Friday, April 10, 2009

It's hard to be a guerrilla gardener...

When we started gardening at Pennsylvania Garden (aka the Mariposa Street off ramp) we behaved cautiously, aware that we didn't have permission from the landowner - Caltrans. Since then people at Caltrans have been incredibly supportive, especially Jes, providing us with access to water and even help getting plants. So can we really say it's a guerrilla garden anymore? Perhaps without the official documentation of the Adopt a Highway progam in our sweaty fist, it's still somewhat illicit. Which provides just a light dusting of excitement, right?

Being a person who regularly "saws off off more than she can mulch," I recently decided to plant sunflowers on a weed-filled strip of dirt in front of a fence at the bottom of our block - on Mariposa at Pennsylvania. In honor of International Guerrilla Sunflower Day (May 1st) I started an additional tray of seeds in the house, to go with those that neighbor Kepa has been cultivating for us. The only problem that I could see was that with my recent neck injury, who was going to clear the weeds from this strip of land?

This morning I heard the whine of a weed whacker in the 'hood. Looking out of the window I see a city worker removing those very weeds! I trotted down and introduced myself. Henry, a city worker, was very amenable to my idea and promised to have the area ready to rock by the end of the day. Turns out the strip is also Caltrans land.

I mean come on people - I want to be mad, bad and dangerous to know with my foliar grafitti and random acts of urban beautification! It's very difficult when everyone is so damn helpful and encouraging...

2 comments:

  1. Go Henry! Go Jes! Go Kepa! Go Caltrans! Yeah Comunity!

    Happy post!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sickening isn't it? ;) Want to join us on May 2nd to plant a few sunflowers?

    ReplyDelete

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