Guerrilla Gardening
Alright, with long waiting lists for spots in community gardens, yet lots of yuck all over our cities, there is an alternative. Guerrilla Gardens are launching a coup on all neglected and abandoned open spaces across the world.
This week I received an issue of GOOD magazine in the mail for no reason. I love it when that happens. Somehow this relatively new magazine’s first four issues flew right under my radar. It’s a pretty cool magazine - it’s bi-monthly, it’s printed on recycled paper, and the $20 subscription fee goes to the charity of the subscriber’s choice. If you need to overdose on goody-goody-ness, click here. It’s pretty inspiring.
My favorite feature is a blurb called “Horticultural Jamming.” It’s about a “cadre of illicit horticulturists, equipped with hoes and shovels [who] have been venturing into the night to plant guerrilla gardens.” Since they only warranted a little blurb, I started googling to learn more. Founder and guerrilla gardening blogger Richard Reynolds has created a community at guerrillagardening.org. He even has a list of tips, that start with “spotting local orphaned land,” attacking it under the cover of night, gets into “seed bombs,” “chemical warfare,” and creating diversions with a Daisy Duke-esque member of your team.
To enlist in the guerrilla gardening army (junta? I forget what that word means but it seemed appropriate), click here. The list of communities here in the states is here.
Here’s an inspiring before and after:
all pictures from guerrillagardening.org
July 31st, 2007 at 10:11 pm
Guerilla gardening is probably my favourite thing ever. Try making seedballs, or moss graffiti. Resistance is fertile! http://www.heavypetal.ca/archives/resistance_is_fertile/
June 14th, 2008 at 1:43 am
[...] Guerrilla Gardening Hits the Big Time: Remember when we told you about guerrilla gardening about a year ago? This week The NYTimes told us that the book is out. You can also watch a video [...]