The world is one big garden and it’s there for the growing! Richard Reynolds, author of “On Guerrilla Gardening,” invites us to dismantle the white picket fences inside our heads and to get growing wherever we can!

WORDS: Richard Reynolds

I am a guerrilla gardener.

No, not a large, hairy primate brandishing a trowel. (You wouldn’t be the first to misunderstand.) I’m a guerrilla because I garden on land without entitlement. I do not have a piece of paper that declares me as the land’s “owner” and I do so without first seeking the permission of anyone who does.

“That’s not right,” you may say, “Why don’t you make do with your own garden?” or, “What’s the point of gardening on somebody else’s land?”

If that sounds like the voice in your head then please, hang on. Allow me to first explain what this guerrilla gardening is all about… and in doing so also hopefully persuade you to leap over the boundaries and join me and thousands of others on the horticultural front line.

I assume, given the subject of this magazine, that you enjoy gardening. We’re the same, you see. I’ve always enjoyed gardening. That’s a good start for a guerrilla. I grew up in South West England and my family had a garden that was far too big for my parents to look after themselves so they encouraged their four children to get stuck in. I loved it. The itch to garden is what drives most of us to ‘go guerrilla’. And then we discover there’s a whole lot more to it too. You meet your neighbors, you start inspiring each other to take on new plots and do more interesting stuff with it and you realize that your neighborhood has become your responsibility. More often than not – and I’ve met guerrillas all over the world – they get away with it.

BEFORE INVASION / RESUSCITATION

AFTER

Five years ago, at 27 years old, for the first time in my life I had no garden, not even a window ledge to put boxes on and tend. And yet all around me was land looking for love that the local authorities appeared to have forgotten about (years later it was confirmed they had indeed forgotten about it). It was not deliberate politics, not a grand art project –  just the hunger for plain and simple gardening that got me out there. I had no plan beyond the picture in my head of sweet smelling flowers cascading down towards the road in place of the depressing tangle of overgrown shrubs and litter.

Meet The Guerrillas

In Los Angeles Scott’s starting point was a barren median where just four palms and a few gazinias grew. That was fifteen years ago. Since then he’s filled it up with hundreds of succulents, mostly propagated in his back garden. His guerrilla garden has no irrigation so he’s planted a more sustainable and self-sufficient scheme of Agave vilmoriniana. What began as a solo activity in one patch has grown into a network of more than ten gardens with many others involved and a website: SoCalguerrillagardening.org. He’s one of many Americans who have shared their guerrilla gardening activity with me. Ava sent pictures of her and Dianne planting an empty tree pit in San Diego, I heard from Anne in Richmond Virginia who planted tulips, crocuses, allium and winter flower pansies in her neighborhood with two strangers she recruited by flyering some houses and in New York I was shown around many of the established community gardens in the Lower East side which were created in the 1970s as guerrilla gardens as places to grow veg and congregate. Luc in Montreal, a municipal gardener by day, gardens as a guerrilla during his spare time. I visited him in the summer to see his victorious garden, a blazing herbaceous border along the back of a long suburban sidewalk. It’s beautiful, really astonishing actually, and he has subsequently got permission, won awards and even taken part time employment from a local business because of his public display. But don’t let these wonderful achievements intimidate you. Guerrilla gardening doesn’t need to be a grand mission or distraction from your regular life. I met a postman in Amsterdam who sows sunflower seeds as he does his deliveries!

If the idea of digging into land that isn’t yours still doesn’t sound for you then you might like to try seed bombing – throwing around little grenades made from clay soil, native wild flower seeds and compost. I first heard about this from Kathryn in Santa Barbara and have since come across all sorts of different techniques made by ingenious guerrilla gardeners, including balloons, pellets and some made by Scots that even look just like hand grenades. (Though in some situations that might get you in more trouble with security than if their intention was more obviously harmless gardening!) They enable you to sow some seeds without spending very long in the target location. You can find out more about these on the Seed Bomb page at my website, GuerrillaGardening.org.

Every gardener has a battle of sorts in the garden, against the elements, against pests and diseases and against voracious plants – the guerrilla has a few additional enemies to contend with. Our fight is against the neglect of the public landscape – land is precious, and it’s a resource for lifting the spirits and connecting the community as well. This battle is one plot of land at a time. I say, ‘let’s fight against the filth with forks and flowers’ and turn a honey pot for litter lobbers into one for bumblebees.

As for asking the landowner before you garden? I’m not against it, I just know it’s likely to be counter-productive if your targets are scraps of forgotten or abused ‘orphaned’ land. They don’t want to take responsibility for our health and safety and they don’t want to have to tidy up the failed dream of a horticultural idealist. This land is out of mind or beyond their budgets. I see most authorities turning a supportive blind eye to guerrilla gardening and in my area the horticultural chief has told the media he has “no stance”. For five years I have been guerrilla gardening big locations in central London without any trouble from the authorities. It’s good news. I really don’t want them to garden there because I want to do it myself.

Don’t fear that once you begin guerrilla gardening you are committed to a life in the shadows. When the time is right we do go straight. Today in one of my roadside gardens I am no longer a guerrilla – after three years of cultivating the land I sought permission to continue and (after a bit of argy bargy) was granted it. When I asked the local authority if they would have agreed to my action before I began gardening they said, “absolutely not”. That’s because it is easier for permission to be granted when a guerrilla garden is confidently blooming and the local people are on side than it is to a volunteer’s promises. In fact it’s difficult for them to say no!

If you’re interested to find out more, visit GuerrillaGardening.org or read my book, On Guerrilla Gardening – A Handbook For Gardening Without Boundaries, published by Bloomsbury USA.

Inspired to do your own guerrilla gardening? Have some war stories yourself? Share them below!