Meg Rothstein
Many hands make light work. And flowers bloom.
Warning! Madison is full of bombs, and more will be tossed soon!
Seed bombs, that is. Hundreds of them have already been lobbed or placed lovingly by guerrilla gardeners in vacant lots, construction sites, potholes, neglected zones and other spaces in need of floral beauty. Initiating and organizing this attack is Meg Rothstein of Larkspur Collaborative Coaching.
A seed bomb is a ball made of air-dried clays, organic potting soil and a mix of at least two dozen native flowers and annuals that are attractive to bees, birds and butterflies. They germinate on their own, so no planting is necessary, and the seed mix doesn’t need tending. The first 1,200 were made on May 22 in James Madison Park by 14 people who learned about the opportunity on social media or through word of mouth. They were 6 to 75 years old, from all walks of life and speaking several languages.
Meg Rothstein
Seed bombs ready for action.
To make the bombs, Rothstein — who is new to seed bomb making — and her daughter mixed water and clay with sticks, paddles and a $3 mixer in a rain barrel, added the soil, then the seeds. They took the mix in painters barrels to the park, where the participants created the balls and took about half of them. The rest were left in the park with a chalked invitation for passersby to take and use them. When Rothstein returned five hours later, a man who had been in the park the entire time reported that many people stopped and took them.
Now a life coach, Rothstein used to be a librarian. She loves the children’s book Miss Rumphius, whose protagonist gathers lupine seeds wherever she goes and propagates them to make the world a more beautiful place. When Rothstein was a child, she visited her grandmother in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco and saw women tending community gardens right below her window: “I always came back thinking that my grandmother lived in a beautiful place. It was only later that I realized all the problems of that neighborhood.”
“The tiniest things can have great positive impact,” she says, and this project “establishes connections between communities that don’t often get to speak to each other.”
Rothstein recently checked a vacant lot near a former motel on the Beltline and found that the bombs she had left there are sprouting. “It’s extremely satisfying to see your guerrilla gardening come to life. It’s a sweet little success that is about people, nature and chance.”
Seed bombs will be given away, while supplies last, June 2-6 at the Social Justice Center, 1202 Williamson St. A free drop-in seed bomb-making workshop is scheduled for Warner Park June 12, 2-4 p.m., near the community recreation center.
