Tag Archives: Guerrilla gardening

My Mom — the original Guerrilla Gardener

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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

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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

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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

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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

Jayne Rutledge-Fogarty

Beautify a city space – take the guerrilla garden challenge!

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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!

Thursday food bank at the guerrilla garden

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The guerrilla gardener infiltrates the southeast corner of Pape and Cosburn Avenues to tend to the tiny garden he has adopted at Bethany Baptist Church. As camouflage, he wears his Eddie Bauer relaxed-fit jeans, Mark’s hiking boots, a short-sleeve shirt and a brown Bruce County Plowing Match ball cap. Nobody will bother him. He is the invisible man who weeds and waters the flowers and shrubs, and has mended the brick perimeter surrounding the garden.

From a green plastic watering can, he douses the pot of geraniums and some of the existing hostas and other perennials that are now bursting from the soil as spring turns to summer. He cleans up a few pop cans and candy bar wrappers littering the garden and deposits them in the city garbage container next to the bus stop.

But today is not ideal for covert gardening action. Hundreds of people have gathered for the church’s weekly food bank. They’re lined up on a hot afternoon for several hundred yards along the south side of Cosburn Avenue, a street of rental apartments in Toronto’s east end.

Food bank volunteers have set up a series of kiosks, organizing the donated food by categories including pasta and dry goods, juice and other drinks, and what appears to be a small hot-lunch area. The food bank recipients are in line according to family size, with the biggest families first.

Some volunteers have tossed empty cardboards boxes on top of several shrubs the guerrilla gardener has been nurturing. Gah! But this is no time to by picky. It’s time to observe a community organization and its volunteers in action — serving people in need.

Volunteers cruise the line to chat with recipients, check registrations and answer questions. Others dole out food. The Thursday food bank operates year-round at the church, in the blistering heat of the summer and deep freeze of the Canadian winter. The 103-year-old organization also hustles to deliver online services and youth programs during the pandemic.

The guerrilla gardener will be patient, bide his time, and make contact with the organization to find out more. And he will be back regularly — to nurture the geraniums and shrubs.

On a mission

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Today’s guerrilla mission is about geraniums. A pot of red ones are about to land this morning, clandestinely, at the southeast corner of Pape and Cosburn Avenues — a little splash of colour amidst the hustle and bustle of this city neighbourhood.

The driver of the northbound 25b Don Mills bus pulls down his mask to take a sip of coffee. As he opens the front doors of the bus, he looks over to see a guerrilla gardener crossing Pape. The middle-aged gardener, wearing a Bruce County Plowing Match ball cap, is trying to look nonchalant while hauling a bucket of soil, a geranium arrangement, a garden trowel, a black plastic garden planter, and some rocks (for drainage) across the intersection.

The front suspension of the 25b bus kneels to help passengers board. Just a few feet away, the guerrilla gardener finds a nice spot for the flower planter, at the west end of the Bethany Baptist Church. Like this neighbourhood, the church has been hustling during the pandemic, providing a weekly food program along with virtual services and youth programs. Later today, hundreds of people will line up on Cosburn to receive food donations.

Across the street, McDonald’s is getting a facelift, the golden arches still rising above the construction site hoarding.

With the geranium arrangement firmly nestled in the black planter, the guerrilla gardener decants extra soil to ground the tiny garden in its new home. In the final phase of this covert action, he walks back to his nondescript 2011 Dodge minivan to get a watering can, and returns to give the geraniums a good dousing. Leftover water provides a drink for some emerging hostas and other perennials on the site.

As he patches up a few bricks at the garden perimiter, his cochlear implant battery beeper goes off. To change the battery, and keep hearing the birds and buses, he sits on a sturdy red bench provided by the church for passersby.

Rough-and-ready Grackles — black birds with hints of metallic green — flutter over to the bench, expecting a treat. There is nothing but a stale crust and two cigarette butts on the ground. The gardener makes a mental note to bring a muffin next time.

The sun is shines on a warm May day after a long winter and even longer pandemic. To the north, the road is busy with multi-modal transportation. A cyclist, a pick-up truck driver, and the Cosburn bus driver and passengers all wait patiently for the light to change to proceed westbound. On a hydro box nearby, an artist named Sarah has painted a pretty floral design to beautify the space.

Of course, a tiny garden is more than a clandestine guerrilla mission. It will need nurturing over the coming months. Weeding, watering, pruning, tidying, waiting, appreciating.

But for today, this gardener’s mission is accomplished.

Guerrilla garden reconnaissance

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I’m on a mission. But this guerrilla is packing garden tools and geraniums, not weapons. It’s a mission of hope and peace, to beautify a city space after a long winter and grinding series of covid lockdowns. The city could use a little spring cleaning.

I’m returning to the scene of the crime — the gritty intersection of Pape and Cosburn Avenues in Toronto’s central-east end. It’s where my first guerrilla garden flourished a couple of years ago, aided by some good Samaritans who stopped by to water and tend the plants. The local crossing guard, Leo, told me then that people had admired the tiny garden and wondered “Who is this mystery guy with the flowers?”

Today, the garden’s former location is out of bounds — a new building is rising from the ashes of the former Crow Dry Cleaners on the northwest corner So I have to scout an alternative site. On the north-east corner, a busy McDonald’s restaurant, where older Greek couples congregated for coffee before the lockdown, is undergoing renos. To the southwest, a bright and cheery Greek Cafe has sprouted on the corner, serving coffees and baked goods to passersby. On the fourth and last corner, I spy a possible garden site. I swoop in to scout it out.

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The Bethany Baptist Church has closed its doors during the lockdowns but hustles to provide services, youth programs and hymn sings by zoom, plus delivers a weekly curbside food bank for local residents in need. Each Thursday, people who use the food bank line up on Cosburn Avenue, according to household size, to receive donated food. In these tough times, the line can stretch for hundreds of yards.

The Church’s tiny gardens at the southeast corner of Pape and Cosburn are nicely arranged with perennials including some hyacinths and tulips sprouting in spring. But they could use a little TLC. The brick garden perimeter needs some repair, and annual flowers could brighten a few bare areas. This spot has a friendly feel to it. Red benches on both sides of the church create some public space where citizens can take a load off and chat, these days with masks, both at the garden and next to the TTC bus stop.

The garden reconnaissance is complete. This guerrilla is hungry and could use a mid-afternoon coffee and muffin. Once risk of frost is past in early May, the gardening mission will begin…