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.

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

— 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.

— 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.

— 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.

— 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.