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This page includes profiles of guerrilla gardeners from around the world, whatever their reason or target for gardening without boundaries. Please do share your stories here. Just click the e-mail button above and send me a short report of what you’ve gardened, where you did it and some photos too.

Lund Sweden. There's a playground near where I live (city of Lund, southern Sweden), with lots of gaps in the flower beds and an enormous lack of colour. I have previously planted some crocus there, but now it was time for some more action. My cousin Ida came over for dinner, and I asked her to help me plant some pansies along the hedge. The man at the town square had promised to save me 20 pansiesAfter
but he had forgotten, so I had to do a last minute raid to all the central flower shops to find some equally cheap plants. We went out at 5.30 pm and cleared the weeds, dug in some plant soil and planted yellow and dark purple Ida 3713 and Li 3710
pansies. It was all done in less than 30 minutes, and no one stopped to ask what we were doing. There were no children out to play, either. We were very pleased with the result, and hope others will enjoy it too. I will no doubt continue gardening the flower beds around the playground in the future, much can still be done there.
1608 Sophia and 1616 Hannah. Vienna, Austria. Me and my neighbor decided to plant some flowers at a small place in   our street that is normally mistreated by the dogs of the eight   district of vienna. so we went to the supermarket and got some earth and seeds. then we   cleared up the space from dog shit, roots, leaves, cigarettes and   random things like glass and metall screws. i got some plastic   gloves from my university laboratory. we had loads of fun while   digging the whole thing up. The strange thing was that the other   people didn't show much reaction, but actually that's not that   surprising in austria sadly. we hope that people will stop trashing   and respect our effort.
GG: 1557 Elise, Rue Lhomond Paris, France Elise wrote to me with news of two new guerrilla gardens she has planted in Paris.. “My name is Elise. I am a French woman, aged 71. Sometimes last Spring, I heard on one of the French radios a report of your activities. I was immediately delighted and interested, being by nature strongly independent and against any form of authority and conformism. Challenging authority is for me a must (with a wink & great pleasure for doing so !), I know it might sound stupid at my age, but this is so ! So, I immediately sensed that Guerrilla
Gardening was something just for me. In addition, we are in my family (contrarily to most French people) strongly interested in gardening and plants. I lived in the country when I was young, and a link with nature is important to me...”
Read the full report and more pics at the page here.
GG: 2893 Swamp Tree Nelly Freemont, California “Today we planted a Jacaranda next to a existing Illawarra flame (Brachychiton acerifolius) tree, someday it will look like the image (right). It was a RUSH planting a tree without permission. One gentleman walked by and I said we were doing a guerilla tree planting and I hope we don't get in trouble - he said it will be OK! There were some contractors working on a house the next door over and they brought us a bucket of soil IN A TRACTOR to build a watering well - Using tree savor from plant health care will help the tree establish quicker.”Guerrilla gardening (artists impression) in Freemont California
GG: 1975 Lea
New Zealand Litter clearance and collection can become a big part of a guerrilla gardener’s mission. Occasionally I hear from people dedicated to this cause, though seldom of those who have the company and service of an animal in the fight against filth: “When I was young, you didn't see rubbish such as plastic bottles. Now, even where I live in New Zealand, we have beautiful green countryside and forests spoilt by people carelessly throwing their rubbish out car windows or from bikes. The grassy road verges hide ugly
secrets of broken glass and plastic. Only last week we picked up shards of glass from what must have been a sizable broken mirror someone had thrown out. Children are taught at school to care for their environment so I wonder what sort of people do this. I walked almost daily with a donkey up to 7 kms though due to a health problem I could not walk for about 4 months last winter but am working up again and now it is 5 kms and improving. About three years ago we began regularly picking up rubbish along the way and my old donkey Rosalie carried it on her back, soon becoming accustomed to the tins banging together and rattling stuff. Sadly Rosalie died last February and I miss her very much but a new young donkey has come. Donkeys are very much maligned in the world today and these sensitive and intelligent animals suffer terribly from human ignorance.
