Interdisciplinary Studies: Environmental Policy and Planning
John Fitzgerald
Fall 2010
Dr. Derek Stanovsky
Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete?
Proving nature's law is wrong it learned to walk with out having feet.
Funny it seems, but by keeping it's dreams, it learned to breathe fresh air.
Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else ever cared.
-Tupac Shakur (1971-1996)
Abstract
The relevance and meaning of the cultural phenomenon that is termed guerrilla gardening will be explored. The roots, developing events, and current innovations of the movement will be traced through their social, political, and environmental circumstances to provide projection for the future of the action. Through this investigation into this movement the relevance and importance of the action will also be proposed.
Introduction
Many different stories occurring at different times all across the world contribute small details and fragments that create the phenomenon that is guerrilla gardening. It could have occurred through the application of knowledge as a tool to solve a problem created by basic needs, or it could have occurred by accident. If it had a manufacturer’s date it might it say ‘1950 MADE IN JAPAN,’ or possibly ‘2010 Greenaid.’ The term itself comes from the mind of Liz Christy, along with the term Green Guerrillas, which is indicative of the legality of this practice. Although guerrilla stuck, the green as it sometimes has the tendency to do, faded. In reality the phenomenon has already spawned new movements that have evolved beyond recognizable forms of guerrilla gardening. Yet it still occurs both in urban, suburban, and occasionally in rural and agricultural lands.
In essence guerrilla gardening is a phenomenon based on its irregularity and unusual qualities. In thought the practice serves the purpose of an alarm clock of ecological environmental consciousness, set to wake people from their unnatural ‘sleep,’ or lack of awareness for their surroundings. In the eyes of law the practice is illegal, but it is slowly tiptoeing behind the eyes of the authorities towards legal status due to both social and ecological concerns. Guerrilla gardening can be similar to gardening or farming, yet it can also resemble covert spy work. To fully explore this phenomenon it must be traced to some discernable origin point.
SeedsSeeds are an origin point. Most plant life and animal life forms start from some form seed or embryo. Ideas often have seeds, or thought fragments that combine to form theories and broader concepts. Seeds contain an embryo, or genetic potential, with pre-packaged nourishment, and a protective covering. They can remain dormant, be eaten, processed into things, or if lucky enough, germinate. Timing is crucial, especially in propagation where reproduction is such a critical event in the survival of a species. When germination occurs the processes of life begin. Guerrilla gardening as an act proves to be just as versatile and at the same time as fragile as a seed. Just as we do not know the first seed to ever exist, there is no way to know the first guerrilla gardener. We may know the first species of plant to show characteristics of seed plants, and we also know the first person to use the term guerrilla gardener in this sense, but these are only slight certainties that we can pinpoint in a whirlwind of constantly moving and evolving information. Seeds are small packages of complex coded information that play a crucial role in guerrilla gardening. The definition of the term will serve the purposes of this paper as a seed, from which a plant will sprout and develop with the intention of further propagation.
Simply said guerrilla gardening is when people cultivate plants in inhospitable locations illegally. This brief definition creates many assumptions. First, that these people are illegally planting these plants, and that these plants are not considered illegal but the action of planting them is. It also implicates that these people are breaking the law to plant plants in places where they are unlikely to grow naturally and that is part of why this is considered a phenomenon. Most of these implications are usually true, yet there are some deviations. Some guerrilla gardeners plant illegal plants, while others legally plant legal plants in places like community gardens. Even in cases where the definition is entirely functional the aim can be extremely varied in such a manner as to completely defy the recognizable characteristics. Purposes for guerrilla gardening include ecological restoration, political activism, education, community unification, even hunger alleviation, but the main purpose could be to brighten blighted areas, and add a natural form of living color to an area that previously seemed sterile and dead. The next few sections serve to detail people who individually created foundations for guerrilla gardening, but in no means is a complete guide to the forefathers and mothers of this act.
