seniors home, she is beautifying a little park next door.

It was a tough winter for seniors living under covid restrictions. Spring offered a chance to get some fresh air and add some splashes of colour and greenery at the tiny Sunrise Park just a stone’s throw from the front entrance of Revera Bradgate Arms.

The parkette, used by local residents, is dedicated to Toronto resident Ernest Seitz, who composed the popular song The World is Waiting for the Sunrise a hundred years ago. The title is apt as the world turns the corner on the global pandemic.

As the city warmed up this spring, my Mom Sheila and her fellow residents took to the garden to plant geraniums, gerbera, impatiens, begonia, delphinium, marigold, cosmos, pansies, petunias and other annuals. They uncovered perennials like roses in need of some TLC. They weeded, watered, clipped, mulched and tidied, transforming patches of dirt into palettes of living colour. They set up hummingbird feeders. They wore out the program staff and volunteers who helped. They shared stories about the gardens they had loved and nurtured in Toronto, Leamington, Port Hope, Saskatchewan and beyond.

Gardening as a senior is not easy — health, mobility and strength challenges can make simple tasks difficult. But these seniors persevered.

On a sunny weekend in June, the parkette they are beautifying hosted the first live music concert at their retirement home since the beginning of the pandemic — a cello/violin duo.

Mom’s a lifetime gardener, and when she and dad moved from their house to a condo in retirement, she became a guerrilla gardener, maintaining three flower beds to beautify public space in a nearby Don Mills park. When she downsized again, she gardened covertly but happily in a parkette near the Rosedale Subway Station, sometimes walking there three times a day to keep the flowers watered on steamy summer days. Her tiny garden put a smile on the faces of many passersby.

Her best gardening days may be behind her, and memory and health are a challenge, but in summer 2021 Mom is back at it. And as restrictions eased, she visited one of her favourite places — Edwards Gardens in Don Mills, now the Toronto Botanical Garden.

A shout out to Mom and her fellow gardeners. And to Revera recreation staff Mark and PJ for their inspiration, hard work and support throughout the pandemic.

Mom is the fourth gardener to take up the Guerrilla Garden challenge this year. For stories of Jayne’s seed scattering, Debi’s tree-planting, and Donna’s native species stewardship, see the previous posts in this blog. Who will be next?

Two-tiered garden beds planted by Revera Bradgate Arms residents this spring.

Strangler wrangler — a true tale of guerrilla gardening

Posted on June 15, 2021 by Ian Kinross

European Swallow-wort — better and perhaps more accurately known as Dog-strangling Vine — is considered an invasive species in Ontario. With its innocuous greenery, this perennial herb sneaks up on native plants and twists its stems around them like a python crushing its prey.

Whenever Donna Spreitzer sees it, she weeds it out.

“I will step into gardens in my neighborhood and snip it out,” says Donna. “I don’t think most people know what it is, or that it is invasive. I am quite horrified at how the Don Valley is full of it.” She recommends putting the weeds in garbage, not compost, to ensure seeds do not spread.

The vines can grow up to six feet long and will use other plants as structural support, literally choking out the competition. The plant may have been brought to North America originally as an ornamental plant.

Donna, who is the Executive Director of a busy daycare in Toronto, also wears the cap of the Stranger Wrangler, a guerrilla gardener taking action to protect native species. “I know that pulling the vine won’t make it go away but at least it will stop it from going to seed and spreading.”

The Dog-strangling Vine is indeed prolific, with its multi-embryo seed pods. I found some twisting around my red currant bush recently and quickly pulled out the invading plant’s stems and pods.

Donna and her husband Scott are veteran gardeners in both city and country. East of Toronto, they operate a small farm growing crops and vegetables. Donna has been known to haul a pick-up truck full of home-grown pumpkins to give away to neighbourhood families at Halloween.

Donna is the third winner of the Guerrilla Garden Challenge. She will receive a copy of my sweet story: “The Tiny Gardens that could…. A tale of two guerrilla gardeners in the heart of the big city.” Plus she gets her pick of a plant from my private collection.

Congrats Donna! Keep up the great work and thanks for sharing your story!

Donna in the Don Valley

Made in the shade — a true tale of guerrilla gardening

Posted on June 9, 2021 by Ian Kinross

In the smoking heat of summer, the city needs all the shade it can get. Near the exit of a busy supermarket in east-central Toronto stands a sturdy, teenaged Sugar Maple with a broad canopy. It’s the eco-product of some urban guerrilla gardening by local resident Debi Rudolph.

She and her husband were taking advantage of a city tree program, but when their tree arrived and was planted by a city crew, it was not the Silk tree the city had promised. So Debi found a perfect spot for the baby Sugar Maple nearby, replacing a deceased tree on the boulevard at a busy Sobey’s grocery store. The Maple has thrived, providing an ever-growing shade circle at the intersection of a city sidewalk and the Sobey’s exit.