GG: 2958 Sofie, Linda 2959 and Sofia 2960 Gothenberg Sweden “We are a group of three girls in Gothenburg, Sweden and we think guerrilla gardening is a great way to save the world. We have planted beautiful winter flowers in Gothenburg, where there was non. The idea of making the world more beautiful is important to us. The place were the action was is called 'Bältespännar Parken', and is in the central of Gothenburg, at the Aveny. We have also made our own seed bombs and today we handed them out to the public with the receipe and this web address, hoping that this is spreading”. Guerrilla gardeners in Sweden
Making seed bombsSeed bombs
GG 4347 Nisaba Australia. Wholly unknown to myself, I've been Guerilla-gardening for years, reverse-guerilla-gardening like stealing cuttings and seed-heads, real guerilla-gardening like and scattering native seed and planting choko vines against fences (to see most of 'em get ripped out). I discovered the site, and therefore the name, a single day before my car blew up, which was really frustrating because I love inspired, life-affirming subversion and I see guerilla gardening as another subversive arrow Golden tyre after
I can add to the quiver already containing freecycling and bookcrossing. When I reclaimed my car, I asked the mechanic to stuff the back of it with as many worn-out tyres as possible, and I scored 21 beautiful tyres, not only in the back of my station wagon but also in the back-seat, and in the front passenger seat. I went to about the only shop that sold enamel spray-paint around here (and they looked very oddly at a non-teenager with healthily middle-aged wrinkles buying the stuff!), and spray-painted one of the tyres golden, cost about $4.00. I went to a nursery and laid in some tat soi, giant red mustard, chives, bok choi, yarrow, and marjoram, total cost $26.00. I already had a couple of bags of $2.98 compost-rich potting mix and a jar of water-storage crystals lying around, and I invested $5.00 in a bag of good, well-broken-down, wood-based mulch. I also raided my veggie patch out the back for some of my excess asparagus
seedlings (all of 5cms high), an infant elder tree grown from a stolen cutting, and a single rose seedling from seeds taken from plants where many varieties of roses were planted close together and would have cross-pollinated - thus, a Pot Luck Rose. This morning I also got an empty and washed 1.5 litre cranberry juice bottle, cut the bottom off it, and drive a fine drill-bit through the lid to form three or four drainage holes, replacing the lid. I loaded the back of my station wagon and went out for my first formal, fully-informed Guerilla Gardening exercise. I had Before
in mind a strip of -er- what laughingly passes for grass around here, a piece of neglected land near a bus stop where, when my car blows up, I have to catch buses. I'm not terribly strong, and when I gave a hoy in the forums for other people in my area no one answered, so I decided that using car tyres as the basis of raisedd garden beds would work well for me. I parked totally illegally in the bus stop, unloaded my car into the bus shelter, jumped back into the car and parked it around the corner. When I came back, none of my supplies or tools had been stolen. I first laid the tyre down - painted golden, it looked instantly terrific even empty. Then I laid a shallow layer of potting mix inside it, which I topped with a generous layer (almost half a jar) of water storage crystals - the area might be soggy now after winter rains, but come spring and summer it will be parched, and I probably won't be able to irrigate it every second day so I want it to last out the week. Then I positioned the abbreviated bottle, lid tightly on, upside-down at
the "back" of the tyre, where it will be concealed when things start growing, and where I'll still be able to pour in a supply of water to be slow-leaked into the garden bed. I topped up with enough potting mix to bring it up to a decent level, which for my own future information, will take one and a half complete bags per tyre. At this stage, before any plants had gone in, a dear little old lady with a huge, toothy and equally elderly dog, came tottering along the path where my spade, trowel, plants and empty plastic bags were scattered. She gave me a friendly - and curious - smile, but obviously was too shy to say something directly, so I decided to give her an "in" into a conversation, and fussed over her dog. She introduced him as "Marcus" and I fussed over him a bit, which opened up psychic space for her to fall into conversation with me. I didn't use the words "internet" or "guerilla gardening", but I explained that it was an ugly little strip of land and that I thought I'd set up a mini-garden here. I showed her my cardboard box of punnets and loose seedlings, and told her that the mustard and bok choi although edible were lovely leafy plants
