Patch worked

Well. The Dog Kennel Hill patch was fried in the 4 weeks of 30degrees and no rain. In spite of 2 mad dashes with buckets and assembled friends a lot of the plants really suffered. However in the last couple of weeks there has been regular rain so I risked planting some more stuff - the usual suspects, lychnis, alchemilla, leucanthemum. More excitingly, I met up with a very sweet young man doing an anthropology degree and interested in guerrilla gardening and together we planted in 4 Verbena Bonariensis next to the irises and chopped down all the browned stems of the hollyhocks, daisies and everything else singed and burnt. A lovely middle-aged Asian man simply said 'thank you' when he was waiting by the traffic lights.
It looks a bit desecrated but give it a few weeks and this patch will rock again.

 

...and here is the petit pit in Camberwell Grove - the one place that was close enough to maintain through the heat. Plus the people from the Vineyard have helped out. Subsequently some vile person [a plague on them] pulled out one of the verbenas by the roots and just left it there. I've replaced it with small ones.  

spring forward

Lots to report. Firstly it is actually behaving like spring and thus everything is growing beautifully. Minus the plant that was stolen from Mcneil Road... Tragically I think it might have been someone seeing us team dig that spot and realised there were some interesting plants going in not 'just' weeds... I wish a plague of vine weevils on them. They nicked the bigger of the Sarcococca Confusas that I planted in January. No more of them for easy to get at spots. Actually they have struggled in Dog Kennel Hill so maybe I'll just keep them all.

Dog Kennel Hill is entering its glory days... I've just added in more Alchemilla Mollis, Lychnis and Hardy Geraniums, and weeded out 3 bags of smothering stuff. I notice that one of the Irises I planted out last summer is coming into flower! And the bronze fennels in between them are surviving. Some yellow and white daisy things are in flower plus the odd bit of vinca, and of course the euphoria of the Euphorbia. There's a bit of a task ahead to sort out section 4 which has large clumps of Hollyhocks on the edges, which is not good: they need to keep the centre line. I've got a whole load of Japanese Anemones growing in pots: a few weeks and they'll find join this patch. More pink alas, but bee-friendly.

Stories Road treepit is also triumphant

Camberwell Green raised pits next to the former job centre is ok. That has the driest, dustiest soil. But maybe the mint was pulled up from there too? The game survivor is Golden Rod (Solidago) and I think some shasta daisies (Leucanthem) plus, and of course! the hollyhocks... I added in some Giant Russian sunflower seeds and some small friends of Borage.

Camberwell Grove petit pit is still going strong

Up the Junction

There is now a budding guerrilla garden on the corner of Mcneil Road and Camberwell Grove. The Sarcococca I added in 3 months ago are surviving and the Chef and C have gamely started adding in lots of donated stuff - brunnera, crocosmia, day lillies and more. I've added in 3 clumps of hardy geranium (donated from Clive of Grove Park open exotic garden fame) and cleared back some of the layering brambles to a. try and protect the young trees, b. give us more space to plant, and c. allow some space to get close to the fencing to plant nasturtium seeds. No need to totally clear the brambles because they are very wildlife friendly [flowers and fruit] - just a bit rampant when left to themselves. I really hope the nasturtiums grow as there's plenty of room for a great display.
pics to follow...

pocket spring

 

Stories Road is looking great! almost - maybe everything - has survived and will soon be putting on some height (and thus be noticeable all the way up and down Grove Lane). I have also added some California Poppy seeds so watch out for the blue grey filigree of their foliage. Maybe the Chef Solaire and I should stick a planting plan to the back of the road name.

Dog Kennel Hill is also SPLENDID. If you count the spaces between the trees as sections then there are 5 sections available for guerrilla sensibility. I have noticeably planted sections 1 and 2, plus started in on 4 (there was a logic to that at the time involving a bad weed patch in 3 plus some tragic tomatoes that some well-meaning person had added in and left to fend for themselves).

Section 2 got some more Lychnis, Hardy Geranium and Aquilegia yesterday. 

Section 4 - in which the 3 Fennel plants, previously added in between the irises, are still making it (they are great gg plants as long as they get watered until established). I added in 2 Alchemilla either side of the lavender and a largish pot of Michaelmas Daisies.

No pics yet, but the tree pit in Camberwell Grove, opposite the Vineyard, is also surviving enough to get more plants - Michaelmas Daises, Leucanthemum and Creeping Jenny.

camberwell grove, even

...and today  I also spied that the ground by the railway underpass/weak bridge in the middle of 'the grove' is wet enough to dig... and I have a spare sarcococca just waiting to be re-homed...

...and this today I re-homed it in that very place, testing out how crap the soil is [which is quite crap - its only the rain that has made it at all diggable, but sarcococca can cope with dry shade just fine] and also adding in 2 hollyhocks from the forest on dog kennel hill. I also did a bit more weeding and trimming up that hill and found that there are indeed hollyhocks sprouting the whole way up amongst the weeds...I tried to make it more obvious that they are there so hopefully no council workers will weed them out.

...and previously on camberwell grove I realised that there was a new-ish small tree-pit with bare soil not concreted over, so I added in euphorbia, an aquilegia and lychnis. Its opposite The Vineyard.