
Weston-Super-Mare's pier (seen in the previous post) burnt down at the weekend. A great shame because it was a lovely pier with the funniest Ghost Train and great dodgems.
Brexit Pictures is sold out and has been delivered - but here are some of the spreads from the publication. It was a real pleasure to make,...
1. Spot some local orphaned land. You will be amazed how many little grubby patches of unloved public space there are. Neglected flower beds, concrete planters sprouting litter and untamed plants, bare plots of mud. Chose one close to home, perhaps you pass it on the way to the shops or work, and appoint yourself it's parent. This will make it much easier to look after in the long term and reduce the risk of straying into a dangerous neighbourhood. 2. Plan a mission. Make a date in the diary for an evening attack, when trouble-making busy bodies are out of sight. Invite supportive friends, or perhaps enrole supportive strangers by announcing your attack in the Guerrilla Gardening Community here. 3. Find a local supply of plants. The cheaper the better. For city dwellers think local DIY stores, supermarkets and whole salers. The cheapest plants are ones that are free. Sometimes garden centres will have spare plants to give you for the cause. Or befriend someone with a garden (you might even be lucky and have a garden yourself). Think of these private spaces as the training camps for harvesting seeds, cuttings and plants hardened for their big adventure in the wilds of public space. If you have things going spare please leave a message in the Community forum for guerrillas near to where you live. 4. Choose plants for front line battle. Think hardy - resistant to water shortages and the cold, and in some locations pedestrian trampling! These plants need to look after themselves a lot of the time. Think impactful - colour, ever green foliage, scale. These plants need to really make a difference, for as much of the year as possible. Visit the Community to get advice about specific plants for your part of the world, and to share your horticultural advice with the less experienced. In London I use a lot of herbs like Lavender and Thyme, tulip bulbs, shrubs. | |
"The UK doing cafe culture is a bit like watching your dad dance," he says. "We're never really going to carry it off with any aplomb and sophistication like the French. The cafe culture in France is different from the one here. In the UK, it is very much the Starbucks culture. It's been transmitted from America, rather than trying to replicate the French version, which is much more relaxed."
The irony of us trying to decide whether we want American-style or French-style coffee shops is that, as Markman Ellis, author of The Coffee-House: A Cultural History, says - we had them first. "The continental notion of the cafe was inspired by a British idea. When the first coffee houses opened in Rome in the late 17th century, they were very much thought of as an imitation of a British model," he says.