Category Archives: Tiny garden

Tiny garden twilight

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It was Halloween day and the tiny garden was dressed for the occasion.

I had stopped into a dollar store nearby for some festive black spiders and orange paper pumpkins to adorn the two pots of now-droopy geraniums at Pape and Cosburn. From a fruit shop, I acquired some gnarly green-and-orange gourds, and a little pot of cyclamen flowers to give the garden its last blast of colour before the long Canadian winter set in. People hurried to and fro to pick up candy to shell out, or find last-minute costumes for Oct. 31st.

A radio journalist had dropped by to interview me about the tiny garden. Quinton is a family friend studying at Ryerson University. For a radio feature, she wanted to learn more about guerilla gardening and so had booked time to visit.  It was a nice way to bring closure to this year’s garden season, and to think about the meaning of guerilla gardening.

IMG_5303 pumpkin

An act of faith

Quinton started with the specific — “What’s going on today? Describe you garden? — and moved to the universal — “How do you define guerilla gardening? What are the benefits?” I recalled my nervous SWAT mission to install the garden that spring. Gardening in a public space had been an act of faith. It had some trials but the tribulations had been worth it. The garden had put a smile on the faces of many passersby at an urban intersection that felt down on its luck.

As a journalist myself, I found inspiration in the next generation — here was Quinton visiting the scene with her tape recorder, questions and insights, to uncover garden moments and meaning. Quinton also asked if she could speak with my guerilla gardening mentor — my mom Sheila, who had carefully tended a small garden in a park near Rosedale subway station this summer.

Fleeting blooms

A few weeks later, when I was chatting with mom, she mentioned Quinton had visited, and they had walked over together to her “steps” garden. As early November weather set in, some hardy pink Mums provided final blooms as the two talked about the little garden that caught the eye of so many downtown residents and passersby.

Later in November, I dropped by Pape and Cosburn Avenue to take away my two large pots and their fading flowers.  They were heavy, so I parked my minivan illegally and hustled to drag them over and put them inside.

“You had a good run”

Leo the crossing guard came by. “Putting the garden to bed, eh?” he said. “You had a good run.” I asked Leo about his winter schedule — he is there several times each day to ensure the safety of hundreds of residents who cross the busy intersection. “My only vacation is in the summer when school’s out,” he added.

With the garden season in twilight, I wished Leo well. I told him I hoped to bring back the tiny garden next spring.

 

IMG_4458 me and mom

Guerilla gardeners

 

 

Trouble in the tiny garden

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IMG_5190 October white zinnia

My mom and I had beat the heat, helping our tiny gardens survive a steamy summer. But if guerilla gardening is an act of faith, our faith was to be tested a few more times in 2018.

At the urban intersection of Pape and Cosburn Avenues, my little collection of geraniums got some kudos for brightening up a dismal corner. Still, they needed regular stewardship against occasional unkindness — with every visit, I continued to remove a motley collection of objects deposited in the flower pots:

— a McDonald’s coffee cup

— a TTC transfer

— cigarette butts

— a cigarette lighter (broken)

— and perhaps most intriguing: an empty can of Mike’s Hard Lemonade, alcohol content 8%.

Luckily a nearby city bin accepted waste and recyclables, so I regularly deposited these and other items that had been so casually tossed into the tiny garden.

One day, I noticed my Tiny Garden #3 sign had gone missing. The flowers were fine, but their signage and branding had walked away. Somewhere out there, I thought, someone has carefully conserved my rustic attempt at a garden sign. It had been fashioned on a small piece of plywood, with capital letters written in black marker, fixed to a 1×1″ stick. I am sure it is now someone’s private shrine. At least, that is my hope.

Dire news — garden thievery

Over at my mom’s little guerilla garden near Toronto’s Rosedale Subway station, the news was more dire.  My mom had headed out one day with her watering can and trowel, when a resident in her building gave her the warning: “Sheila, it looks like somebody has damaged your garden unfortunately.”

As my mom got closer to her beloved tiny garden, she spotted gaping holes left by a thief who had made off with geraniums and zinnias — roots, leaves, flowers and all.

As a long time community gardener, I am accustomed to having things walk away from my plot — the worst theft ever was of my entire red currant bush. On a recent visit to my plot at Thorncliffe community garden, my neighbor Boris showed me how thieves had jumped his fence to make off with bags full of cherry tomatoes.

To catch a thief

I sympathized with my mom.  At the same time I tried to give her some context: “Mom, remember that hundreds of people have enjoyed your garden. It’s just one person that has damaged it.” That may be true but the idea can feel a bit trite to a gardener who has carefully nourished plants over months, only to see them disappear in an instant. She considered the thievery to be a beastly act, and I agreed.

I was reminded of a newspaper clipping my uncle Ray had once sent me in the mail from the UK. He knew my interest in community gardening, and he had heard about my stolen red currant bush.  “ALLOTMENT GARDENER GIVES BOTH BARRELS TO VEGETABLE THIEF,” the headline screamed. The story went on to describe how the gardener had laid in wait overnight with his shotgun. He was now facing a manslaughter charge. I empathized with the man’s stolen veggies, but thought his method was a bit extreme.

Abandoning the tiny garden

What can you do? We tried replacing a few of mom’s plants with some new ones, only to see them disappear from her plot. She was heart-broken. Twice bitten, thrice shy. She decided to give up her tiny garden.  She started taking another route on her daily walks. Friends in her building commiserated with her plight.

