The Ants Go Marching One by One...

...Hurrah! Hurrah! Somebody once told me that when the ants wake up and start making their ant hills it's ok to plant. I noticed ant hills, lots of them, in the cracks of the sidewalks around Foreclosure Park on April 5th. For any readers out in the wider world, we are talking Zone 4, Minneapolis here. The thought of planting in early April is crazy. It's been interesting observing the gardens waking up this year, though. Some of the minor bulbs came 2 weeks early. Others I haven't seen at all. Does that mean they aren't coming to the party, or they know how to read the calendar? The daffodils that are supposed to bloom the same time as the early iris look like they might be done before the irises get their buds. So much for that combination!

It's like that with the visitors to Foreclosure Park, too. Like the scilla and the daffodils, Musician Paul and Teacher Vant stopped to wish me a Happy Spring and said they'd been wondering when I was going to get to the cleaning. Like the crocus and muscari, I haven't seen my elder friends Horace and Nina yet. Joe came by though. He asked me to do the math to figure out how old he is, and was tickled I got it right. 81-years-old last November. I got to hear again the story of how he gave up his retirement lake home Up North to live out his days in town with his wife. They've been married 54 years, so he thought he'd stick it out with her. I promised to look for some bush cucumber plants for him. The other kind send vines across the driveway. That's apartment living for you.

In spite of the massive snow mounds dumped at Foreclosure Park last winter, just about all the perennials show promise of returning. The exception being my cherished Cary Grant Hybrid Tea Rose. Sigh. It wasn't really hardy to Zone 4, but I was hoping! I called the nursery that sells them and got a release for sale date, so I will be replacing it in May. Right on time, not too early, not too late. For sure.

When the snow is on the roses...

Recently I came across this photo of a snow-dusted guerrilla garden in London. The hope and anticipation that lies beneath! What would the gardener of this lush space think of Foreclosure Park in its present state:


Every rose bush at Foreclosure Park is under this pile of snow. The Ole, the Lena, my special Cary Grant Hybrid Tea, and the random additions whose names I've forgotten or never knew. They were carefully mulched with marsh hay before being tucked in for the winter, and I know they are cozy and warm under all of this. But what other damage might have they endured?

Foreclosure Park, as you will recall, is positioned between three streets. In addition there is public sidewalk down two sides of the park and a public housing apartment building across the street with sidewalks that also need to be cleared...all that snow. It has to go somewhere.


Even with that understanding, it is at times discouraging to see the damage wrought upon the park; not by vandals or careless neighbors, but by city employees doing their jobs. Note the
frozen snake of hose coiled on this mountain of snow. That's the 3/4" industrial grade hose purchased only last year. The extra investment was made with the intent that the hose would be in place for many years to come, running from the fire hydrant, down the storm drain on one side of the street, underneath , then coming out the storm drain on the other side.


Alas! Duration of the hose was short. Last fall, a week before the water permit expired, I suspect it was an overzealous water works person who cut the hose from the hydrant. There was, afterall, a certain professionalism about the cut, and the claimed calls of reports from 9-1-1 and 3-1-1 announcing the watery demise of the hose could not be verified. In my discouragement, I will admit I did not run the hose back down the drain for protection from further winter damage, and merely left it coiled on the boulevard. It was then caught by the tines of the machine used to clear the walk...slashed, punctured and tossed aside.


Guerrilla gardens are subject to more harsh treatment than private gardens. Because of the damage they incur, they take more effort to maintain. But they bring, in equal measure, more joy and delight than any private garden I've ever maintained. And for that reason, when spring does come, I will buy another hose--3/4" industrial yes!--and hoping for the best, I will uncover the Cary Grant Hybrid Tea, and reveal all that is enduring and new beneath those warming mountains of frozen snow.

In the beginning...

Once upon a time there was a garden in a little park tucked away between three streets and two little neighborhoods in Northeast Minneapolis. There were neighbors who installed a lovely winding path through the park using granite blocks. They built a raised bed bordered with the same granite blocks. There was a man who provided water from his home in order to help the garden grow. Neighbors who were gardeners came and took care of the gardens in the park. Then the man who provided the water from his house died. Without water, it was difficult for the neighbors to care for the garden and after awhile the gardens died, too. Over time, the garden went to weeds and wild flowers.Difficult economic times came and some people in the city began to lose their homes to foreclosure. One woman in the neighborhood was losing her home and needed a place to move her perennials to places they could be cared for. She found the raised bed in the park. It looked like this:
Across the street from the park was a fire hydrant, and with permission from the Park Board to take care of the Park, and $80 to pay for a water permit, the woman was set to move plants into the Park. The Park Board has a rule that no chemicals to kill weeds or bugs may be used on Park property, so all the weeds had to be removed by hand. After years of neglect, this took many, many hours. Finally, after two growing seasons, the Park looks like this:

There are many, many different types of plants in the Park. Alot of them came from the woman's gardens at the home she lost. Others were rescued from properties on which the houses were going to be demolished. That is why the woman sometimes calls this place Foreclosure Park.