Guerilla Gardeners Hit London In The Middle Of The Night
by Leonora Oppenheim, London, UK on 02.14.06
“I just thought dammit, I am going to sort this out, so I set my alarm clock and got up in the middle of the night… The police have stopped us loads of times, they just say, “What are you doing?” I say “Gardening.” And they say, “Great.”’ These are the words of Richard Reynolds, the man behind London’s growing Guerilla Gardening scene. Inspired by or rather depressed by the state of his Elephant & Castle housing estate Reynolds set about clearing it up and planting barren areas which were just full of litter. Guerilla Gardening is a popular phenomenon that we haven’t discussed much here on TreeHugger. As Reynolds says in his recent double page spread in the Evening Standard Magazine ‘I thought I’d invented it, but in fact, when I Googled “guerrilla gardening”, I found it was everywhere: New York, Toronto. Toronto’s full of guerrilla gardners.’ It turns out Reynolds is certainly not on his own and there a quite a few Londoners who are turning up to help out, as well as others who are donating money and plants to the project. Even Richard and Judy are in on it!
As Reynolds says on his website lots of people have subscribed since the recent Evening Standard Article and we are hoping that this TreeHugger post might encourage a few more. So if have you’re having bouts of insomnia and can’t sleep for worrying about the state of you local area, then why not get out of bed and plant something. But, I hear you ask, if the police are down with it then why plant in the middle of the night? Well Reynolds says he prefers to work at night. ‘Otherwise you come up against councils and red tape. Plus, I like being a bit secretive about it. I like the idea of people waking up and thinking, “Oh! Who did that?”’ ::Guerilla Gardening, thanks to Olivia Stewart-Liberty for her article in the Evening Standard Magazine and to tippster Zerlina who read it!
It's pretty nifty, but I think it would gain added niftiness if they were planting 'useful' plants - herbs and vegetables and such.
Flowers are pretty, but if you're going to use resources keeping up public gardens why not use it for plants that are attractive and useful?
I have to say, this is pretty cool. Anyone know of anyone doing it in any cities in the U.S.? IF so, what cities?
Hi guys thanks for your comments.
In response to Sky's comment, the good news is the Guerilla Gardeners are planting 'useful' plants as well as flowers. They are putting in herbs and veggies. Depends on what people bring along I think, but they have put in things like Parsnips, Rosemary and Lavender to date.
In response to lil'hugger - check out http://greenguerillas.org they are a long standing group working in NYC since the 1970s!
Flowers and non-edible plants are useful - in many ways!
1) stormwater runoff retention
2) reducing urban heatsinks
3) creating a calming urban environment
etc.
etc.
I'm unclear how it can be "guerilla" gardening if there are websites, and designated locations and times and all.
Here in Madison, I know one true guerilla gardener, who has planted and cultivated prairies along our bike paths, planted trees under cover of darkness in areas where the city has taken trees down without replacing them and generally stewards the greenlife in his neighborhood. No website, no planned activities. Just one guy with a shovel and a will.
See what one person can do???
Back in the 1970s in NYC, there was a couple squatting in the Lower East Side called the Purple People. They wore only purple and rode bikes and collected horse manure from the Central Park police horses and mixed them with busted bricks in the backyard to produce a beautiful garden. Which the city authorities later destroyed, I am told.
My friend, Terry Bastian, used to talk about seed bombing vacant lots. He wanted to make seed bombs by mixing wildflower and other seeds with mud into balls that could them be thrown from a passing car.
Yes, plant pernennials and trees and berry bushes and grape vines and native wild botanicals and herbs and....