The Guerrilla Garden Next Door

I was walking down our street and this rock caught my eye:

Looking around, I realized that someone had cleared a small section of the tiny Arlington View Park, planted some native species, and neatly labeled them. How wonderful!

While this "park" has benches, a sandbox and turtle statue for kids to climb on, it looks really worn out. I love the addition of a mini garden, which adds some life and fresh value to this green space.

This leads me to all sorts of questions: First off, was this an official park effort? Or was this Guerrilla Gardening in action? I checked parks.arlingtonva.us, and there's no indication that this was any sort of official program. I'm so pulling for this to be guerrilla effort.

But more importantly, it gives me ideas for the massive eye-sore that's across the street from the park. Behold:

That's an overgrown yard with a condemned property on it. The For-Sale sign is long since defunct, with both the website and phone number no longer being operational. Heck, it's even behind on its taxes. Part of me was thinking it was time to kvetch to the county about this monstrosity, but maybe it would be more fun to take the work started in the Arlington View park and spread it there.

Seems like it wouldn't be that hard to clear part of the "lawn" and throw in some plants, making something beautiful and educational where detritus currently stands.

I'd love to figure out who did the improvements at Arlington View Park and then coax them into tackling the mess next door. I'd make a great Jr. Assistant Gardener, as what I lack in skills I make up for in passion and curiosity.

Who's in?