A commute often necessaitates driving by some very drab and lifeless plots, drifted with trash and populated only by occasional weeds. However, there are many hardy and beautiful plants (in fact, considered weeds in some situations) which could live in these zones. Chicory is an example where I live - an invasive weed that fills some vacant lots with beautiful pale blue flowers.

I propose a "grenade" which could be kept handy in an egg carton like box in the car. Each grenade would have a locale-specific assortment of wildflower seeds within a ball of mulch, soil media etc. When thrown, the grenade would tend to stick in place. Flower grenades would be hurled from the car window into unsightly lots. Over time, these lots will bloom into beauty.
-- bungston, Jun 22 2003

Ballistic Saplings http://www.nrglink....chives/nrgs996.html
I could have sworn I heard about this back in the 1980s, but I cannot find anything on the web about it. [bungston, Oct 06 2004, last modified Oct 17 2004]

Chicory http://photoodyssey...3Pages/68R14pg.html
[bungston, Oct 06 2004, last modified Oct 17 2004]

Wouldn't you have to have some mechanism to spread the seeds, or is the goal to just have a clump of flowers choking each other off in the middle of a vacant lot?
-- -----, Dec 25 2003


There are many flower seed producers, but there may be some edible weed seed producers. A paper mache sack with seeds around a fire cracker ( carefull of fire danger) might disperse the seeds without harming there embrionic qualities to badly. A smaller fire cracker called a "lady finger" less powerful than a regular firecracker would work. The mixture would give people something to eat after it rains (the soot is cleaned off) and something to look at. A new twist on Johnny Apple seed , I like it.
-- emconsulting, Dec 29 2003


Lovely idea. It features in the Iain M Banks novel "Against a Dark Background". I'm sure you could find it on Amazon. Depicted more as a sci-fi party popper than an urban regeneration idea, though.
-- neuro, May 09 2006


[+] The method of seed dispersal would obviously have to be somewhat passive - anything 'explosive' would render the seeds, well, burnt and useless.
When I read this I envisioned a method similiar to a paintball grenade, which has to be lit but uses a fairly harmless detonation to spread its insides. The seeds could be packed into the outermost area of the grenade and cushioned from the propellent by a double-walled chambre. This space could perhaps be filled with a nutrient jelly, both to help germination and to protect the seeds on dispersal.
-- kuupuuluu, May 09 2006


The 'explosion' could be modelled on some seed-cases found in nature, that pop open, flinging their contents as far a distance as possible. They normally work by having some woody substance so shaped as to be under tension, held closed by a biodegradable trigger. Once the trigger dries up/gets wet/is nibbled away, the tension is releaved and the tension released suddenly.

I think you might be able to make something similar by cutting up a tennis ball, filling it with seeds before turning it inside out and gift wrapping it - or something.
-- zen_tom, May 09 2006



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