Part clandestine underground activity and part green community building, guerrilla gardening uses creativity to turn desolate and neglected public lands into lovely green spaces, literally overnight.
Vacant lots, underused public squares, and back alleys are all prime targets for the surreptitious makeovers that can be cultivated with thoughtful native plantings and even food for the guerrillas and their neighbors.
When else do you get to dress up in all black and make a neglected part of your neighborhood more beautiful, all by the light of the moon?
Living walls, also known as vertical gardening, are a great way to recreate the sights and smells of a backyard garden inside your own home, and to clean the air of toxins in the process. Living wall stands are available at garden supply shops, and the planting method is similar to ordinary outdoor gardening (Figure A).
You’ll want to choose plants that go well with your goals and the location of the garden. Azalea, bamboo palm, chrysanthemum, and spider plants are particularly good at cleaning the air, for example. Waiting for the slow boat from China and settling for objects that don’t quite fit are now history, with on-demand design and manufacturing.
The idea is simple: design a custom object; zap it to ponoko.com, a design service that also finds a manufacturer near you; then wait for it to arrive at your door. You can order everything from furniture to accessories (Figure B).
Every year on September 19, people in cities across the world put money in parking meters. But rather than parking a car in the spot, they lay down a patch of sod, marking the spot as a small, temporary public “park.”
Park(ing) Day ( parkingday.org) was conceived by Rebar, a San Francisco-based art collective
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Photography by Getty Images (A); Derek Elley (B and E); Sam Murphy (C); David Graas (D); and Lisa Klappe (F)
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