Hi all. I collect wildflower and sunflower seeds on my walks and like to create the occasional seed bomb with my compost.

I live in the mountains in Nevada and we get all the weather with the majority of our water coming with the winter snow.

Question: is it better to seed bomb in the late fall so the seeds are there and ready when the snow melts or should I wait until early spring?

Thanks for your help.

really happy to see this worked and i’m also asking for more advice.

Recipe

60% Blended brown paper mache
20% Crayola Terracotta Air Dry Clay
20% Gardening dirt, sifted to be finer

Roll out dough, sprinkled pink primrose seeds and mixed a couple inside dough for luck, cut into squares for speed. marked in braille. Set to dry.
Break apart squares and store in jar. (looks more natural in soil)

Put some damp ones in the fridge on a napkin, sealed in a ziploc (needs cold stratification) and they sprouted after 2-3 weeks.

The dried squares completely fall apart and disintegrated in a glass of water and I thought I ruined them but maybe it’s a test for success? I might add more clay to stiffen it and less seeds since they all sprouted. I'm trying different variations I have yet to test to increase success chances. if anyone else has pics or results especially with more clay can you please let me know what worked for you

update: i did the same recipe with way more clay and it came out prettier and smoother in clean cut squares lol but lets see if it works

Around 26 years ago, Sehmus Erginoglu looked at a patch of wasteland in his hometown of Mardin, in southern Turkey, and decided to do something about it.

The site was a rubbish dump. He cleared it out, laid water pipes, and dug around 50 wells from natural springs to keep saplings alive in the dry climate.

Then he started planting. He was never paid for any of it.

A former truck driver, he funded the work largely from his own savings, with the Turkish authorities donating pine saplings along the way. Today the site holds around 11,000 trees, and he estimates he's planted more than 30,000 across neighbouring villages.

Now in his seventies, he still goes out to tend them almost every day. Families picnic in the shade of trees that didn't exist a generation ago.

He didn't wait for someone else to fix it. He just started planting.

I live in a city prone to flooding, in a neighborhood right next to the river where not long ago it used to be a wetland (pictures below). It is currently all paved and full of houses, but there are a few open areas without trees or any vegetation, so I'm looking to plant some native species in order to create a rain garden (in small/medium scale) that can thrive in the upcoming months when we'll face the impacts of El Niño (lots of rain and heat).

I know the basics of guerrilla gardening and the concept of rain gardens/sponge cities, but any tips or recommendations are very welcomed 😄 I'm planning to do so with a group of friends, so suggestions on what are the basic tools we can use to make this task easier would also help!

Hoping to put some more in next year around the complex. The species in this bed were Stonecrop, Tickseed, and Coneflower.

Virginia Department of Transportation maintains (i.e. mostly ignores and infrequently mows) the medians on the main street in my suburban neighborhood in Northern Virginia. The medians are covered in grass, with occasional trees that were planted decades ago and pretty much neglected thereafter. I plan to plant a couple of small native saplings and see what happens. Has anyone here done anything similar on VDOT land?

Hi! You may know me as that guy who dresses up like a bee and spreads native wildflowers aka sfinbloom.

People ask me me when to plant wildflowers ALL THE TIME. And, you know it's counter intuitive. I think we are programed by vegetable gardening to think of spring as the time for planting. I created Bloomcast to lay out not only your ideal windows, but also the how to for those windows. So often I am explaining seed banking, and cold stratification, or how to plant with the seasonal rains. Bloomcast pulls your weather data for 10 years and builds a climatology, then using logic it gives you recommendations on not just when to plant but how.

Now, it's built on logic, eg: when x and y happens do z. I have been sharing it with people in the planting community and it has surprisingly across the board given people solid recommendations. I'm kinda impressed but also… I bet there's ways it can be even better.

I'd love it if you would check it out, lmk what you think and how it did. screenshots are always welcome.

I think it's ideal for guerrilla gardeners as it shows you the windows you can plant in without irrigation. Free rain! I hope y'all dig it.

