BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

I love guerilla gardening and am totally in if any takes place. I have some supplies too.

I can say from experience that when Friends of the Riverfront attempted to plant some things along river trails people actually come and DIG THEM UP AND TAKE THEM. I assume that some folks just don't realize these are managed areas just like the parks.

As for trees, if you have ridden on the south side trail, you will see some areas where trees have been a success, and others where they are totally dead. That is because new trees need 40gallons of water per week... which we sure as hell haven't gotten in the form of rain in a while.

But, in short, I bet we could find some drought loving plants that wouldnt become invasive problems that would shade the trail a bit in the future. But honestly, if it is hot for you running/biking/using the trail, imagine what it's like for the things trying to live there!

I'm sure the beavers don't help matters any. Are there any on the north shore of the Mon?

Myself, I yank or cut back invasives whenever I run across them. I realize some of this is pointless (Japanese knotweed, for instance), but it might give some natives a fighting chance. Along the EFT, I haven't even seen much of that growing, though.

But damn, those trees sure look purty on the artists' renderings that get used to sell the package to the public. There should be a truth-in-advertising law for those things.

As somebody that occasionally runs along the jail trail, it is difficult to run through weeds on the side of the trail. (See other convo about why running on the gravel > to running on the pavement > sidewalks) In addition to potential poisonous stuff, seeds and such get in between your socks and soles.

It was also like what, 86 yesterday? So it was just hot in general, besides weeds

Caitlin - I hear you on people stealing plants. That's one of the reasons I'd be more in favor of improving the soil and putting seeds in the ground (that and it's cheaper than actual plants). If people don't realize what's there and leave it a little, then maybe some has a chance. If somebody digs it all up... That leaves some space to put more seeds (which are cheap). Even if nothing gets planted but some ground cover that nobody thinks is pretty, it's better than the barren dirt that's there now!

Pierce - I agree, I'm not looking to plant anything that will take over the trail! Just maybe induce a little life into the packed and barren rats nest of under/over passes that mysteriously gets sun... is there no rain there? Are there places along the trail that get no water? Is that the barrenness that I see? Yuccas would grow there, but people might dig them up.

Tabby - I figured you might be a fellow gardener in the War Against Barren Land

I was thinking some cleverly disguised Lasagna style beds to build up the soil and get some Life into the "dirt" over winter, then in the spring try some easy hands-off plants (from seed) like sunflowers or something. Could use fences to trestle flowering vines or something. Even if it all gets overrun by wild grape (like the rest of the city), it's better than Nothing - at least it's alive! Luring birds and insects there will keep the ball rolling when we walk away, too.

Would need trailers to haul supplies/tools (such a good excuse to do some research and perhaps an early Christmas Gift to self). Could probably use chopped "weeds" from elsewhere along the trail to help add organic matter, rather than buying or hauling from elsewhere.

But like I said, I rarely use the trail, so I don't know it as well as regular commuters. I don't want to plan for 'naught, or plan for some imaginary use in my head and just cause bigger problems.

Someone could start a program of rescuing abandoned tires from the river banks and turning them into tire planters with xerophyllic native plants along the really barren parts of the trail. Tire planters seem to be favored by frugal immigrants and skinflint farmers, and I think maybe if more people adopted some of the practices of those folks the country might actually stand a chance.

I'm in for helping if someone else organizes it.

+1 for tire planters.

I will do scoping and thinking, which hopefully will form to planning. I do like the tire idea, perhaps that will help it look more organized than my normal "pile-o-feral-plants" gardening technique.

Sprout fund might be open to funding a thing like this, they have grant apps due for their enviromental and biodiversity grants at the end of this month.

http://www.sproutfund.org/spring/

sounds like something easily done with a $5K grant.

hard part is asking permission from whomever "runs" the trails, I guess.

although it may not be that hard to ask and get approval. nothing is happening now and i am sure someone at bike pgh could connect you, or i can find out via city planning who to ask?

