"Please!!! Don't Mow. Let it grow." (How Evanston got bombed)

[SoCalDem]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-guerrilla-gardeners-jul20,0,4471643.story?obref=obnetwork
Evanston 'guerrilla gardeners' want to know who cut their wildflowers

Georgia Garvey, Brian Cox
July 20, 2009

Silent plea

A piece of wood with "Please!!! Don't Mow. Let it grow." hand written on it hangs on the chain link fence advertising the idea of making the vacant lot at the corner of Main Street and Chicago Avenue in Evanston, Ill. (Tribune photo by Lane Christiansen / July 15, 2009)

A posse of "guerrilla gardeners" who flower-bombed a vacant lot in Evanston want to know who mowed down the wildflowers that sprouted. "We keep getting conflicting information," said Carla Hayden of Evanston, who helped lead the raid last September on the lot at the southeast corner of Main Street and Chicago Avenue. Evanston officials say they don't think they ordered the recent mowing and the landowners aren't talking. The lot is in the process of being foreclosed by Cole Taylor Bank and the defendants include Bernard Katz and Associates, David and Gail Katz, and Mainstreet Station and Condominium, none of whom could be reached.

Hayden and neighbor Charlotte Briggs were sick of looking at the deep hole left after plans fell through for a condominium tower. With the property in legal limbo, improvements were unlikely, they figured. After the city got the owners to fill in the hole, it looked perfect for planting.

So armed with a plastic whiffle-ball thrower, customized lacrosse sticks and a slingshot, the two women and other members of their group, "Trowels on the Prowl," pelted the property with 700 seed bombs -- a mix of wildflower seeds, compost and clay. When spring arrived, the wildflowers sprouted beautifully, they say. "And then they mowed," said Briggs. "It was like a kick in my gut."

The group wants to know how they can keep it from happening again.


snip

[TwilightGardener]

1. Wildflowers can look like weeds

especially when not in flower. Not what I would plant for a vacant city lot. It's not their property, anyway--they shouldn't have been messing with it to begin with, so they have nothing to cry about.

[MADem]

2. They could purchase the property, and plant it properly.

That's how they can "keep it from happening again."

Sheesh. They might have asked permission of the property owners to plant a wildflower garden, too, rather than doing what they did.

The property wasn't technically in "legal limbo"--it belongs to the owners until the bank takes it away, even if the owners didn't pay the mortgage.

[SoCalDem]

4. oops

[The Stranger]

3. Methinks the posters above me are humor-challenged.

Fucking buzzkill.

[SoCalDem]

5. the same thought occured to me

If they had clicked the link they would see that the city was not against the idea:)

[MADem]

8. I did click the link. The city didn't own the property, though, did they? nt

[MADem]

7. I am not humor challenged. I just think the gardeners could have simply

asked for permission of the owners rather than taking it upon themselves to toss seed over the fence and then get pissed when someone mows property that the gardeners do not even own.

Look, either the owners or the bank, depending on who owns that patch, is looking to sell it. That's why it got a haircut, to make it look ready for prime time.

So, if you want to call that, rather childishly, a "fucking buzzkill" go right ahead.

[Double T]

6. Probably some antisemitic and anti-gardener terrorist organization.

No organization, cause or person is safe in this world.

[johnaries]

11. Actually, weren't the gardeners the terrorists?

Watch out for the terrorist gardeners and their wildflower seed bombs! They are WMD's - Weapons of Mass Daisies!

[Double T]

12. Destroying rogue unauthorized wild flowers is most certainly a terrorist act.

The gardeners are obvious revolutionaries that have no respect for the local government or the crooked mortgage holder bank. I say let the WMDs rain across the entire property.

[Feron]

9. I tried a wildflower garden once and..

it ended up looking like a clump of weeds with a few pretty flowers. I ended up ripping it out and putting nicer flowering plants in.

Wildflower gardens sound nice in theory, but are more often than not ugly in reality.

[MadHound]

13. Umm, don't judge all wildflower planting by your own experience

We've a number of green spaces that have put in wildflowers and native plants, even including a golf course. They all look fine.

[abumbyanyothername]

10. Actually I have read the book and

Food, Not Lawns (wherein the idea of guerrilla gardening is explicated) is one of the most practical radical books I have read in a long time. Essentially, the author advocates growing stuff wherever you think you can get away with it.

She also talks about living a lifestyle that can be maintained on, like, less than $10,000/year by in general using less, re-using what you do use, lowering your footprint all around.

Among other tidbits she advocates, if you throw only one appliance out of your house, make it your refrigerator.

[InvisibleTouch]

14. I'll have to look up that book.

I've seeded my lawn with quite a few herbs and medicinal plants which, to the uninitiated, look like common "weeds." Let one of those "lawn care" company purveyors of poison come around here with their offers of "treating" my lawn, and I will run them off with a machete.

[abumbyanyothername]

15. Well fair warning

the title is a little misleading. It is more of a rant on the misplaced values of our culture, when I thought it would be a "how to" on how to turn your yard into a farm.

[InvisibleTouch]

17. Ah, okay.

Sounds like a library-loan, then, rather than a purchase. Thanks! :)

[XemaSab]

16. K&R for guerilla gardening!

:bounce:

[Liberal_in_LA]

18. +1