Guerrilla Gardening

So, what does a racewalker do when he's not walking? One of my hobbies/interests is gardening but it's different here in SoCal than where I grew up in Oregon. It doesn't rain so much, so I have to use a lot more water than I'd like to. Because of that, I've taken to gardening with lots of succulents, cactus and other drought-tolerant plants. There are tons of beautiful native plants, too, that thrive in the desert-like conditions here in San Diego.

Here is a shot of my drought-tolerant front yard at the peak of its spring flower display.

And here's another of my backyard cactus garden.


Both have been neglected horribly in the last few months as I have been focused more on my training and preparations for the Olympics Trials and World Racewalk Cup. Now that I'm thinking about Beijing all the time, I'm glad my plants can take pretty good care of themselves without me.

In the gardening vein, here's a great article about guerrilla gardening, the practice of cultivating an abandoned patch of public, or private, land for aesthetics or food. There's a little patch near our place here in San Diego that someone else started with some drought-tolerant natives that I go up and weed every now and then. It's so much nicer than an unsightly patch of bare dirt.

LA Times article on Guerrilla Gardening