I have contacts with the city and friends of the riverfront, but honestly I prefer "pile-o-feral plants" myself. Native plant seeds can do a great job of improving the trail appearance without being coveted plants that would get stolen excessively.

my god, I'm landscaping my entire front yard and putting in a flagstone patio for less than $5k - we could garden up the whole trail with that much!

The permission thing was one of the reasons I was thinking of going Guerilla. If some plants could just get _started_, it would take effort to get rid of them. Effort that no entity "running" the trail has ever exerted on it that I've heard of.

Then again, I have always prescribed to the questionable school of "it is better to ask forgiveness than permission"

What is this "asking permission" of which you speak? I am unfamiliar with this.

caitlin - if you can locate a contact, that would be cool. I'd be willing to test the waters in the very least.

Native, hearty, xerophyllic, non-coveted (not hostas!)... I'll see if I can come up with a list. This could be fun. Everybody I've heard poo-poo the trail uses the barren stretches as a "urban trails suck" argument.

We shouldn't have to pay a cent to get the tires, if we go that route, right? Don't service stations acquire them by the dozens and have to pay to get rid of them? Or would we just use the ones we drag out of the rivers and ravines?

I've used a couple of tire flower boxes for over 10 years. They work wonderfully.

Natives on trails suggestion: Joe Pye weed; another link.

im totally into the not asking, but if you wanted cash money to fund the idea, you would have to ask.

ill see what i can dig up via my contact.

also, the stolen plants were a variety of bulbs and black eyed susans, I believe.

oh yeah, tires are free (and my most prolific catch to date in any river or pond!). So is fresh compost, I may have a source of aged horse poo if I can convince a friend to help (benefit to living in burbs - transporting horse poo by bike to city is downside of living in burbs). So is shoveling, if I can figure out how to bungee a shovel to my bike, it's the second reason I garden (food is first). Seeds aren't, but they're so cheap that should be easy enough to combine in my winter "I miss green things" seed spree (catalogs are the devil).

Heck, my mechanic pays a guy $2 to haul away tires. I may be able to get him to pay ME $2 to haul away some tires, and then use that money to buy seeds, effectively getting the project to pay for itself.

Friends of the Riverfront would be the proper contact.....

I like the idea of "recycling" tires found during the annual river cleanups, etc.....or just free scattering of seeds.

if it is the jail trail though, its not friends of the riverfront as a contact (i would be hesitant to encourage a ton of tire gardens along the riverfront... since they might end up back in the river!)

More likely they'd end up alongside the Parkway East, or Second Ave. My hunch is they'd be accepted, ignored, and generally not messed with. A tire with 50 pounds of dirt in it is darn difficult to move.

Thinking about that other current trail thread, I'd be more concerned about over-winter plowing, i.e., being an obstruction to whatever does said plowing.

oh flooding... thank you caitlin. That alone might explain why some of the spots I'm thinking of are barren. Nothing that habitually lives in the air likes being under water for days on end. Hmm.

I'd say take the tires you find around the area and repurpose them as planters if you want, but adding extra tires to parks and trails seems like not-a-good-idea. They don't last an incredibly long time, probably leach various toxins into the soil, and someone will have to pay to clean that crap up one day. Maybe I'm the only one, but I also think they would impart a bit of RV-park kitsch on the trails.

Caitlin: why do you say FOTR is not the contact for the Jail Trail? My experience says that they ARE the contact for that trail.

Hi, I'm new to the forums. A few weeks ago I saw one of these at Square Cafe / Regent Square.

http://thecommonstudio.com/index.php?/project/greenaid/

Seed bomb vending machine w/ seeds of native species...would be neat to have one at the bike rental place?

there's a seed bomb vending machine? really?

Really! When I ate breakfast there, the SQ cafe left a quarter on the tray to encourage people to use the machine (50 cents).

