Daisies on the tracks

My friend was on a mission to have something planted on the tracks. Last year we tried seeds but to no avail. Mistakenly, I had formerly transplanted some wild daisies into the sun garden, transplants from the side of the highway. They WERE free afterall! But in one year they took over!! They were a solid mass-a ground cover-for at least a few square meters! Once we had dug them up, we decided to try and put them down by the tracks. At first I was reluctant because I don't want them invading the CN garden too. But Emily tells me that'll be her responsibility if the time comes. So with that reassurance, we've planted them along the tracks. They've survived hot trains singeing them, growing in nothing but gravel, transplanting, sun... you can't kill these things!!
Here's the back side of the CN triangle, you can see daises we've scattered along! Hopefully it'll turn out to be a nice blend of wildflowers. There is definitely no shortage of Yarrow there!!
If you keep looking down the tracks, you can see they cross Cordova. On the other side of Cordova is another lot that has been offered to us for gardening, just before that school bus down there. I'm hoping that this fall we might be able to do something....
P.S.-if you look closely in the first picture, you can see the rock wall of the periwinkle garden. (That dumpster gets parked there periodically for pick up but it's not a permanent fixture.) Also, in that photo, you can see that the tracks go under a bridge (Hastings). It's fairly crowded in the summer with people sleeping under it. Last night I saw a big Port City rat scurrying around there, I bet it's not the only one.

Watering in style!

Well we planted the linepainter's property a few weeks ago and it's looking great! Amazingly not a plant has been stolen! While we were planting, Ron brought us out some water..... now that's service!! Seriously though, water is definitely on the immediately to do list. We have just qualified for a water collection barrel from the City, which is wonderful! We will definitely need to come up with some more watering solutions ASAP though. Here's a photo of us getting started on the garden

More tulips!

I forgot to mention that I took another trip and got some more discarded bulbs, this time about 2-300 tulips! All orange I believe! There's going to be a whole lot of orange in the gardens next spring!

My kids helped me pick them up... we had about 10 min to do it so we just threw a couple of wheelbarrows-full into the van. I decided to let them die off at my house and spare the neighbourhood the sight. I filled up a wheelbarrow and the sandbox with soil and let the tulips live there till they faded. The ones that had already faded by the time I got them have been planted already, but now the other few hundred are ready to go down so the kids can play in the sand box!

(you can see the sandbox full of tulips on the left side of the picture)

I could've gone again to get a few more tulips, at least of a different colour, but I was out of energy and besides, my wheelbarrow and sandbox were already full! Hopefully next year we'll get some variety added to our spring bulbs. And hopefully there will be enough established plants to hide all those tulips when they're dying off!!

The Shade Garden

Suiting the theme of the gardens, the shade garden is also full of things that were planted and forgotten/given-up-on. Here these johnny jump-ups were from seed and now they're filling in all the gaps!

The shade garden is pretty overgrown at the moment and the trailing roses are hidden in the back, but it's full of pretty things (the bleeding heart is huge!) and at least it's not it's former garbage dump!

Here's a pretty columbine before it got cut off, the bergenia got cut off as well, but they were all pretty when they were blooming...!

Here you can see the periwinkle that someone added to the garden and there are some forget me nots tucked away in there as well.

It's catching

Well speaking from personal experience, creating new gardens is addicting.... it's almost like a disease and you can't stop seeing weedy boring land and thinking it'd make a great garden. And apparently it's catchy! The vision is spreading around the neighbourhood! The linepainters jumped on board with their great boulevard and our neighbours up the street have planted some lillies and have taken to watering their section. Now the business across the street from the CN triangle has built some planters! Can't wait to see who's next!!

(You can see the CN triangle in the background accross the street)

Sun Garden

Here are some recent pictures of the sun garden. It's getting to just the right age where most plants are too rooted to steal and the plants are big and have filled in nicely! It's a bit of a hodge-podge: depending what was on sale or donated at different times. Also, we've planted a few things that didn't come up and then lo and behold they appeared 2 years later. The beautiful foxglove above came from my Grandpa's wife. She shared her seeds with me a few years ago and now here it is! There's another pretty pink one, I'll have to get a picture of that too.This year the red hot poker has finally bloomed-I'm so excited! It's one of my favorite plants. Here it is with a rock rose!

Here's an idea...

I just saw a lot today that struck me as a great garden make-over lot. In an area where there's lots of prostituted women, maybe it could be developed into some kind of drop-in or social enterprise.... $500,000.... dreaming big!

Guerrilla gardening in the Guerrilla gardening...

Well someone's been guerrilla gardening in one of our latest guerrilla efforts! It's great! Last week a ceramic horse and hardy geranium showed up and this week there is chard and broccoli! I have been hoping to incorporate some more food into the gardens. I have 2 baby trees to espalier along the fence (is that a verb?) and planted a row of pole beans... just need to put thought into the food because there are lots of types of pollution in the neighbourhood. BUT... we ALL need more fruit and veggies, and our gardens might even count for the 2010 new food gardens in Vancouver by 2010 motion passed by city council...