Roots
In 1649 Gerrard Winstanely and his group of political radicals ‘The Diggers’ took over common or vacant areas in Surrey, Buckinghamshire, Kent, and Northhamptonshire, and committed the first ever recorded act of guerrilla gardening. Although their egalitarian,
politically radical commune didn’t last longer than two years, they did cultivate crops and give them free of charge to their followers. The Diggers were largely founded on radical English thought tracing back to the peasants revolt of 1381, from this point in guerrilla gardening the struggle against poverty and political underrepresentation will become a constant theme throughout. Winstanely died in 1676 but the seeds he had sown were just starting to grow roots (Spartacus). A decade and a quarter later in 1774, John “Appleseed” Chapman was born. Although the name of this American Legend is common knowledge, the details of his life are not. John Chapman grew up in a large family on a farm as a devout follower of the Church of New Jerusalem. As his life progressed he proved to be a legend by setting up many apple nurseries in the Northern-Mid section of the United States. He was recognized for his generosity and natural lifestyle. Often establishing nurseries to function like olden day micro-loans; supplying those with little resources an initial investment with which they could generate profit, and going barefoot in the summers to save leather. He was an outspoken conservationist and only promoted native apples, which at the time were of mainly cider varieties, thus possibly initiating a market for hard cider. Chapman passed away in 1845 but some of the trees he spread throughout the Northeast still exist today (Harper’s).
Twenty-eight years after Johnny Appleseed died, Sir Albert Howard was born to another farming family in 1873. After achieving degrees in natural sciences and agriculture, Sir Albert Howard lectured extensively on agriculture before traveling to India to serve as an Imperial Economist for the government. Although he was employed as an agricultural adviser and sent to India to teach western agricultural techniques, he found that he was learning more from the Indian farmers than they were from him. Sir Howard made the lasting realization that “the health of soil, plant, animal and man is one indivisible.” He took notice of the Indian composting method and reined it into the Indore method, which granted him the title of ‘father of modern composting.’ He also wrote the ‘bible’ of organic agriculture “An Agricultural Testament,” and multiple of his other publications are considered some of the most foundational texts in organic and agricultural literature. Although Sir Albert Howard died in 1947 his work would still serve as reference for modern organics (Addison).
Ruth Stout marks the first female to emerge on the guerrilla gardening scene in 1884. Her determination and natural hardiness lifted her to success in the world of publications on the topic of organic gardening. The events that initiated Ruth in organic gardening started when she and her husband Alfred Rossiter moved to a 55 acre plot in Poverty Hollow on the outskirts of Redding Ridge Connecticut. After trying her hand at conventional gardening techniques Ruth became frustrated with the undependable man she relied on to plow her fields, and started employing a direct seeding technique that would eventually prove quite successful. As Ruth Stout grew old she developed her technique, adopted year-round mulch that drastically decreased the amount of manual labor usually associated with gardening. Her method of direct seeding would prove to be an efficient one, reappearing multiple times after her death in 1980 (Scott).
Another American author by the name of Jerome Irving Rodale, born in 1898, popularized the term ‘organic,’ to mean grown without pesticides. During WWII and a subsequent nitrogen shortage he and his wife purchased a 66-acre farm to help demonstrate realistic ways of building soil fertility to help educate the nation which had already become dependent on chemical fertilizers. He also founded magazines and published books on the topics of health and food. One of his most recognized publications “Organic Gardening” was the most-read gardening periodical worldwide. Although Rodale tragically died of a heart attack during a television interview on The Dick Cavett Show in 1971, his pioneering work of linking health to food as a preventative medicine is still a founding point of organic theory (organic.org)
In a return to the scientific inclinations of organic culture Lady Evelyn Barbara Balfour (1899-1990) was an English farmer, educator, and a foremother of the organic movement. In 1939 she initiated the Haughley Experiment, which was the first side-by-side comparison of chemical-based and organic farming. Four years later she published “The Living Soil,” which was one of the first texts in organic agriculture to include such detailed accounts of scientific experiments and meta-analysis of other studies. In 1946 she co-founded and was elected president of the Soil Association, which is the main organic farming association in the United Kingdom (Brander).