Nice. The guy who runs Steel City Soils also makes seed bombs, to benefit Pittsburgh Garden Experiment (who are the next people I plan on bouncing this idea off of). Seed bombs are... da bomb. But the dirt I saw - I'd be amazed if anything would grow there at all without some help. I'm headed down this weekend for a more serious scoping out mission, I'll post my planned schedule (soon as I come up with it) if anybody wants to meet me there.

While you're thinking about it, it would sure be nice to get something viney growing on the fence near the jail where you are inches away from parkway traffic, morning glories or something. All it would take would be a tiny gap between the concrete barrier and the pavement. Or maybe that's someplace you just tell the wild grape to go.

I'd be happy to go through my half packets of (wildflower) seeds to see what I have left from this year. We could make our own seed bombs if we collected enough "leftovers."

-1 on wild grape. I don't know if they're invasive or not, but they get everywhere and get huge and pull down any tree they get near, eventually.

I've been trying to eradicate all the wild grape on my own property for 15 years, with only moderate success.

Morning glory are an invasive vine, The flowers are pretty, but planting mg is like planting knotweed or wild grape.

There's a native honeysuckle vine that might be nice, perennial, hardy, flowering (draws in the good bugs), non-invasive. Also an american Wisteria (not the chinese one), or clematis. There should be enough fence to do all of them.

Another option to help the soil might be to do a year of hyacinth bean vines or sweet pea / legumes and THEN put in something more perenial. I promise to do less harm than good, and to plant more native than foreign. Whatever follows my actions (with birds pooping wild grape seeds everywhere) is another matter. I do not promise to weed or water, I'm assuming these things will be independent or dead.

I'll be downtown (at the bike rental place) at 9:30ish Saturday morning with a notebook and see if I can't do a little research, anybody's welcome to join (I'll need to bug out at 11:30ish for a class in Larrytown).

Anybody with experience on that trail during flooding, snow (ploughing?), or rain would be greatly appreciated to contribute that knowledge (either online or in person, or PM me for alternate contact). I know where the sun falls, what I don't know about is water down there.

Swalfoot: Iguess I just assumed it was the city, since all the talk of who maintains it veers towards the city... but you are right, if it is part of the Three Rivers Heritage Trail system, and it is, right? Then Tom & FOTR would be contacts. And anyway they are good to talk to about this sort of thing, if you do want to ask first.

I tried the seed bomb machine and IT ATE MY QUARTERS. DAMN YOU SEED BOMB MACHINE.

Pretty sure the seed bombs were too big to come out.

it looks like this.

despite my missing quarters, i love seed bomb vending machine. i was super sad when no seed bomb came out!

@JZ

they might be invasive but you can make a hallucinogen called LSA out of em with very little effort.

My input is that all the plants that yinz plant be useful in some practical way whether medicinal, edible, or 'stimulating'

spakbros - I normally agree, but in this case I'd be wary of planting anything that encourages human consumption for two reasons: 1) the "soil" (tiny pieces of ground up "city") hasn't been tested for Nasty ($9/test), and 2) an edible plant in a high traffic area may be picked to death. When I do my snooping this weekend, I'll take notes on how many different soil tests we'd have to do if we're going the whole edible route. Note - I haven't tested my own garden, but that's backyard that used to be farm, not baked "city" that used to be wagon -> keel boat conversion launch (and 200 years of unknown thereafter).

Even if the soil test comes back all puppies and rainbows (which I'm sure it wont - you may discover your very own superfund site!), these plants will be growing next to a freeway. Only way I'd eat that stuff is if you cooked it up with the catch of the day from our local rivers. The poisons and toxins cancel each other out, don't cha know.

If it is real close to the freeway, the plants will have to tolerate copious amounts of salty road spray all winter long - most edible things don't.

I hear ya but I'd bet the pesticides on the rest of your food are just as bad if not worse. ("organic" included, they use em too)

I forage a lot around the city for the record.

@caitlin - those posts are beautiful - i love the sincere apology after the frustrated outburst, presumably so as not to hurt seed bomb machine's feelings. i hope they get it working though.