that looked really good, that the yarrow would have wonderful yellowish-white flower-heads, and that the asparagus fern have a lovely soft fern-leaf. She kept saying over and over "What a lovely thing to do! You're so nice, what a lovely thing to do!". Eventually she and Marcus tottered away and I started divvying up punnets and planting. I put in four asparagus, close to and surrounding the bottle-irrigator, the elder cutting (whcih had already developed good roots) in the dead-centre, and around the edges margjoram which will eventually trail, and hte other herb and vegetable seedlings. The potting mix was very damp but I still sprinkled them with a little water that I had brought in another bottle and then filled the irrigator with the remainder of it, and took out handsful of the mulch and carefully positioned it around and under the tiny plants. Eventually I was satisfied with my handwork, walked arround the corner, brought my car back, parked it illegally at the bus stop again, and shoved all my tools and left-over supplies in the back. As I was loading up an middle-aged gent who was visibly damaged by something like alcohol, drugs or even jsut severe mental illness, wandered up and said "What's this?", so I explained again I was giving a garden to the world. He was very disapproving and told me "they would eat it around here". I refuse to believe he had enough brains to recognise edible plants when he saw them, so the only other alternative was that he was so crazy he thought eating newly-established garden beds was normal
normal human behaviour in his suburb. He kept looking at it and looking at me, expecting me to pull it all apart and take it away with me now that I had the benefit of his vast wisdom about the community. I out-stared him, and eventually he tapped his head at me to imply I was crazy and wandered away. I had taken the "before" shot [attached] yesterday, so when I took my stuff home I came back with my camers for the two "after" shots, racing, because I thoguht it was a fair bet we'd wait till I wasn't there and come back to eat my garden-ette, since he seemed to think that was acceptable. He was nowhere to be seen and my garden was, as you can see, intact. In future I plan to do more gold-tyred mini-gardens around the region: the total cost was less than $40 to me, plus I had paint, soil and heaps of seedlings leftover for my own veggie patch at home, which I'm going to go out and plant right now, and as I get better and more organised about doing it, I'm sure it will cost me less than the hour, all-up, that it took. In a few months, when it has had a chance to grow, I'll go out and photograph it again. And now I'm going to sign off, fill my watering-can so as to replace the moisture that the water crystals would have sucked out of the soil (or just soak them toroughly), and plant the lion's share of the seedlings bought into my own herb and veggie garden. I can sense that every so often a gold tyre filled with dirt and plants is going to appear in my region ...
The grass verge by Clapham High Street station was until 10 days ago a dowdy, overgrown magnet for empty beer receptacles and remnants from KFC dinners.  Kate, Rachael, Mattel, TTB John, Amy, and Flash, Sally & Albert have cleared the rubbish and after some weeding planted a mixture of bright flowers – poppies, sunflowers, daisies and others – garden herbs, and wild flower seeds. The idea is to brighten up the day of commuters who use or go past the station and make our part of the world a still nicer place to live in.  We plan more work, with a realGuerrilla gardening outside Clapham High street station
need to prune some of the troubled trees and to keep the other plants we have introduced well nourished, loved and cared for. Let's make sure these wild flower seeds get the encouragement to grow into a hardy meadow!  Whilst lager and pop cans and bottles are still appearing we have written to the Council asking them to put a recycling bin nearby. We also have our eyes on a couple of garden gnomes who, together with the dazzling flora, will hopefully convince passers by to enjoy this new space as a new public resource Before the guerilla gardening
to be treasured.  Thanks a lot all who helped, hope to see you there soon.  Budget: Approx £90, including a £10 donation from a passer by. Lots of love. Sally & AlbertThe plants
GG: 3478 Kate and 3555 Jude Greenbridge Road, Swindon, England As part of their publicity plan for On Guerrilla Gardening Bloomsbury initiated a mission to spruce up the miserable industrial estate where WHSmith, one of Britain’s biggest, booksellers, has their head quarters. Beneath a concrete pillar on a grassy verge that welcomes visitors to their car park was a smashed beer bottle and scrappy weeds so out they Kate Tindal Roberton and Jude Drake guerrilla gardening
came and in went fresh compost, primulas, narcissi, yarrow, a couple of white roses and a colourful placard of the book. Police called by but after a brief chat were no trouble. Stella Artois bottle replaced by primulas
GG: 2110 Ben York Mills Road Toronto, Canada My Grandmother died last week. As I'm sure she had planned, she passed away just before we arrived. She was a determined woman with a great sense of humor and had insisted on being cremated in a cardboard box rather than money wasted on a funeral. We threw a big party and had a good chuckle about her life. Anyway, I'm telling you this because I thought you might appreciate the spontaneous act of GuerrillaBen 2110 and his sister Atonia guerrilla gardening in Toronto
In goes the primula
<p></p> <p>Gardening that took place after her memorial party. We'd bought flowers for the party in brilliant purple and pink, the colours she often wore. On the way back from the party we drive past a Tim Horton's coffee shop. My grandmother was such a coffee drinker that she used to salute Tim Horton's every time she was driven past one, even after she lost the power of speech. We'd given most of the pots away but I'd saved one primula which we planted in a disused concrete planter in front of her local Tim Horton's. Knowing her wit she'd have been the first out of the car digging a hole.
