Toronto's Guerilla Gardener

By
Matt Hickman
Writer
  • Emerson College
  • The New School
Matt Hickman is an associate editor at The Architect’s Newspaper. His writing has been featured in Curbed, Apartment Therapy, URBAN-X, and more.
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Matt Hickman
Updated June 05, 2017

Springtime is the best time to fall in love and what do you know? I have a new crush.

I’m perpetually on the prowl for passioniate DIYers turning garbage into gold in unusual ways. In April, the object of my affection was the unknown person behind The Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Composter, an (now-destroyed) old dresser transformed into a makeshift worm bin and placed on a street in Brooklyn. Last month, I was smitten with 80 plastic shopping bags turned into striking outdoor light fixtures in Madrid.

This month, my crush has come early and via The New York Times: Toronto artist Posterchild is transforming derelict newspaper boxes (read: eyesores) on city streets into planter boxes. He calls them FlyerPlanterboxes, and, of course, he’s blogging about it:

I tried to think of better ways than “Garbage Can” to reimagine the interior spaces of these flyerboxes- better ways to make use of the whole box- not just the exterior walls.
This is what I came up with. I think it’s pretty great, if I do say so myself. The boxes make a perfect platform for planters- and with them you can guerrilla garden almost anywhere in the inhospitable city!

This is a most excellent idea (see more photos here, here, here and here), since, as we all know, newspaper boxes may very well be going the way of the payphone. Unlike payphones, which are being slowly removed from public streetscapes (or maybe I just don’t notice them anymore), newspaper boxes are still around, an increasing number sitting empty and finding themselves being used as makeshift trash receptacles. Technically, what Posterboy, an erstwhile graffiti artist, is doing is vandalism but I doubt the Toronto authorities are hot on his city-beautifying tail.

Moving beyond guerilla gardens on crowded city sidewalks and into your own backyard, a question: how have you found ways to transform large pieces of unusual refuse — things like old wheelbarrows, wooden dinghies, etc. — into flower-filled garden objects? Please do share ...

Images: Blade Diary