Fairmount does not have much soil to work with. The lots are narrow, the back alleys are paved, and the front gardens are frequently the width of a welcome mat. So residents garden the only place they can: up.
Walk any block in July and you will find a vertical, improvised botany pressed against the brick.
What actually grows on a Fairmount stoop
After a summer of taking notes on our own street, a few reliable performers stood out for anyone starting from a single bucket and a lot of stubbornness.
- Cherry tomatoes staked against a downspout, absurdly productive
- Mint, which will attempt a hostile takeover of the sidewalk crack
- Marigolds that survive the salt and the delivery trucks
- A fig tree in a half-barrel, wrapped in burlap each winter like a treasured elder
None of this is scenic in the magazine sense. A stoop garden is a working thing, watered with a repurposed detergent jug. But it is also how neighbors here mark their patch of a place with very little land to spare, and how a conversation starts when a stranger asks what the tall green one is.
Related: Neighborhood · the River Ward cleanup
Further reading: Container garden