GG 3321 Scot Long Beach, California “It is a center median so it's 'owned' by the city. The city had done little upkeep for many years. As the before pictures show there were four palms and a few Gazania's planted. The garden took many trips before work usually planting 30 to 40 plants at a time. This street has a fair amount of traffic so I have to be careful when working. I do my planting in the early morning, Saturdays being best for traffic. I use succulentsGuerrilla gardening at Long Beach California
for a few reasons. They don't require any watering once their established a good rooting. They are very easy to propagate from cuttings, rhizomes, bulbils and the like. I've taken out hundreds of plants from this location alone. I take them home, root them and replant them in this or other gardens.”
GG: 2236 Tampopo Dublin, Republic of Ireland: Tampopo has been guerrilla gardener for more than five years, and activity has included all manner of different horticultural interventions in neglected public space, including bulbs, seeds and large scale mulching, to suppress weed growth and feed the trees. Tampopo writes more: “Beneath a tree near my house I have planted Nigella, Wallflowers, clematis, digitalis, crocosmia, forget-me-nots and another flower with a circular seed head, not a dandelion!” Tampopo got busy on International Sunflower Guerrilla Day on May 1 and reports of the planting: “Well, these four sunflowers were my pride and joy! I’d watched them grow and grow. Luckily, this position was hidden in shadow at night time, so during the day was the time they were at most risk to vandalism. Unfortunately they were strimmed by the company that's responsible for maintaining this parcel of land. Pity....” Tampopo has also been beautifying the light railway line:
Tampopo's guerrilla gardened sunflowers before they were cut down“For about 200 years till 1975 at Shirling's Walk there was a canal here (Grand Canal). For about 30 years there was a 'Linear Park' here. Now it is the Luas Line Red Line, between Rialto and Suir Road Stations. The land has been landscaped with ivy, cotoneaster horizontalis, vinca etc etc. some low growing plants and some trees. In September 2006 I planted about 150 or so bluebell bulbs given to me by a woman in the area. I planted them in 12 spots along the rail line. They came up
last spring. I also planted some daffodils that had been planted elsewhere by the landscaping company but had come loose of the soil. I replanted them in other locations for a spot of colour. For several weeks from November 2005 I planted about 10 chestnut trees in the vicinity and I checked on them recently and six are still healthy and growing, if still a little small. I grew them from seed/nut. This May, I planted about 100 sunflower seeds. About 15 came out of the soil. About 10-12 of these grew quite high and flowered, not fully, until they were cut in their prime by the company that has the contract for maintaining the area. In the last month I have spread wood chip on the open soil between the ground cover plants. There is a local man that owns a tree surgery business. He often has excess wood chip and has to pay to get rid of it. I got him to dump it and I spread it. The reaction from the public has been quite good. People are glad to see someone caring for the land. The smell from the woodchip is nice, a pine smell! (Evergreen trees) Plans are to plant a few more self-seeding trees. I have planted about 30 seed bombs with hollyhock and nigella seeds already. The seed bombs I planted are made of clay only. They set very hard when they were dry. I'll make new ones with compost/organic matter mixed in too.”