Bulbs!

I had just been wishing for hyacinths for the gardens (since they smell so nice) when I got a message about bulbs being discarded from a local garden! Unfortunately they were planted right before a heat wave in Vancouver so some of them might be fried, but a few hundred of them should make it at least! I would love to see loads of spring bulbs lighten up the area next spring. Here's a picture of the van-load of bulbs, those green bags are full of bulbs too!

Mother's Day at UBC Botanical Garden!

After a lovely breakfast in bed and some sushi for lunch, we headed out to UBC for the Botanical Garden's annual perennial plant sale. As a Mother's day present I had money to blow at the sale and quickly filled up the van! Then we walked around the gardens and I took photos to log all kinds of interesting plants. My favorite is this huge peony (paeonia veitchii from China).The trained apple trees were all beautiful and there were still some interesting tulips blooming, including a few black ones!

The overnight expansion

There is so much to be thankful for! 11 cubic meters of soil were delivered at noon on Wednesday and by 8 pm it was spread out across almost 1 1/2 blocks! I can imagine the surprise of people in the area when these huge gardens popped up overnight! There was amazing help from volunteers and the good folks at Scottish Line Painting who are putting their boulevard into the garden scheme as well! Of course I'm left wanting MORE soil, but what's new!! Meanwhile, offers of plant donations are coming from many directions and I have so much hope for the future! The vision is coming to life! Now how to organize it all??!! Here are some photos of the progression!

one of the piles of compost

we put a layer of cardboard under the compost to act as a weed barrier
the soil distributed

the sun garden now extends right to Hastings

I'm really excited about the new rock garden!

A gardening day like this is a treat in the DTES, normally one needs to keep on guard for used needles and condoms buried in the soil or other waste and garbage lying about. The soil is so fluffy and easy to work with at this stage because it hasn't compacted yet. This does also mean that plants are more easily stolen, but we'll hope for the best! I have to say that plant disappearances have slowed down a great deal, in part because lots of locals have been warding people off! I love that they are taking some ownership of the gardens, because it's for them as well. I'd love to find a way to integrate more locals into the gardening projects.

Next guerrilla mission: starting a sunflower field beyond the barbed-wire fence....

Here comes the dirt!

Well we got what we asked for.... a truck is dumping 11 square meters of soil at our place on Wed!! Time to get busy!!!

As you can see, I have NOT been busy blogging. We have been out there in the dirt though! Lots to tell you about but I'd better get my beauty-sleep for this shoveling extravaganza! Here's some photos though to tide you over!

early spring at the CN triangle

the baby forsythia's blooming!

next site we're expanding to!

a van-load of flowers

It's been obvious to me for a while that the potential of the gardens have grown beyond my capabilities/resources and that it's time to take them to a new level. This includes gathering and organizing volunteers, getting soil from the city and soliciting plant donations. Many friends, neighbours and garden-club members have generously shared their plants with me but I've been putting off asking for donations from businesses, that kind of thing is outside of my comfort zone and I prefer to be self-sufficient! Finally one day my 2 year old and I went into Home Hardware and find out if they had anything they could send our way. At first the manager didn't think there was much there but as he looked, he kept finding more plants to give me: dormant lilies, cana lilies and hostas, flats of pansies... and so much more! I was overwhelmed!! I drove away with a full-size van FULL of plants, and my 2 year old impressed that he was packed into the middle of a jungle. A very encouraging start, I'm so grateful and excited to see what they'll look like in the gardens next year!!! Thank you Home Hardware!!

Politics Schmolatiks

Well, I somewhat dropped the ball there in Aug & Sept, and certainly dropped the ball on the blog. In part it was due to a lack of garden activity (other than watering) and in part it was due to my increased involvement in local politics. This is not completely unrelated as the politics involve prostitution issues and if you are familiar with these gardens, you know that there is a strong link between these gardening efforts and prostituted women in the Downtown Eastside.


Between the Pickton trial and the upcoming 2010 Olympics, there is a lot of political will to do something about street prostitution in Vancouver. And, there are several pro-prostitution advocates who are ready to pounce on that. There has been a big push in Vancouver to open several legal brothels. There has also been federal MPs lobbying to decriminalize prostitution completely. 2 groups have launched constitutional challenges against Canada's prostitution laws and if their challenge succeeds, there would be some new legislation on the horizon. If you are interested in finding out more about this, or want to know what you can do to help, click here.