The next proponent and forefather of the organic movement is Masanobu Fukuoka (1913-2008). Fukuoka was a soil scientist initially, then a plant disease researcher, before beginning his ultimate career of ‘do-nothing-farmer.’ Although the terms ‘do-nothing and farming in the same phrase seem an oxymoronic, Fukuoka established his method resembling Ruth Stouts direct seeding techniques while also harboring a deep appreciation for the soil. Not only did he include the work of the previous forefathers and mothers of the organic movement, but Fukuoka did much to observe the importance of biodiversity of the natural systems involved in farming, especially noting weeds and cover crops and the important ecological functions they provide. His most notable publication “One Straw Revolution” still serves as a valuable resource for any individual interested in biodynamic farming principles and food as a preventative medicine. In this text he connects the intricacies of soil microbes, or soil health, with the health of humans consuming organic foods and asserts his resistance against the government backing of widespread agricultural chemical use. To Masanobu direct-seeding his fields was very important. The title “One Straw Revolution” refers to the practice of leaving the rice stalks on the field as they fall in a natural way, to provide just the right cover for barely and winter grains to be hidden from pests and to prevent weeds from covering the field. When compared to a study wherein the experimental section was deliberately laid out neatly, the results showed that the stalks were laid too closely together to allow the winter grains to grow through them, proving the lack of manual labor necessary in a conceptually labor intensive work. Due to his interdisciplinary qualities and the masterful application of his teachings Fukuoka’s techniques reach far beyond the extent of organic farming and even deliver unto guerrilla gardening a secret weapon, the seed pellet. Seed pellets are a combination of organic compost, red clay, and seeds rolled when moist into balls or pellets and then dried in the sun for about two days. The clay preserves the seeds, preventing them from being eating by pests, but it also combines with the compost after being rained on to form an ideal soil mixture for germinating seeds. Indigenous peoples, probably used this simple yet revolutionary method, but Fukuoka is accredited with it in modern times. Fukuoka’s seed pellets would eventually resurface in a more radical manner as Liz Christy’s seed bombs.
The creator of the term ‘guerrilla gardener’ Liz Christy (1946-1985) had some unique methods, but her rebellious spirit lived on through the adoption of her term into what is now an international movement. In 1973 she and her green guerrillas transformed a derelict private lot in Bowery Houston, New York into a functioning community garden that still exists as a productive garden and a social community-gathering site both physically and virtually. Interestingly enough, the community garden area was acquired legally through the city’s office of Housing Preservation and Development on April 23rd, 1974, proving not all guerrilla gardening acts have to be illegal (Loggins). Even though this landmark garden was acquired through legal proceedings, the actions her group was took prior to this advancement were still vandalism. She and her activist group were planting window boxes, tree pits, and seeding vacant lots with ‘seed bombs.’ Christy’s seed bombs were contained in water balloons and Christmas ornaments, designed to explode upon impact, which is not the most ecologically sound idea, but somewhat innovative none the less. Christy, along with Masanobu Fukuoka can be seen as one of the contributors that brought the organic movement into a transitional phase that allowed for the future of guerrilla gardening. Another of these transitional foremothers was Elspeth Thompson.
Although her contributions to the organic movement seem minimal in comparison to some of the other founders, Elspeth Thompson (1961-2010) contributed much to the ideals asserted by guerrilla gardening. She was a successful author, and blogger developing the mantra “gardening against the odds,” which obviously applies to guerrilla gardening. In her life she dedicated herself to the work of showing the revitalizing powers of gardening and proper place maintenance. She was also one of the modern proponents of ideals that surpass the domain of guerrilla gardening, extending into other innovative social-ecological restorative ideas such as eco-building, greener living, and community action through environmental work (The Telegraph).
Shoots
In botanical development shoots extend from the base provided by the roots. Shoots, trunks, and stems extend their branches towards the sun and grow food-producing leaves representing the development, establishment, and evolution of guerrilla gardening. Shoots provide the intermediary location where transference of materials takes place. Water and nutrients, basic building blocks of life, are carried up through the phloem providing essential liquids to the leaves, while the xylem transports food converted form solar energy down to the root systems of the plant. Both systems in-between the shoots allocate essential developmental materials. Roots collect nutrients from decayed, old matter, while leaves convert new solar energy into food, making the entire process reflexive and productive through working off of both the past and the present, much like the work of guerrilla gardeners. Although this is no complete history of guerrilla gardening actions as such a compilation would prove rather extensive, it is a highlighted review of some of the most important occurrences that helped to shape this cultural phenomenon and guide further development.