Mulching as a guerrilla gardener in Dublin
2903 Amy Raleigh North Carolina, USA. “Only one defiant sunflower from my maiden May sunflower bombing made it through a summer of drought, but pictured is the lone survivor standing proudly in a concrete and granite government office planter. Just wait until next May!”
GG: 3516 Greg Zurich, Switzerland: This report was posted by Greg 3516 in the GuerillaGardening.org Community forum: “Miryam and me would like to see more Guerrilla Gardeners in Zurich. So to make a start we invested half an hour of our time on Saturday night to decorate a traffic island. We got a lot of comments from passers by and sceptical looks of drivers stopping at the red light. One of them asked if we were about to nick the patch of grass. He seemed to be a bit pissed, hence the question, I suppose. A police van passed and, of course, stopped. One policeman said that he had never seen anything like that but he liked it. We should ask next time though. Yes, sure ;-). It was half an hour of pure fun. We will continue next spring. Promised. Budget. CHF 50.20 1 Thuja 2 Calocephalus 3 Calluna 5 Viola 50 litres garden soil Some pieces of pine bark
GG 990 Sandy Portland Oregon USA: As she walked past America’s oldest Mercedes dealership Sandy could not help but accidentally confuse their three pointed star logo for the similar shaped fork logo of the international peace movement (designed by Gerald Holtom in 1958 for the Campaign For Nuclear Disarmament). So she decided to turn her imagination into reality by doing some guerrilla gardening. Matching the box hedge (Buxus semperviren) she added in an extra row late on Sunday 18 March 2007 which happened to be almost four years since the US invasion of Iraq. Her intervention remained in front of the car show room for three weeks until a gardener removed it. Sandy found where her bush had been dumped and put it back, where it lasted for another fortnight. Eventually Mercedes had enough of it and cleared it away, and Sandy decided she had made her point. The images to the right show the logo before and after the dig.
View Photo Album
Troop 158Luc Forest the guerrilla gardener in Montreal, Canada
“Under a Burgess Park tree, in the bleak bit by Albany Road/Camberwell Road, on 18th November, at dead of night (10pm, and warmly street-lit), armed with an ice-cream scoop and 50 crocus bulbs. Aim = glorious spring display. Result = almost glorious spring display, golden crocuses cheering up all passers-by, surely.”
GG: 2585 Angela Milan, Italy Despite being known as a city of style and fashion there are of course neglected patches of public land in Milan. Angela found a scrubby patch where a new tree had been planted and decided it could be made even better (and look how stylish the gardeners are clothed too!) We have started the attack around 11PM (just during the lunar eclipse). After removing bottles, paper and some more we have put in the flower bed 7 plants of lavender, 3 small box trees and 1 bulb and all around we have seed lavender and some alpin flower seed. It was a great fun and I hope to find a next chance to do an attack.Guerrilla Gardening in Milan, Italy
A stylish transformation of public space in Milan by Angela and her guerrilla gardening friends
GG: 949 Ava San Diego, USA: “We started gardening in a draughtier than usual year. We have had 1.71 inches of rain this season (July 1 through June 30). Normally we get 4.32 inches. It's parched here. Despite that, we made seed bombs in December and DiAnne and I put in a tiny tree-well succulant garden which I've watered to get it started. We also (no pictures) drove down Imperial Avenue a 10 mile long street that runs through one blighted neighbor hood after another, and tossed California Poppy and Western Sunflower bombs at bus stops and verges, and some chapparell bombs on hillsides. The flowers are all selfseeding. Next week we plan to go back and see if anything is coming up. We bombed in advance of a rain, but then there hasn't been another rain since then. Maybe next year will be wetter.Ava guerrilla gardening in San Diego
GG 013 Julia
Rosa Rose Guerrilla Garden BerlinRosa Rose Guerrilla Garden Berlin
Julia is a leading guerrilla gardener in Berlin, passionate, thoughtful, and experienced. She has travelled the world researching the subject for a thesis and spreads her experience to all. Rosa Rose is a huge vacant lot in East Berlin where once stood housing now grows a garden. Rubble was covered with imported soil, and little raised beds built to grow all sorts of beautiful flowers and veg. Like the community gardens in New York, this big patch has something for everyone. All sorts of gardening is encouraged where ever local people can find the space and a zone has been set aside for gathering to watch performances and films. Even dogs are catered for. A fence was purloined to protect the cultivated areas, and the rest left open for dog walkers to stroll in. The garden is left open all day long, and whilst some plants go missing, Julia accepts this as a cost worth paying for in return for communal access. The guerrilla gardeners are constantly vulnerable to loosing this plot because the landowner periodically tries to auction it off. But it is safe for now as large tax debts associated with the plot have put off anyone from buying it. Meanwhile the Rosa Rose guerrillas garden matures and Julia’s activity round Berlin gathers momentum as she is invited to lead more public gardening projects all over the place.
