Guerrilla Gardening is the act of illegally gardening in spaces that are not technically yours to garden, to make subversive statements, protests, or as a form of direct action. The idea goes all the way back to 1973!
In other words, guerrilla gardeners take unloved or neglected land and assign it a new purpose – to make things pretty or useful. Cities are full of waste land and unused public spaces which people walk past every day without noticing. Spaces which would look a lot better if they were green!
Some guerrilla gardeners prefer to work at night when they can be more discreet. Others are activists who’ll do so in broad daylight, when everyone can see what they’re doing. Some choose to grow flowers to make places brighter. Others choose to grow fruit or vegetables (though care should be taken not to grow anything edible in places where plants might absorb toxins).
I don’t know why I haven’t posted any guerrilla gardening things on this blog yet, and I think I should change that.
I mod there and what we’ve found is that, overall, the people most interested in guerrilla gardening are apartment dwellers who move around a lot, either by choice or necessity. The difficult thing about a guerrilla garden isn’t starting it (that’s also when enthusiasm is highest), it’s maintaining it.
Some of that is forced by impermanence – people using derelict ground until a developer buys it, rips out the garden, and builds more housing or something there.
So as the community has developed over time, recommendations have switched over from high maintenance edible plants that require constant tending and guarding from theft to going gung ho for native plants (and daffodils). Native plants require very little to zero help once established, massively assist local pollinators and wildlife, can clean up the environment, are unlikely to be stolen, all while bringing joy.
The easiest way to guerrilla garden, IME, is to take a space that IS legal and allowed to use… and then just totally overstep those boundaries. But in any case, always move like you belong there. Garden with confidence! Get you a ridiculous floppy hat and cute gloves and no one will question you. We use headlamps for hands-free gardening but I only go out at night if V is with me.
Protip: black oil sunflower seeds, meant for birds, are crazy cheap and are an easy way to grow a field of cheerful sunflowers. BAM! Instant native flowers.
Bonus protip: if you seed sunflower seeds once a week, you’ll have an extended blooming season.
Whatever you do, I ask that you avoid planting aggressive, invasive species (what plants fall under that category depends upon where you live).
Native and aggressive is on a case-by-case basis.
Anyway I can ramble on this for quite a bit and have in the archives. HMU if anyone has any questions.
Water Witches 