I live in an urban neighborhood in downtown Chicago. The surrounding blocks have brick condo buildings and a few single family homes. No one has a front yard, but each home is responsible for a bit of grass/landscaping between the street and sidewalk in front of their home. Some of my neighbors don’t do much with the area. I’m middle of the road. We’ve invested in some nice shrubs and flowers, but I don’t invest full afternoons in the upkeep.

And then there is the Garden Lady. This woman lives a few streets over and has taken it upon herself to garden other people’s plots without getting permission from the homeowners. She’s really “green” and recycles plants from torn down houses blah, blah, blah. But come on lady, give me a heads up before you start pulling up my flowers. This year she chopped my dogwood bush down to the ground. I loved that bush. It had pretty red branches and wasn’t cheap. (urban garden stores are pricey since people will pay big bucks to bring green into the ‘hood.) This year my dogwood had finally filled in and then THWACK! -hacked off by the Garden Lady. Now, I’m pretty hacked off. Do I confront her? She is such a goody two-shoes, what if I make her cry and anger all the neighbors who worship her?
This post had been brewing for a while. I wrote it a month or so ago and finally decided to post it because-

recently, I was lazily reading the paper on my couch around 8am when I heard pounding outside. I looked out my window and caught the Garden Lady in the act! Thus far, I had never seen her tending our plot. Not sure what to do about the Garden Lady. She’s ballsy thats for sure. Here she is caught in the act of guerilla gardening.

The sign on the right hand side of the picture is her creation. It says, “keep the neighborhood clean” and now sits where my dogwood used to. I’m this close to telling her off and becoming the neighborhood bully.