XERIC GARDEN CLUB member projects

Guerilla Gardening by Marcia Finical

A couple of years ago, my neighbors packed up their stuff and left. No goodbyes, no "we're coming back to pick up the stuff we can't move today," no nothing. They probably were victims of an over-zealous mortgage broker who saddled them with a mortgage that everyone secretly knew they couldn't afford. As time went on the place starting looking like a squatter's dream – the paint was peeling off the molding around the garage door, litter and leaves covered the front walkway and the two roses bushes were slowly dying.

I decided to take a step into the unknown world of Guerilla Gardening. For the uninitiated, Guerilla Gardening is where a gardener sees opportunity in any available space, legal or not. I cleaned up the front walkway and went to the Rose Society's pruning demonstration where I learned what, where and how to prune. Not bad for somebody who doesn't particularly like roses. I'd never gardened in a bed full of landscape gravel and was somewhat leery of it. After I pulled out the weeds, I planted some Penstemon palmeri, the most drought tolerant penstemon available and a lavender. After all, it's not my property and I don't want to be watering any more than I have to. The roses came around nicely with some water and Epsom salts. The penstemon loved their rocky new habitat, but alas, the lavender bit the dust. A volunteer holly hock sprouted up in front and now I water that, too.

My new guerilla garden was looking lovely, but the molding still was peeling and the weeds in front of the garage still bugged me. I hired a homeless man to scrape and paint the molding and pull the weeds and quickly the vacant house looked lived in.

I'm planning on planting Fortissimo Daffodils, those giant yellow and orange ones, in the Fall along with some red tulips that will bloom after the daffs bow out. They'll be easy to spot from the street in the Spring, lending some color to an otherwise bland structure.

A heck of a lot of time and money for something that you don't own, you might think. Maybe. But the biggest payoff came when the appraiser, who was valuing my house because I refinanced my mortgage, hardly glanced at the well-kept house next door. He just assumed that someone lived there.