After Winstanely’s Diggers supplied the initial spark for the movement through their politically and ideologically heated agricultural activism, the next contribution to the movement can be viewed as a regular part of everyday life. In the 1850’s it was common to discard and subsequently plant, or even purposely bury the remains of the organic matter from one’s lunch. Where these lunch remains were planted a over a decade ago, now many apple trees, asparagus plants, and other easily propagated edibles grow along the banks of canals in northern Utah. Back then these actions were performed without deeply seated political motivations, or intentions of ecological restoration, instead these crops were established from the flow of organic matter and lifestyle of being closely connected with nature. Although this happens infrequently today the ease of these guerrilla gardening techniques would not be lost forever.
Guerrilla gardening often appears out of the need for sustenance, both physical and mental, which arrives when people are oppressed or held in impoverished positions by powers that they cannot control, whether those powers be governmental bodies or the harsh physical constraints of modern urban developments is not critical. These former motivations spur the second event in the evolution of guerrilla gardening. In 1994 the Tela Railroad Company, a subsidiary of Chiquita Brands Fruit Company informed the workers of several banana plantations that they were no longer needed. The company offered to relocate the workers, which some accepted, however the ones who felt tied to the land due to their years of service and inhabitance in the area resisted. Their resistance became the Tacamiche conflict of 1994, wherein they occupied 500 acres of land that the Tela Company had already begun planting with Sorghum. The resistance seeded corn in the areas that were not yet occupied. After the company informed the government of the arising conflict, 150 soldiers and anti-riot police forced the peasants and their families off the land with tear gas and by firing warning rounds into the air. At this point the Combative National Rural Workers Central (CNTC) began backing the Tacamiche workers. Within a few days the degree of organization within the peasant workers was rising at a dramatic rate, as 500 peasants from nearby areas joined the Tacamiche workers in their resistance to corporate control of local lands. Violent conflict ensued in which soldiers and police destroyed the corn crops, the peasants struck back, destroying the Tela Company’s Sorghum. Although there was a large degree of organization and cooperation between grassroots movements the Tacamiche workers, the uprising ultimately failed to achieve property rights in the fields. As a result president Reina was accused of being ‘repressive and pro banana’ due to his backing of financial investors rather than the people. Although this specific uprising was not necessarily successful, it did serve to diversify indigenous protest actions, and remind the nation of their long standing struggle to claim land, and agricultural rights from encroaching political powers (Posas 2010).
There is a trend of menial successes formed by these guerrilla gardening actions, to which the next movement is another contributor. The Pure Genius commune started in may 1996 was a group of about 500 activists affiliated with ‘This Land is Ours’ (TILO) a British landrights campaign. The activists inhabited a 13-acre tract of land along the banks of the Thames river. The land belonged to the Guinness Company, and thus the name Pure Genius. Their action aimed to highlight what they referred to as “the appalling misuse of urban land, the lack of provision of affordable housing and the deterioration of the urban environment.” The commune grew their food on-site and created simple structures in which to live. Unfortunately also common to TILO eco-villages was the impermanence of the establishment. After 5 and half months the authorities evicted the eco-village dwellers and the Guinness Company reclaimed the land, but not before it inspired other activists who would eventually go on to build other eco-villages in the same manner.
In 1996 Have på en nat, which is Danish for ‘Garden in a night’ took place. In this event about 1000 people took part in a project to convert an empty piece of land in the city of Guldbergsgade in Nørrebro, Copenhagen into a garden in a single night. This high-profile example of guerrilla gardening showed immediacy, a high degree of involvement, and lasting success, all of which are ideals rarely attained in every guerrilla gardening action.
The next notable event in guerrilla gardening occurred in 1999 in Manchester, England. After the Manchester City Council broke the pavement on an acre of land in Hulme, locals facilitated by the Manchester Permaculture group took to turning the site into a thriving community garden. This even exemplifies the positives that can come from local action being directed by public organizations that are specialized in social-ecological restoration, with emphasis on local and sustainable food economies.
