Weeding For Peace!!!

A little over a month ago, I shared the story about a Guerrilla Gardening adventure that I had with a few of my friends - http://bitsandpeaces08.blogspot.com/2010/05/guerrillas-are-on-attack-again.html. We got together to plant Day Lilies, in the shape of a peace symbol, close to a railway track so that the train passengers would see our inspirational garden!

Last week, I thought I would go and pay a visit to this area to see how the flowers were coming along…


This is what I found!!!!

The entire area had filled in with grasses, Golden Rod, Milkweeds and other plants that had been growing here for many years. They are all about 20” high, now! I did expect this, but maybe not to this extreme.

When I was deciding on the location for our planting I spent a bit of time studying all the dead plants from the previous year. This gave me a few clues as to what would be growing in the area this year. I was looking for an area that was filled with mostly grasses, so that our flowers would be able to grow without too much competition. I was partially successful.


It took me about ten minutes to find the Day Lilies that we had planted. They were struggling for light, as the surrounding plants were dominating. I decided that if I wanted to see our flowers survive that I would have to do a little weeding.

I pulled all the plants that were within 16” of the Day Lilies. I kept the weeds in small fisted bundles and carefully laid them on the ground at the edge of this area, thinking that they would help to make the peace symbol more visible, when this job was finished.


I figured that by weeding in this manner I would accomplish two things. #1 – the Day Lilies would have a chance to grow and be strong. #2 – even though I’m only expecting a few lilies to flower this year – next year they will flower ten times more – the peace symbol will still be recognizable from a distance.

After an hour and a half of soiling my knees as I crawled around on the ground weeding, I had to leave. The rest of this work would have to wait until I had time to return.


And return I did - just yesterday, after work!!!! It was drizzling rain when I arrived and another hour and a half later, with close to thirty mosquito bites now covering my arms and legs, I was finished!


A few of the lilies had died, but for the most part I was rather pleased with how they were coming along. I inspected each plant and was delighted to see that several of them had sprouted flower buds! I have no doubt that this garden and the two other gardens that I planted around London, will need a bit more love and care over the next few years, but it’ll be worth it in the end. I have plans for adding more flowers to each garden, as each year passes and in a few years these peace gardens should be the dominating growth in each of the three areas!


It was quite a climb, getting to this height to take this photo. I climbed all the way to where the train tracks go by to see what train passengers might see if they happened to be looking down into this field. Not half bad – eh????!!


What’s that? You couldn’t see the peace symbol. Okay! Here’s another photo with my camera set to ‘zoom in’!

This peace garden will be the most work, out of the three gardens. I’ve been watching the other two gardens growing steadily over the last month – as I drive by each of them daily – and they will need a bit of weeding, too, but not to this extreme. The other two gardens were planted in grasses, mostly, so they should take a bit less work to keep them thriving.

I hope to have those gardens tended to in the next few weeks and I’ll be sure to bring my camera so I can take pictures to share with you.

Until again,

Be Green! Be Peaceful!!

Jim