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Bringing life to neglected public spaces
Guerrilla gardeners till the soil in a vacant lot in Long Beach, California.
Photograph by Scott Bunnell/social guerrilla gardening
Have you heard about guerrilla gardening? With increasing momentum, this underground movement is taking hold in places as far as Australia and as near as San Francisco and Berkeley. Guerrilla gardeners are people who plant flowers or vegetable crops in barren public spaces, such as vacant lots, traffic islands, median strips, and the edges of city parking lots, with the goal of turning a neighborhood eyesore into something beautiful.
Technically, guerrilla gardening is illegal, because the gardening takes place on land that is not the property of the gardeners, who often tend to their “illicit” business under the cover of darkness. It may just be the most beautiful crime in human history.
The term “guerrilla gardening” is believed to have been coined in 1973 when Liz Christy and her Green Guerrillas created a community garden on the corner of Bowery and Houston Streets in New York City. But the movement has roots as far back as 1649, when Gerrard Winstanley founded The Diggers in Surrey, England. And what schoolchild hasn’t learned about Johnny Appleseed, who planted fruit-bearing trees all around Ohio in 1801?
Guerrilla gardening’s recent popularity can be largely attributed to Richard Reynolds of London, England. His website guerrillagardening.com has inspired the formation of “troops” across the globe, who have taken the cause of gardening to their local streets, fighting urban blight with vegetable crops, daffodils, and sunflowers. Reynolds’ website is packed with information on how to organize your own local guerrilla gardening group. In 2008, he published a book on the subject, On Guerrilla Gardening, which includes information like how to make a “seed bomb” of plant seeds, compost, and water packaged in a biodegradable container, which a guerrilla gardener can throw like a grenade into inaccessible places—even while driving by in a car—and how to deal with vandals who attempt to destroy a newly planted garden.
The main opposition guerrilla gardeners encounter is from landowners—both public agencies and private individuals—who don’t want the gardeners trespassing on their land or “stealing” their water to keep plants alive. Guerrilla gardeners in San Francisco, Berkeley, and Los Angeles have been met with cheers and gratitude in some neighborhoods and legal fights in others. Some gardeners have gotten around the water requirement by planting a garden first, then convincing neighbors to contribute water from their faucets. Others specialize in planting drought-tolerant plants such as succulents and native shrubs.
To date, there is no dedicated guerrilla gardening group in the South Bay, although there is certainly no shortage of barren lots and neglected spaces that could use a little greening up. If Earth Day has inspired you to bring a little beauty to your neighborhood, read and research the topic, do your due diligence, and seek permission from landowners. In these days of budget cutbacks, it seems that some public agencies might gladly grant permission to a band of dedicated gardeners who want to turn blighted public spaces into places of beauty. Strategize a plan that does not violate private property rights, plant a few seeds, and you, too, can beautify some small corner of the world.