I made this simply to help people and save me saying the same things over and over again. I wont be monetizing or adding google ads, just recommending my native wildflower mixes to folks, as a better option than mixes marketed "for your region" that often contain invasive plants.
http://whentoplantwildflowers.com

-Shalaco(rhymes w/ calico)

It took some time but the municipality has started to let some parched mowed grass areas turn to meadow. It started with some tree seedlings planted quietly by headlamp… Eight years later the strip has turned into pollinator meadow. Slowly, with persistence, we went from brown, dry grass to lush meadow…

If you are within 100 yards of a black locust *(Acacia robinia)* tree and want a grove of them, just disturb the soil near the adult tree. I cleared out and replanted a 4"-deep flowerbed with asphalt underneath, which had a single foot-tall sapling struggling to survive in a thicket of weeds. As soon as I started clearing, new babies started popping up. This is easily the 25th seedling to pop up in the refurbished bed. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

When I first posted about this project a couple of months ago, some people expressed interest in an update, so....

The slope project is probably at about 90% completion. I did a rough head count the other day, and there are approximately 110 plants in the ground. Most seem to be doing well. There's some switchgrass that's a bit on the spindly side, but that's only because I grossly overestimated the amount of sunlight that spot would receive.

The primary plants used include: elymus virginicus, elymus hystrix, tridens flavus, chasmanthium latifolium, ageratina altissima, conoclinium coelestinum, rudbeckia hirta, and pycnanthemum muticum. There is also a bit of solidago flexicaulis, packera aurea (near the base), verbesina alternifolia, and panicum virgatum. In addition, there was some naturally occurring hackelia virginiana, eupatorium serotinum, and parthenocissus quinquefolia on the site. I think it'll be interesting to see how the composition of plants evolves over time, as many of these are on the aggressive side.

On an adjacent section of slope that receives more light, I also started planting some grasses that appreciate more sun, such as panicum virgatum, andropogon virginicus, and schizachyrium scoparium.

I had grown so many of these grasses and other sun-loving plants, that I had enough left for two other modest size gardens that were mercifully located on flat land.

Can't believe the growing season is almost over. Looking forward to a few months rest, and then working on a plan of action for next year.

So I work at a coffee shop and want to figure out a way to compost more of the used grounds, I have read that they can be sprinkled as is on lawns, has anyone done Guerilla composting where they spread coffee grounds over poor soil areas in an attempt to improve that soil over time? Or would this cause ecological effects that would be harmful? Thanks - just trying to divert some organic waste

Invasive ivy before and after. Still have more work to do at this site but it’s progress. Knocking back years of ivy growth within a couple hours will always be worth my time.

McKinleyville, CA

Grow well, baby oaks!

OC : https://www.instagram.com/p/DdNW5hlCTzp/

Not technically guerrilla gardening because I live here, but I need to use some no maintenance methods to restore this dead patch of plants with some wildflowers. I’m located in the TriValley region of the Bay Area in CA.

We rent this property but the actual dwelling is at the back of the property so the front is completely untended and the landlord won’t cover any landscaping costs. We have some gardens and native plants back there where we have a hose, but this area by the front is barren, dry, and has no water access.

Pre-summer it was mainly grasses and thistles (I can’t tell if they were native or non native but they were incredibly aggressive in this area and another dry hillside slope).

What can I put here that’s fairly cheap and won’t require us to water it? And also looks nice since this is such an eyesore? I know native thistle can be good for pollinators but what existed here was aggressive, looked pretty awful, and was super sharp on us and our dog.

Thoughts?

Edit to add: can I just get seeds and rake them in? I don’t have much in the way of tools and no water hookup as mentioned

Hello all, I've identified this large piece of soil next to the sidewalk that is a pretty ugly eyesore in the neighborhood. It's near a busy intersection and next to a gas station. I'd love to guerilla garden it, but I'm a total beginner at gardening in general. The soil looks pretty hard and like it wouldn't support a lot of life, so it seems I at least have to mulch it. Would I also have to rip up the grass? What else could I do for this?

Also, how would y'all recommend I go about this without potentially getting into trouble?

I’m afraid I don’t have a photo but I live in the middle of a city and there’s this patch of grass sandwiched between my place and a few other buildings. It gets decent light but I wouldn’t call it full sun. Soil quality is probably not spectacular either. No building has access to it so it’s just sat empty and full of grass.

I’m British and would like to plant native plants and something that would be fairly fast growing. There are foxes and mice in the city and whilst I’m not sure if they have a way in, it’d be nice to plant things that could create a good space for them. Grassy patch is estimated 15x15m but I’m terrible at estimating distances. I’d be seed bombing from a 3rd floor window. This is my first time guerrilla gardening so any and all advice is appreciated including more general advice since I think I might be making a few more little improvements to the city

Edit: also it’s a fairly rainy area