Guerrilla Gardening

September 20, 2026

This summer, my hobby has been cleaning and beautifying my small corner of Astoria.

It all began with a mourning dove nest under my AC.

A cat looking out the window at a mourning dove nest tucked under an AC unit

Dove nest, bird mites

The doves had a couple rounds of babies a few weeks apart. After they abandoned it, a bunch of bird mites invaded my AC. It was creepy, but they don't feed on humans or cats, so we were safe.

I got rid of the abandoned nest, which made a mess of twigs in my apartment courtyard. A week passed, and the twigs were still there on the side of the footpath.

I created the mess, so I needed to clean it up. I bought a broom and dustpan, and swept it up.

It was satisfying. I was hooked.

Courtyard, sidewalk, tree beds

Litter would build up by the two entrances to my courtyard. Plastic of all sorts, vapes, bags. So I swept them up.

My cleaning then expanded to the sidewalk in front of the apartment building. Lord knows how long some of that litter had been sitting there.

I also started doing little litter patrols in the neighborhood.

An overflowing public trash can on the sidewalk, full of litter A trash can next to another full public bin during a litter patrol A bag stuffed full of collected litter next to a public trash can

I started cleaning the tree beds in front of the building. I've learned that untended tree beds become de facto trash cans. Lots of small plastic containers, bottle caps, glass. So I swept it all up.

A bare, patchy tree bed on the sidewalk before any cleanup

There are only the city-planted trees and dirty dirt in those tree beds, but they deserve to be cared for.

Make it pretty, with bricks

After a few weeks of this cleaning, it occurred to me that the tree beds were a form of public space. Public gardens that often weren't tended to.

So I thought, why not make them prettier? Have them spark a little joy.

I took a walk around the neighborhood for some inspiration, looked at a few different nice tree bed setups, and decided: a nice simple red brick border. If it didn't go higher than 2 inches, then I wouldn't even need a permit to do so. Perfect.

Went to Home Depot, bought 45 bricks, and one Saturday afternoon of hard work later, we had a pretty red brick border on the two tree beds framing my apartment courtyard entrance.

A tree bed freshly bordered with red bricks, freshly turned dirt inside

Make it pretty, with dirt

The tree beds weren't in their final form yet, though. They still needed green plants. Pretty flowers.

But first, the dirt needed some love.

So after a bunch of unfruitful trips to Home Depot and Big Reuse, I secured some organic compost. From Home Depot, it turns out. The trick was to order pickup so they'd fetch it from ✨the back✨.

4 bags of organic compost per tree bed. I used my new cultivator, and mixed the compost into the tree beds. It's amazing how even just fresh, rich dirt alone made the tree beds look better. Healthier.

Bags of organic humus and manure compost loaded on a cart

Make it pretty, with flowers

Litter, cleaned regularly. Bricks, laid. Organic compost, all set.

This left one thing: pretty flowers.

I rented a Toyota 4Runner through Zipcar and made another visit to Home Depot.

Bought twelve lilyturf, four orange aster, four light purple aster. To be split between the two tree beds.

The trunk of a rented SUV packed with potted purple and orange flowers and lilyturf

After another Saturday afternoon of manual labor, with the help of my friend David, the plants were planted.

A finished tree bed with a brick border, orange and purple flowers, and lilyturf planted around the tree A wider view of the finished, planted tree bed from above

Why

We deserve beautiful spaces, joyful streets. These tree beds are public gardens waiting to be tended to.

When we live in a city like New York, we leave the neighborhood's upkeep to the city. "That's what our taxes are for, right? Street cleaning and parks?"

But that's a lot to ask. There's too much street and soil for the city to watch over, and it can't take care of a block the way the people who live there can.

If we're willing to accept that responsibility, we can have nice things: beautiful gardens, clean streets, and third places for people to gather.

I'm really happy with how the tree beds turned out, and I'm glad to report that neighbors have told me they're happy with them too.

One guy told me: "They're beautiful, I've never seen anything like that in front of the building in the 30 years I've been here." I really thought that was beautiful.

A few days later, another neighbor told me they came out very pretty, and that she hasn't seen anything like that in front of the building in the 50 (!!) years that she's been here. Now that's wild.

We're really out here changing the city.

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