I'll be later tomorrow morning than I thought, 10:30 at the bike rental place if anybody's interested in joining me.

10:30?

OK

< rolls over and goes back to sleep for another hour >

wagon -> keel boat conversion launch (and 200 years of unknown thereafter).

Ha, nothing unknown about this site! That used to be a railroad, remember. They burned coal, and spit it out on the ground.

Right next to it used to be wall-to-wall steel mills. And not all that long ago. They also burned coal (and coke, same thing).

Eat food grown there? I'd be amazed if the ground isn't radioactive.

nasturtiums? they love the heat. vetch? they always plant crown vetch after roadwork, seems to do a fine job building up poor soil. alfalfa might take off there. i've noticed parsnips, burdock and wormwood doing well there. wild carrot and chicory would likely take off there too. datura does great, but i think it might be a "noxious weed".

guerrilla would be the way to go. in my experience friends of the riverfront has been very uncooperative with people interested in planting things along the bike trails.

I checked out the trail today. To me at least, the problem seems to be a surplus of cancrete rather than a lack of plants. The plants along the trail are ugly, but they are plants.

The place where something could be done is a few seed bombs in a 50 yard stretch between the jail itself and the parkway. The soil there is both muddy and sandy, but it gets sun. There are oindiucations that some motor vehicles turn around there, but that oculd be worked around with a few strategically placed stakes and seom twine.

I also checked out the trail, about 40 minutes after Mick, and came to the exact same conclusion in the exact same place. I'm not sure who uses that stretch as turnaround (maybe the crews who "maintain" the trail), but there's TONS of space for some lovely trellaced vines along the fence, it gets enough water to support some rather lush grass, there's Japanese Knotweed and even a small tree at the one end. The trail itself is shaded by the overpass it's under, but that fence gets some delicious southern sun the entire length of the day.

The bike rental people told me that the city would have to hear about it in order for them to not mow it down, because they are the ones who maintain (mow) the whole trail - otherwise it would be completely overgrown. After the stretch of grass near the bikeshop (before the aforementioned turnaround), I saw zero evidence of mowing. Perhaps a little spring time weed whacking, but evidence of it had long grown over, flowered, gone to seed, and was starting to die off. So I'm not too worried about that. They seemed a little offended at my implication that the city "maintained" the trails in the summer in much the same way they "plough" the trail in the winter. Admittedly the trail looks fantastic near the rental place, but there are stretches further down that, honestly, look downright abused.

Other than the stretch right beside the jail, I noticed two other places that could use a little love. The second (headed outbound) was right beside Metaltech, where there was complete shade at midday but somehow enough ambient light that a frigging tree and some weeds were growing. This is the worst spot for graffiti (and the BEST spot for a sanctioned artistic mural, hello? lots of starving artists out there who will work for less than the cost of painting over the graffiti every spring, murals are generally respected and left alone, anybody home?), and the hillside leading up to the graffiti is empty clay (cleared by either the people putting up the graffiti or the grey paint to "fix" it afterwards). This would be an awesome spot for some kind of ground cover with attractive foliage or flowers, shade loving and xerophyllic (a tall order in a plant). Failing that, just some kind of flower would be nice. Like I said, other stuff grows here somehow, so clearly mother nature does not listen too much to the backs of seed packets.

The last spot that seemed to need anything was the great big long fence beside second avenue just before and after the detour sign. There are some intentional and sick trees there (probably not enjoying the last ~five years of drought). But the fence is long and empty, and a vine of some kind would go a long way towards shielding the trail from Second avenue. The sadistic part of me likes traveling the trail in rush hour, laughing and pointing to the people sitting in traffic, but that's only entertaining for like 5 minutes, then the fumes really get to me. Vines on that fence would be far better entertainment and could help keep the fumes on the production side of the fence.