Here is a recent letter published in the Vancouver Sun that lets you know what I'm on about:

It is good to see that someone has finally offered an analysis on the proposed brothels from someone other than Susan Davis! I agree with Mayor Sullivan that despite Davis' intentions most survival prostituted women would not be welcome into the coop brothels--or it would not suit the needs of these women to give a portion of their earnings to the brothel. Brothels have come and gone from the DTES since the Vancouver's inception but their presence did not protect the many women who disappeared from our streets. What concerns me most about the process of opening these particular brothels is the normalization of prostitution in the media, among various levels of government, law enforcement and the public. Societal acceptance of renting women's bodies for the sexual gratification of men will not benefit our most vulnerable women in the long run. In fact, countries that have decriminalized prostitution see a huge expansion of their sex industry, leading to increased human trafficking and child exploitation. In the 70's the Swedish city of Malmo instigated a program that gave prostituted women economic aid including housing, job and medical assistance, counseling, support and protection from pimps. Over a period of 4 years, 72.5% prostituted women in Malmo had quit. Vancouver and Canada for that matter have not given an honest attempt at sustainable solutions. Brothels are not a sustainable solution. In the long run, the acceptance of brothels further entrenches women in exploitation.

For the full article in the Sun, click here

Bees!

When we arrived at the sun garden this week it was full of bee activity, 3-4 bees pollinating flowers at the same time. This was really exciting for me!! I felt like the garden had reached a certain milestone in becoming established... In the middle of concrete and garbage and cars and weeds, the garden is developing into a little ecosystem and the bees have found it!

As an aside, no plants have been stolen lately, although our 'please don't steal the plants' sign has been!!

At the CN garden, a pair of women who do rounds for a Christian organization in the Downtown Eastside told us that some of the women working there have told them they were touched by the garden and feel cared for... I hope so, that is definitely our intention!
(incidentally this is not my photo, although it did look like this!)

Expansion!

We had some chrysanthemums that weren't getting enough rain at the CN garden so we thought we'd relocate them in the sun garden. However, on the way there, we were suddenly inspired to plant them at the corner of an alley. The next time we came down, we planted some seeds and bulbs and cleared out more garbage and blackberries. Around the corner there is a big patch of periwinkle growing out from under the fence, so we have decided to incorperate it and make a new corner garden! The first garden (the sun garden) is actually getting to the point that we can start dividing some of it's plants and spreading them around a little! That's reassuring! Yesterday I divided some crocosmia and brought it to the corner. I also planted a dahlia.






























I've actually been surprised how little has been stolen lately! A few blooms have been cut off individually, but for the most part things have remained untouched, including some colourful annuals that usually don't stay long! One of the women who work in the area told me the other day that they've been warning people to leave the garden alone! So that might be why the gardens haven't been to interfered with lately! We've had a bit of a heat wave lately and I was really pleased to see that the sun garden is doing really well at surviving without much water. That was the goal! I'm realizing however that the CN garden also needs more drought-tolerant plants. I had been considering it a shade garden but it gets a lot of sun and doesn't get much water either. Here's how it's starting to shape up:















And I've saved the best news for last! Earlier this week I was watering some nasturtium seeds that we had planted accross the street. While I was doing this the guys who run the company accross the street came out and to make a long story short, offered us the property along their fence to create another garden!! The owner even offered to pitch in for the cost of the plants!! So the dream is becoming a reality!! The original vision was that when you turn the corner onto the street, you will see a street lined with colour! Here's a picture of our next future garden:















and here is a picture of the garden we've got on the other side of the street. Sometimes I've been discouraged about it--that it didn't look as good as it could--but looking at pictures today, I've realized that the majority of this garden came about in a year! I needed that encouragement as we embark on another new project!


















(here's the garden July 06!)

Transformations

I love to be reminded of dramatic transformations, like the former picture of this back alley and the garden it has become.

swiped again!

Well, it's a good thing I got that photo of the sun garden when I did because within 5 days all the tulips got cut off and the camelia plant was stolen! Even with my burglar-proofing of wiring it to a rock!! Haha. Bigger rock next time I guess! It's always a bit of a disappointment when flowers get stolen but I guess it's par for the course. At least now the gardens are getting more established and still look decent even if the blooms are gone. Maybe the main colour the gardens are going to bring down there is GREEN!

Car Park

Last year we just happened to pass this car in our neighbourhood! It's currently parked at the corner of Clark and Broadway at a community garden... I think it made a bigger impact in a regular parking spot though. You can read more about it at: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/09/your_new_car_ma.php
I like how they say they're waiting for the city to figure out how to classify the Car Park, to give it the appropriate parking permit.

Colour!

Yay! Spring has arrived and the tulips et al are in full bloom at the sun garden! It's so exciting, this is the first time I've really felt that the dream is starting to be realized, there is colour all along the block! (at least where there is soil!) Did I mention I've been eyeing the other side of the street? Just wondering if a City Green Space could officially be started there..... and also the flow of dirt deliveries from the city.... There's already so much to do with the existing gardens, pruning, weeding, planting new plants, trimming the grass (!!) I gotta get a work party started. As for the sun garden, it's hard to decide on which pictures to put up. I'll try to get a good representation.