41–50 of 56 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wish they broke down the costs. Sounds like a lot given than it excluded the concrete sidewalk, but maybe some of the plants cost a lot. The cost of a skid-steer rental and disposal of old concrete likely added up. Or (a) yard(s) of river rock and triple-mix cost more than I think.
Old concrete is surprisingly cheap to dispose of - it’s recycled into aggregate for concrete.
[1] https://assets.antwerpen.be/srv/assets/api/image/684436aa-17...
Lovely to see, but be prepared to have a plan in place for dealing with it in case it’s at risk if becoming kindling. Having combustable matter within several feet of a building is one of the major risk factors when it comes to fire propagation through settlements, as demonstrated by the most recent firestorm in the news.
Where I live, it's impossible to get a permit for such a large area. But people are encouraged to dig up a small piece of sidewalk (~30x60cm) and plant stuff, mostly vines. It's not as impressive as Zach's project, but it can look pretty nice [1], especially when lots of people contribute. It's a cheap and easy way to add some life to an otherwise desolate cityscape. [1] https://assets.antwerpen.be/srv/assets/api/ima…
My main problem is once you have plants dogs start pissing on your walls and door. And apparently their owners did it normal.
The plants that can tolerate that are mostly full sun so not suited at my place, so the ground ends up barren with piss stains on the wall. But climbing plants are fine and pretty nice.
Here in NL that would never ever happen with a permit. Lots of in-ground infrastructure and serious risk to that if you start digging around in that without the right maps and access to various IT systems to indicate where you can safely dig, where you absolutely can not and where the pavement and the water management interact. So there is a lot of miniature guerilla gardening happening here, with people flipping up a couple of tiles in the pavement and then planting all manner of stuff there. It works and has a nice effect on the surroundings as well but it stops short of such transformation.
Sample from Amsterdam, much more modest in scope:
https://www.google.com/maps/@52.3743925,4.8971164,3a,75y,183...
Lovely to see, but be prepared to have a plan in place for dealing with it in case it’s at risk if becoming kindling. Having combustable matter within several feet of a building is one of the major risk factors when it comes to fire propagation through settlements, as demonstrated by the most recent firestorm in the news.
Are you proposing not having plants near houses because they might burn?
https://www.checkitsalright.nz/reduce-your-risk/protecting-y...
That is focused on rural properties, and they do maintain a list of lower flammability plants that might be more appropriate for nearer to your house.
Beautiful, thanks for the lovely garden and knowledge share. We recently added some plants in front of our home in the Mission but still have a ways to go - seeing this is really helpful and inspiring. And since it's randomly/incredibly hyper-relevant, I'll plug this petition to save a Florida St sidewalk garden: https://chng.it/frXFyYNYKh
What a shame it would be to loose that oasis. I’m going to stay tuned in and do what I can to help.
In addition to the benefits they list in their opening, it should help reduce heat island effect.
“Incredibly rich people made their environment and those of their rich neighbors better.” Great. But it does nothing for Oakland, or Richmond, or the kind of neighborhoods I can actually afford to live in (but still not buy a house in). I guess it’s okay if we keep making everything nicer for the elites and worse for everyone else? I see the property deeds of the rundown apartments and tenement housing in my neighbor…
New trends tend to follow an S-curve of adoption and rich people tend to be the ones financing the leading edge of that adoption before it's "popular," when it's still hella expensive and the bugs have not yet been worked out. I, for one, welcome this type of "bad behavior" by rich people. It might eventually trickle down to neighborhoods you can afford, assuming it starts somewhere and that somewhere will probably b…
