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Monday, August 8, 2011

Pocket Gardens Sprout on Paris's Anti-Parking Posts

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from http://www.treehugger.com/

potogreen paris france pocket planters photo
A 'Potogreen' in Paris. Photo: Anne Mazauric via Paule Kingleur.

Necessary as they are to keep cars from blocking the sidewalk, anti-parking posts, or bollards, can be an ugly sight in a city. Parisian artist Paule Kingleur has commandeered some of the 335,000 posts in the French capital as sites for hanging micro-gardens -- what she calls a neighborhood "vegetable insurrection."

"Tomatoes, arugula, radishes, and flowers of all kinds" grow in these micro-gardens, according to the website Le Parisien. Kingleur worked with 600 children from Paris schools to plant the seeds and help keep them growing, she told Treehugger in an email this week about her "Potogreen" project.

Sewn Out Of Recycled Tents
"Children are adopting gardens. They are responsible for their care and are committed to leaving them in public spaces," Kingleur told Le Parisien.

The planters themselves are about as eco-friendly as you can get, made of discarded milk cartons collected from local businesses and wrapped in fabric pockets sewn out of recycled tents by Emmaus Maisons-Alfort, a rehabilitation association that works with homeless people.

Though each pocket garden can't grow much, the splashes of green are brightening up Paris neighborhoods. As one resident told Le Parisien: "When I left my house and I saw all these stakes with umbrellas of green, it was a piece of poetry in the street."

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