GG David 2384 Standish
Sean is blind. He is also a prolific guerrilla gardener. Because of him his street is lined with blooming tree pits, and even the skies are in bloom because his has climbers running along telephone wires. Through his fine sense of touch and the help of friends he achieves more than many with 20-20 vision. It all began in 2000 when he moved to the house with no garden. The concrete patch outside his front door was soon spilling over with pot plants into the pavement and he realised the great potential for planting the patches of ground beneath the trees. He sprinkled seeds and prised up a few paving stones, and soon Osteo spermum, hollyhocks, marigolds sprung up. He often gardens very early in the morning and late at night because there are fewer people to bump into. Darkness is not an obstacle for him. At first his plants were attacked by council cleaners but he struck up conversation and now works closely with their support. They have even dug
up more paving stones for him. Watch a film about him here.
Esther moved into her flat in Rowstock Gardens off the Camden Road in 2001. After a few months her guerrilla gardening action began as brief dawn raids on the very bare and neglected beds on her estate, starting with small plants raised from cuttings on her balcony and plants donated by friends with gardens. The sound of the spade and sight of flowers where previously there was just bare earth provoked the interest of neighbours who offered plenty of support, encouragement and the odd cup of tea! At a resident’s meeting in 2002 Esther volunteered to take responsibility for improving the land-
scaping on the estate. She now provides a general point of contact between Estate Residents, Greenspace (contracted to mow lawns, etc) and Housing Management. Greenspace decided to give the estate Pilot Project status and to hand over the planting and ongoing maintenance of the beds to the residents. Rowstock Gardens Gardening
Group was set up and immediately awarded a small budget by Housing Management for a large scale planting project to re-green the empty flowerbeds at the base of the two tower blocks. Greenspace provided some labour and mulch free of charge. The planting has matured rapidly and in 2005 the estate was awarded 4th prize in the Islington in Bloom ‘Best Street / Estate’ category. In September 2005 the Residents Gardening Group made a successful application to Groundwork for Islington and Camden for funding for further landscaping improvements including: the creation of two children’s gardens - miniature orchards including Apple, Plum, Pear and Cherry trees on dwarfing rootstocks, a mixed native species hedge along the Camden Road as well as general estate-wide planting of flowering shrubs. The planting was undertaken on weekend workdays between January and July by residents (and friends) ranging in age from five to eighty-two! In Dec 2006 Esther was invited by her local MPs to their House of Commons Christmas party for her ‘work in the community’.
Julia’s first guerrilla gardening was in the grounds of her university. Cars parking there were pushed back over several weeks by placing rubble mounds in front of their tyres, and fences made from recycling metal chairs. Every day she cycled into college with a fresh bag of compost on her back, and carried boxes of young plants on the train from her parent’s garden in the south. With the help of Fabien the garden took shape, and she turned to the university authorities for help and legitimisation. They gave a big boost by providing a trailer full of compost. That was back in 2002. Since then they Julia has fought off construction works dumping skips on the site and secured succession of responsibility as the garden is no longer a local project.
