All of these NPR stories are about gardens or nature in places where they are not usually thought to be. Hawks living on the side of buildings, gardens in big cities, "illegal" gardents in public properties, and gardens through wars. I like how each one of these stories brigns nature to people who woldn't normally get to experience it. There is the theme of hope among all of these stories as well. The hawk story shows that even though there may be rich people who attempt to get rid of the natural things that can get in their way, there are people around to stand up for the environment and the things in it that can't do that for themselves. The guerrila gardeners in London also spread the idea of hope throughout the city. They plant flowers and other things in the various public lands to keep the natural areas looking lively. The absense of these "vandals" would leave the city with many poorly kept up patches of earth that woudl not inspire most people, and in some cases depress them. The wartime gardens have some of the same effect, but on a much larger scale. As oppsed to bringing an extra joy to people in their every day lives, they keep the hopeless going through life. They provide something to do, a source of food for those in need, and a little bit of life and color in places that are severly lacking. The community gardens were created with the intent of doing the same thing, but wihtout the war setting. In this case, the goal was not acheieved as well as in the other examples. The community gardens started out a good way for city dwelers to get in touch with nature, but have degraded into another way for people to be greedy. By one person walling off his garden, the disease spread and as it went degraded the spirit that the garden at one point had. One person's paranoia lead others to believe that there was a need for enclosure and the trust went away. The sense of community that the garden switched to a place to grow things and make sure that nobody else could benifit from it.