by Leah Hunter

Over the past few weeks, [freespace] has heard from people across the US running projects that inspire, beautify, and connect their communities. They are world changers – who all have found a way, in their backyards, to inspire people to come together and create.

Yesterday we spoke with one of these people, Jaime Zucker. Jaime runs the PHS Pop Up Gardens, a project that is about “transforming neglected spaces in Center City Philadelphia into lush and inviting places for all to enjoy.”

We got really excited since the [freespace] garden started much the same way: as a pop-up garden planted in our parking lot by Nima Torabi, a local guy with a passion for horticulture who happened to be walking by. (Originally, we’d just planned to roll out sod for a parklet!)  Why Nima got involved? “I live a block away in a shoebox apartment with no space to grow in,” he says. “This is a giant playground and a canvas…to turn a city, not usually the most green thing, into something living.”

Like the [freespace] garden, Jaime’s gardens are also temporary – pop-ups that happen in vacant lots. Amazing patches of green in otherwise concrete neighborhoods.  The PHS Pop Up garden mission is about “promoting the power of greening to transform cities.”

+1 to that!

Learn more at: phsonline.org/greening/pop-up-gardens