I held out hope, though. On a recent visit with mom I asked her if she had been by to visit her tiny garden at all. She admitted she had recently taken some scissors to trim back the weeds next to the path, and a trowel to dig over the soil a bit.  Some geraniums had made a comeback in the fall, pushing out red blooms, she added. And the original mums we had planted behind a hollow log in the spring had started to bud up.

Holding out hope

“They are late bloomers mom, they will put on a pink show for you in about a month.”

Mom said she would keep an eye on things and hope for the best.

IMG_5189 October mums

Late bloomers and theft survivors: Mom’s mums in October 2018. At top, a remaining pretty white Zinnia in mom’s tiny garden, October 2018.

 

 

Tiny garden double-double

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IMG tiny garden double double

A network of good Samaritans had helped my tiny garden survive the summer heat wave in T.O.

One of them, my friend Reshmi, donated an unused planter to the tiny garden cause.

Fall days were shorter and cooler and kids headed back to school, sporting their colourful backpacks. As the population of citizens at the gritty north-west corner of Pape and Cosburn swelled, I delivered the tiny garden double-double.

On a mission

It was another gardening SWAT team mission of sorts.  With my minivan illegally parked on the north side of Cosburn to avoid a 2-buck parking fee, I executed my sortie with maximum efficiency.

First, I hauled a bucket of soil and the new pot over to the corner of Pape and Cosburn. I had placed some bricks in the bottom of the white pot for drainage — and to deter tiny-garden thieves who might find the new garden a wee bit heavy to make off with.

Next I ran back for some orange geraniums and my trusty blue plastic watering can. I decanted half the soil into the white pot, then put in the geraniums, followed by a top dressing of soil. The new pot, and its older companion tiny garden in a green pot, got a good soaking of water.

The next day I wobbled over on my red beater bike to check progress. The gardens were looking healthy with cooler weather and some sunshine.

Two thumbs up from Leo

Leo stopped to say hello. He comes by his name honestly. He is the lion-hearted crossing guard at Pape and Cosburn, helping hundreds of citizens cross safely each day at the start and end of school, and the lunch hour.

Leo had dubbed me “the mystery guy with the flowers” earlier this spring. He had been off during the summer so I introduced myself again:

“I decided to dress up the corner with some flowers,” I told him. “I live nearby.”

“Well it definitely needs it,” Leo replied. A bustling dry-cleaning business had closed down four years ago. “The guy who bought the business is doing some work on it, but it’s been awhile,” Leo added. Citizens still took shelter from bad weather under the former shop’s rough entranceway and steps at the corner.

Leo had a burning question for me: “Did you need any permits or anything to put the flowers here?”

“No, I guess it’s a guerilla garden,” I said.

Starting a trend

Leo had to go — he was brandishing his stop sign for the next wave of pedestrians: “Well it’s nice,” he said — “I hope you are starting a trend.”

I came by a few days later to water the garden but it looked like someone had done that favour for me — perhaps another good samaritan.  I picked off a few geranium bloom deadheads and removed a black and yellow Mike’s Hard Lemonade Can that had been placed next to the flowers.

The lemonade can boasted an alcohol content of 8%. It was empty. I hoped its owner, like Leo, had gotten a kick out of my tiny garden double-double.

 

 

Tiny gardens: beating the heat

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tiny garden August Sheila

How hot was it?

It was so hot in Toronto in summer 2018 that this blogger once had to seek urgent cooling shelter in Fairview Mall, a place full of fashion shops in which I was too scared to set foot. But I did find a little variety store that sold me a diet coke.

Over at my mom’s tiny guerilla garden near Rosedale Subway, the multi-coloured zinnias, sturdy geraniums, red-blooming creepers and other plants added by a good Samaritan were coming into rich colour and profusion. My mom’s original batch of pansies in and around the hollow cedar log were still going strong, as she continued to pick off old blooms each day and keep them well watered.

Her garden blooms were peaking but the sun was beating down in “the Six,” with daily highs hitting 35 degrees. Extreme climactic events were in the news around the world. Shade was a precious commodity.

Praying for rain

To keep the tiny garden watered, my mom sometimes made three trips daily with her little apple juice containers filled with water. She prayed daily for rain.

Over at Pape and Cosburn, I was making furtive early morning trips on my red beater bike, wobbling along with a full watering can in the old basket, to keep my tiny garden hydrated — and to get home before I broke into a full-body sweat.

While I was out of town, many good-Samaritan friends volunteered to come by to water the little mixed planter of red and white geraniums.

Delivering hydration and TLC

My friend Reshmi texted to advise that the tiny garden got a bit droopy in the intense heat but was hanging in there. Her son came by to water it. My sister Louise dispatched her husband D’Arcy to deliver additional hydration. My garden friend Ann parked nearby to check on the garden and give it some water and TLC.

My tiny garden survived. Slowly the evenings grew longer, with a heavier dew overnight. I trimmed off dry deadheads, and removed a McDonald’s coffee cup and broken cigarette lighter from the planter. The geranium buds began to re-appear.

Fall sometimes feels like the end of this year’s garden; in fact, it’s the start of a second gardening season following dormancy triggered by the superheated summer.

As September Labour Day approached, our buds were swelling. The plants were greening up.

It was a tiny garden renaissance.