“Rather than wait for the city to do something, I simply moved it over to the Sobey’s boulevard, which obviously needed a tree,” Debi recalls. “Then I called the city and asked, ‘When are you bringing my Silk tree?’ A week later they showed up with the right species. They never asked about the Sugar Maple, and nobody at Sobey’s ever mentioned anything about the sudden appearance of a baby tree on their property either. So it’s all good!”

Over the next few years, Debi lavished TLC on her guerrilla tree. “I watered, mulched, and pruned that baby for the next four years, just to make sure it survived.”

Debi’s maple

Debi admits to feeling some guilt about planting a ‘stolen’ tree on a grocery store’s property, but the tree is thriving. Native to eastern Canada, sugar maples can live 200 years or more and when mature tower more than 100 feet tall, with a wide canopy. In fall, they put on a spectacular show of multi-coloured orange, red and yellow hues. In spring, they can be tapped for Canada’s sweetest crop: maple syrup. Urban trees like Debi’s help citizens beat the heat and a green canopy can improve mental health in the concrete jungle.

Debi, a landscape design specialist, and a fellow community gardener at Thorncliffe Park, sometimes walks down into the Don Valley nearby to harvest crabapples for jelly in fall. More guerrilla gardening is in store, she says:

“I do have plans to take cuttings from that crabapple tree in the valley and plant babies up and down the valley. Whatever variety that tree is, it’s really hardy and fairly disease resistant, so l want to make sure there are more of them around.”

Debi Rudolph

For more true tales and exploits of guerrilla gardening, visit kinrosscordless.com

Seeds of hope — a true tale of guerrilla gardening

Posted on June 6, 2021 by Ian Kinross

Hikers along the hydro line near Powell River, B.C. sometimes stop to admire some vivid red poppy blooms, not knowing that the gorgeous flowers grew from seeds cast by a fellow hiker, Jayne Rutledge-Fogarty.

“It all started with my dad and his seed collecting,” says Jayne, an artist, photographer and vintner.

“He would ask people if he could mark the flower with a piece of string and later collect the seeds. When he died, we found old film containers full of seeds, so we mixed them all in a bowl and divided them three ways among my brother, sister and I.”

The seeds originally collected by Jayne’s dad, Floyd, are the gift that keeps on giving.

“I scattered mine at my home in Powell River and along the hydro pole line…calendula, yellow iris, columbine, red poppy to name a few,” says Jayne. “A lot of people used the line for walks and there is enough rain out here in BC to keep them watered. Just some bright spots for them to enjoy.”

Jayne grew up in Don Mills and as a dancer studied at Canada’s National Ballet school. Her mom, Winifred, taught ballet. Today, Jayne is a fabric artist and vintner of fine wines such as the award-winning Chrome Island Red.

Seeds of hope and beauty — Jayne’s fabric art

She’s also a proud parent, grandma, appreciator of the natural world… and gardener.

Some of the plants from Powell River came with Jayne when she moved to Denman Island. She still collects seeds from them and “I scatter whenever I get the chance.”

Some seeds have even gone from sea to sea. “I still have tiger lilies from seeds my dad brought out west from my grandmother’s home in New Brunswick.”

“My dad passed on his love of gardening to all of us.”

Jayne Rutledge-Fogarty

Beautify a city space – take the guerrilla garden challenge!

Posted on May 31, 2021 by Ian Kinross

After a long, cold, lonely winter, Mom has joined other residents at her retirement home to beautify a tiny parkette next door. Further east at the gritty intersection of Pape and Cosburn Avenues, her son has delivered a geranium arrangement and is providing TLC to the little perennial garden at Bethany Baptist Church, home to a weekly food bank.

Will you join us?

Take the guerrilla garden challenge!

You can start small with a single plant or tiny tree. Beautify a public space in city or country, and send me a pic of your tiny garden. Or send a short tale about a guerrilla gardener in your neighbourhood. The first five entrants will receive:

— An herb, flower or shrub from my private collection — so pretty! But there’s more!

— You will also get a signed copy of this sweet tale: “The tiny gardens that could… A tale of two guerrilla gardeners in the heart of the big city”. (Please disregard the garden dirt under the author’s fingernails)

“It was an act of faith. In summer 2018, Toronto writer Ian Kinross and his Mom, Sheila, installed two tiny gardens in public spaces in the heart of the big city. They nurtured their little ‘guerrilla gardens’ through blistering heat. They battled garden thieves and accepted the kindness of strangers. Ultimately, they brought beauty to neglected spaces — it was also an act of hope.”

To enter, send your pic/story to me at ikinross48@gmail.com, connect on FB, or comment on this blog post.

It’s been a tough winter and a tougher pandemic. We could all use a little TLC. Beautify a public space — take the guerrilla garden challenge!