I had told Becki (2232) all about guerrilla gardening in London, she was keen to get involved and I was keen to bring the activity up north. I posted a note on the website for a date that suited Becki and would coincide with my next visit when I would be visiting for some friends for pre-new year festivities. It was a dark, cold and drizzly night in Leeds. The evening began with Becki and I tearing around in her flatmates car, still deciding on an appropriate location for the night’s dig… all a bit last minute. After searching all of central Leeds Guerrilla gardening at Hyde Park Corner in Leeds
and a few surrounding patches, we decided on the original spot we’d passed a few weeks before; a triangle planter on the busy Hyde Park Corner… we were worried, it looked dead rubbley, was there enough soil under all that rubbish? We were already armed with 40 bulbs donated from London by Richard, a few of our own tools and some seeds, but a trip to the B&Q sales was needed. Without double-checking the spot we rushed off before it closed, texting the rest of the troops the confirmed location. We picked up a large fork, another trowel, a pack of assorted gloves, 15 ‘on sale’ primroses and as much ‘special offer’ composting soil as would fit in the boot. The soil was discounted, on account it was the last 4 bags and they were all ripped ­ lucky for us, unlucky for Becki’s flatmate. Paddy (2233), Becki and I arrived at the spot early, we made a plan: 1. Clear littler. 2. Clear weedy growth 3. Turn soil 4. Add new soil 5. Plant Stuff 6. Go to pub The rest of the troops soon trundled along, John, Vici, Suzie and Pete. Litter clearing was a bit minging, mostly beer cans, crisp packets and a few needles. It didn’t take long for everybody to settle down to work, forgetting completely that night time public gardening was not a regular activity we quizzically stared back at gawping passers by, a few stopped to enquirer, including the local vicar and a gardener, we were surprised at some having heard of guerrilla gardening and pleased with their encouragement. As we were all now busy clearing we hardly noticed the large police van pull up along side wind the windows down and stare, with confused faces at what the hell we were up to on a Saturday night… Being the only one with previous guerrilla experience I strolled up to the van, fork in hand to explain. “What are you doing here?” the nearside lady officer asked accusingly, I replied calmly that we were gardening, that we were guerrilla gardeners that had now started work in Leeds. “Do you know who this belongs to,” they asked, still wondering whether this behaviour required them to leave their warm van. I told them I believed it was council property. “Ah, and do you have permission?” the woman police officer looked like she’d finally stumped me. I then explained that I didn’t but that I very much doubted they would object to a group of people clearing up litter, removing weeds and planting bulbs. At this the driving officer decided to take my side and piped up, “well done, excellent work, great idea” the woman still looking dubiously at us vaguely nodded… and off they sped. There were now 7 of us working so we proceeded at lightning speed. We then all took a small orange and grape break, Pete spotted a skip across the junction and began ferrying the rubbish, unfortunately incurring a small glass injury, he was very brave and took one for the team without any tears. Suze distributed the soil and it was forked evenly. John and Vici took on the role of the landscape architects and directed the bulb and flower planting, very satisfying. The final seeds were laid down and covered over, as the Leeds sky opened up and began our watering for us in perfect timing. The final stage was then completed as we muddy lot trooped into the Hyde Park Pub for celebratory drinks!
GG: 2286 Skye Swansea, Wales: It's a big area but I'm hoping to get it cleared and ready for planting by springtime. I just spent an hour out there weeding and forking over and clearing away rubbish. (BTW that's my baby standing there... I'm making a gardener of him as we go).
GG: 1613 Anne Hanover Avenue, Richmond, USA: “The hiss and scrape of shovels on the night of Friday the 13th: Who’s seen this movie? Three figures digging at a strip of earth next to a graffiti-marked cinderblock wall, lanterns throwing weird shadows. No corpses are coming out of the ground in this alley surrounded by condos between Hanover and Grove avenues, though. Instead, Anne Wrinn, Deane Truelove and Laura Usry are preparing the soil to plant bulbs — tulips, crocuses and allium — followed by some winter-flowering pansies. Strange, but not quite occult, this nocturnal
gardening project is Wrinn’s foray into subversion, into the rebel beautification that is guerrilla gardening. “There’s something a little, well, mischievous about planting things under cover of darkness,” Wrinn says. She’s been inspired by the green movement that has become popular in the urban centers of England, a kind of protest in which a group swarms an unused lot of patch of land and plants crops and flowers, often at night, because it is, technically, against the law. “It’s very much for them a civil rights thing,” Wrinn says of those gardeners. But on this night, in this alley, where the small group drinks wine, eats Goldfish crackers and digs, it sure seems like a victimless crime. Wrinn sent out flyers to the neighbors but got only a few loyal supporters: Truelove, who met Wrinn walking in the very alley they’re trying to spruce up, and Usry, who worked with Wrinn in catering at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, but, she says, “Never picked up a shovel in my life.” It’s chilly and dark and would seem a little discouraging, but they’re inspired by the Hanging Gardens of the Alley Across the Street, the work of a landscape artist who lives there. In that similar gravel lot, vines crawl up trellises near apartments, wine barrels sprout leafy winter vegetables next to SUVs, and long beds wait for their next instructions. It’s a long way from Goldfish and crocus, but for Wrinn, “This is the first step to try and make things a little better.” (Text from Styleweekly magazine who Anne invited to join her on the mission).