If anybody has a _helpful_ contact at FOTWF, I'd appreciate a PM with info. Otherwise I'm kind of wondering why the trail has been there for (X>5) years, has Friends, and something like this hasn't been done. Maybe they tried and it died. Maybe red tape, but I don't play with red tape. Maybe maintenance, but again, I don't play with maintenance. Plants grew long before there were maintenance crews to look after them. Put the right thing in the right spot with low expectations and you're done, walk away. Meh.

Thoughts?

http://www.hulu.com/watch/67878/the-future-of-food

cannot be much worse for you on a few levels

NOT arguing that the ground isn't gross along the old mill sites though

X>10

Periodically, new trees get planted and die.

It's a pretty harsh environment. Sure "plants grow without maintenance crews", but I have heard of places in the natural environment that plants don't grow, too, so there's that.

I wonder if someone can genetically engineer a plant that can live on no sunshine, road salt, and carbon monoxide. It's probably related to dandelions.

Triffids would probably do well, but they seem a bit invasive.

I just emailed my step-dad (who was in landscaping for 17 years, and has been something of a botanist for the past 10) to ask for any suggestions as to what might grow well without being invasive and overgrown. I'll let you know what the result is.

might not work, but imagine you're on your way into town in the morning, dead tired, and when you get to the downtown end of the trail - spearmint, everywhere. A nice wake-up, I'd think. Mint is one of my favorite herbs.

@edmonds59: "Invasive". Nicely done.

RF - any advice he has would be awesome. I have grown stuff in places with all the problems associated with these areas - but not all together in a single place.

I will admit, my sister's grandfather on her father's side introduced Kudzu to the south. Note he's not MY grandfather. I will not do that. Mint, vetch, and things like sunchokes, they may be our only options. Yuccas too. But luckily there's not far for anything to roam - which I think is part of the problem. There's a native plant that's a nice culinary substitute for ginger that likes an acidic forest floor - might do for the dark spots. There are unattended unplanned trees there, so I'm not counting anything out.

The ride to downtown (via ARB/Butler) and then out the trail was so nice on Saturday, I think I'll do it a few times a month, keep an eye on the conditions. If we're seriously dealing with an AZ salt flat condition, I'm ok with that (and might push more for a mural across from Metaltech - hello, Art Schools? Big cheap project, hello??). But planting trees - any trees - is a HUGE time/water commitment until they get established. New trees are NOT by any stretch of the imagination maintenance free, I'm not surprised they die. Once established (in that soil, YEARS) they're hands off. But there's nothing that old along those stretches of trail, and nothing that has been watered enough this year (as in most of what was planted will probably not last another two years).

@spak - when I need a does of outrage to propel me to action I watch future of food... Otherwise I ostrich myself in my heirloom veg garden, it's too scary out there. http://web.me.com/aprildavila/MWM/Blog/Blog.html is a really interesting experiment one woman did to try to live a Monsanto-free month. Interesting in that "please let the nightmare end" kind of way.

Triffids aren't invasive, they're just misunderstood

also - I gotta say I'm a fan of graffiti on the jail trail, at least the good ones. "Tanks but NO TANKS," "AM" (on the wall, really really big), "HULKAMANIAC," "KILL YOUR TV," and properTEA's fire hydrants are my favorites, as well as the poem that was on one of the pillars by the bench, which got painted over

So, a mural on the ugly concrete wall by the western end of the trail would be really awesome

Tanks but no tanks is my favourite graffito ever, except maybe a Dr Zoidberg I saw one time.

Also I'm just catching up with this thread now, but I'm in for being part of the labour force. Love guerilla gardening, or even sanctioned gardening.

From my desk at Ansaldo last year, I gazed out at "OIL WAR" every day. I always thought that was awesome.

How difficult would it be for a guerilla gardener to dig a small hole, trailside, and bury some compost? I might bag the coffee filter and grounds the next time I make a pot of joe at the office. Maybe that would give my seed bomb a fighting chance at a good start.

mmm... guerrilla composting. You may have just identified my purpose in life.

