WEEK 5: GUERRILLA GARDENING

This week was a super phenomenal one for Art Everywhere.  We talked about gardens as art, from The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, to Versailles, to the Rebar Collective, Park Day, and Guerilla Gardening in general.

Then the good part.  We headed out Elsewhere’s front door to a spot where we used to have a city tree and until today was a large pile of dirt.  The first large tree we used to have was cut down in 2007.  They then replanted a tree in the middle of 2008.  Earlier this year, in May 2009, our new flourishing tree was cut down by somebody stealing a bike.  There was just a root stump and trees all year.  We’d been talking about doing a gardening project on the plot as part of our Urban Green campaign, under which rubric we planted a large alley garden.  With a team of Weaver students, the perfect time was upon us.  Curtiss (the Urban Green Coordinator) and I shopped for some winter perennials that would provide flower and flourish in tougher conditions—namely five mums.

The first task and by far the hardest part of this guerrilla effort was digging out the huge tree root from the plot.  With straps and a metal pole, we finally managed to unearth the five foot deep root stump from the site.  Luckily, it had a metal casing that became the fence of the new garden, and a shoddy tarp that became a sign.  We had to hack away at tons of red clay to fill up the plot before planting our new garden.  Meanwhile, a group made “Urban Jungle” signs to alert passerbys to the new space.

All it all, it was tremendous having a green space right outside Elsewhere transformed in just a few short hours.  Thanks to Art Everywhere for helping us reclaim our sidewalk space!