GG: 1044 Rachel Newcastle, UK: “I have now planted about 70 spring bulbs in neglected brick planters on the streets around my immediate area. I have more bulbs still and have my eye on some more but these need a bit of weeding first, they aren't major jobs individually but they add up. I have been going out in the early evenings and I've also got into the habit of carrying a handful in my pockets and putting some in as I walk home! I'll have to wait to see the results in spring.
So far I've only tackled a long strip of land VERY near to my house,(on a housing estate). It's practically right outside my house which makes it very convenient to go out and weed, (which I'm doing every 2 weeks). Just trying to keep this patch of land under control and doing it by myself takes a lot of effort so I'm not searching for any other sites at the moment. Once the weeds are under control and the plants have matured then I might be on the lookout. At first I used to get up and go out at 5am but now I'll do my guerrillaing at any time of day. I don't care who sees me. Maybe it might encourage others to do the same! As for the plants I use, well mostly I use self-sown seedlings, plants that I've divided, cuttings from my own garden and things I've grown from seed (that have been collected from my own garden flowers). If you don't have your own garden try asking friends or family for free cuttings. I've used Japanese anemones, lavender, limonium, osteospermum, hollyhock, verbena bonariensis, poppies, rudbeckia and cistus. All of these are planted and, although still very small, have managed to survive the dry summer we've just had. Oh and I also planted about 50 daffodil bulbs,(only cost around £2), in the grass behind this strip of land.
Chicago, USA: Date: August 28th Location: Wicker Park Budget: approx $50 US My wife and I spotted this neglected planter, located just a few blocks from where we live in Wicker Park, while on a run. It's in front of a Convalescent home. So I rounded up some friends, bought 150 or so pounds of soil (the planter only had three or so inches of soil in it) and some assorted perennials (on sale) at Home Depot. Troop Matt also told a local plant store up in Lincoln Park what we were up to and they donated a few plants, including some fine decorative grasses, to the cause. Our team started gardening just before 10pm, and made short work of the planter. We planted four sprawling juniper bushes, variegated feather grasses, a flowering potentilla, and a half dozen other perennials that, if there tags didn't lie, could withstand temperatures as low as -40 F. Which is good, cause it gets pretty darn cold here in the winter. At one point, an employee of the home came out for a smoke break, asked a few disinterested questions, and thanked us for doing what we were doing. That is cool! she said. My only regret: Next time I will bring more soil. 150 pounds seems like a lot, but it goes fast.
Jerry Guerrilla Gardening with Aloe vera in Brisbane Australia
Click here to download Basel Guerrilla Gardeners Article
Guerrilla Gardening by Andy Beauchamp in Peckham, London
Troop 287
Guerrilla Gardening by Andy Beauchamp in Peckham, London
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Green Guerrillas 1973 New York Liz Christy and Donald
Brussels Farmer Blogspot
Troop 829Brussels Farmers doing their sunflower guerrilla activity in Belgium
Troop 861 Guerrilla Gardening in Erie, Pensylvania, USA
Troop 588. Andrew guerilla gardening in the Agar Grove Estate, Camden, London
Troop 815 No Trespassing
Valerie Guerrilla Gardening in Montello Wisconsin USA
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Troop 738 Guerrilla Gardening in Vancouver
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PublicSpace.ca
Troop 342Erin the guerrilla gardener in Toronto, Canada
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