I would urge caution about that, though, it's a fine line between guerrilla composting and littering/small scale dumping. To me, the line lay along the plastics/glasses/metals division. To many other people, it's more restricted. But that's what makes it guerrilla, eh?

Chuck Norris does gorilla composting.

I have maybe 10 pounds of vermicompost I need to clean out of the bin that I have no use for at this time of the year. It doesn't really keep very well, and turns to a cement like consistency if you let it dry up. Mixing it with sphagnum or some other sort of fluffy medium would probably make some decent seed bombs. I'll experiment a bit and see what happens.

I think if you dig a hole in the ground, put stuff in it, and cover it with the dirt you just dug out, and tamped it down pretty good, nobody would notice or care.

Cats have been doing something similar to this since before time began.

dwillen - if your experiment doesn't go well and you need to get rid of the vermicompost, I could find a place for it

My step-dad got back to me and said that yucca and any member of the juniper family would grow well in rocky, dry terrain.

Yucca:

Juniper:

and hey, once we get juniper berries, we can do some guerilla distillation and have some gin!

Sometimes Prickly Pear cactus is found growing locally also. Maybe go out to the slag piles and dig up plants that are growing in some of the drier areas to translplant?

Anyone have any good blackberries or rasperries to transplant? Although maybe not such a good idea as the fruit would be full of everything found in car exhaust.

Thankyou RF! yucca had made my short list, I hadn't thought about juniper, might be very nice being green when others aren't.

helen - I had no idea prickly pear grew locally, that is so weird. There's no way a cactus could be invasive here...

Ok, I'm normally all about local and native, but it would be hilarious to have a garden tribute to the American Desert Southwest along the jail trail, with cactus and yucca and mesquite, all of which would probably grow happily along the drier portions of the trail. It's about as appropriate as creating isolated strips of dirt between, under, around, and above masses of concrete so huge they block out the sun and air and water.

But the more I travel the jail trail, the more I see an opportunity for some sanctioned urban art. There are some tremendous spaces just begging for creatively applied paint (thus the tendancy for the locals to indulge in the urge to mark).

I looked up the recipe for seed bombs. It seems you need 5:1:1 mixture of dry red clay, worm compost, and seeds, respectively. I have at least 10 lbs of worm compost. If anyone wants to buy the other components and dedicate a fall weekend-afternoon, I would be more than happy to hang out with you (or a group of you) and make a bunch of seed bombs. We could toss them this fall, or in the spring sometime depending on the seeds.

I've had a hell of a hard time finding the dry clay needed for seed bombs. Maybe someone here into pottery can help with that one?

I, too, have a bunch of vermicompost to offer if we need more.

i second the running beside the trail in the gravel mention.

i also run on the jail trail weekly, and when its possible i run on the gravel beside the trail. so... keep that in mind?

I won't seed bomb the gravel, no worries there. I think that gets enough foot traffic that nothing much would take hold, and they're pretty obviously barren with good reason.

I have a friend who sells seed bombs, I'll ask if he's got a red clay source or recipe with easier ingredients.

What's the difference between red clay and what's down about a foot or two in any never-bulldozed spot in the area?

The side trails are also clear of vegetation because of salt runoff from the few times it does get salted.

There is a large section of cactus past the end of the parking lot by the nature center in Frick close to the storage garage.

Here is a little list of plants by a watershed association in PA.

Black-eyed Susan, butterfly bush, echineacea, bergamot, aster, coreopsis, Veronica (speedwell), lavender, liatris, liriope, sedum, and little bluestem grass.

Source: http://www.antietamws.org/Antietamcurrents-xeriscape.htm

I've heard some people call butterfly bush invasive to this area, though.

Now's a good time to divide overgrown black eyed susans & ecchinacea/cone flowers.

I'm comIng to this thread a bit late but count me in as a willing part of the labor force! I'll check out the library for halophile native plants; a survey of what already grows by roadsides might be the most direct way to find local candidates though.