May first 2000 was a day to remember in guerrilla gardening. A group called ‘Reclaim the Streets’ organized a massive guerrilla gardening event in Parliament Square, London. After a Carnivale-like procession with a samba band, and a critical mass bicycle ride from Hyde Park to the square, thousands of guerrillas occupied the area and planted flowers and vegetables. A maypole was erected and gardeners danced around it. Then banners were hung reading: “Let London Sprout,” “Capitalism is Pants,” “The Earth is a Common Treasury for All,” which is a quote from Winstanely, and “Resistance is Fertile.” In the midst of the celebration a statue commemorating Winston Churchill was adorned with a festive turf mohawk. As is sometimes the case with over enthusiastic guerrilla gardening efforts the culprit who gave Churchill his stylish ‘do’ was fined for vandalism. However this was the only prosecution made throughout the entire event, displaying the relaxed view of British law compared to the sometimes over emphatic prosecution of American and other guerrilla gardening perpetrators.
In 2004 guerrilla gardening was finally established in that it had declared an official virtual meeting space. Guerrillagardening.org, the personal blog of Richard Reynolds received global media attention after his solo guerrilla actions outside the Perronet House in London’s Elephant Castle District. The establishment of this site as guerrilla gardening’s homepage would mark the beginning of increasing organization in activities and would prove to be an important landmark in the overall movement.
As a striking return to social, political, and environmental justice, guerrilla gardening would then lend ideas to the Abahlali baseMjondolo, or the African ‘Shack Dwellers’ movement. Years after apartheid, the African government, specifically in South Africa, has abandoned some of it’s most impoverished citizens. Violating constitutional laws to evict and relocate shack dwellers, possibly in efforts to clean up the areas surrounding the city for the 2010 world cup, caused a people’s uprising, which is steadily growing. The movement has adopted guerrilla gardening techniques to grow food on land that is not theirs, mostly because this group of people is so impoverished that they own very little in general. As their rights are ignored and impeded upon by the government they have begun to act out through protests. Although guerrilla gardening is only a minor part of this social, political uprising, it still presents a useful tool in declaring independence from political systems that overvalue currency, and undervalue humanity and personal capability (Abahlali).
The year 2005 marks the establishment of Australia’s ‘Permablitz’ movement. The directive of which is to create sustainable local food economies to provide food stability if/when food prices become unaffordable. The organization works with suburban landowners to convert existing yards into vegetable gardens. The organization also works to revitalize and restore land adjoining rail lines. As a side effect of such a large guerrilla gardening population in Australia, conflicts started to arise within the culture. These conflicts generally surround the motivations of guerrillas, whether they align with either of two positions. Those who are most concerned with planting native plants sometimes end up in opposition with those who are most concerned with communal food production. Although these conflicts do arise the members of the movement still come to compromise to complete projects to provide stable food security for residents who need assistance and education.
As a tangent to specifically agricultural and plant based actions, a group of 26 volunteers in Richmond, Virginia built and installed 49 small birdhouses along the entire length of Hanover Avenue in the Fan District of Richmond. The birdhouses were constructed of untreated wood, and had specific dimensions that were designed to provide safe-haven for local songbirds, such as wrens, blue birds, and finches, while preventing the inhabitance of non-native species such as starling, and European barn swallow. Later in 2006 it was reported in ‘Style Weekly’ that an act of guerrilla gardening had taken place in an alleyway adjacent to the birdhouses. Also in Richmond, is a group called the ‘Tricycle Gardens,’ which has begun the reclamation of blighted urban spaces in some of the most impoverished neighborhoods in the area. Their efforts include bringing locally grown food, and a better understanding of the interconnectedness humans have with nature to the city.
May first 2007 marked the first international guerrilla gardening event entitled ‘International Sunflower Guerrilla Gardening Day.’ The even was organized by ‘The Brussels Farmers to be a day when guerrilla gardeners plant sunflower seeds in public spaces in the locality. Due to seasonal conditions participants are confined to the Northern Hemisphere, but every year since its inception the event has drawn an increasing number of participants totaling 5,000 in 2010.
In a strange turn of events, a guerrilla gardening television show was created for audiences of Australia’s TEN network. The show first aired in February of 2009, but unfortunately as is the trend with many guerrilla gardening efforts was cancelled in April of the same year due to struggling viewership and unsuccessful timeslot change. The show features a cast of 6 guerrillas, 5 of whom are experienced landscapers and horticulturists, with the remaining guerrilla being a master of spin, who’s main purpose is to distract and diffuse the authorities when they try to impede on the work of the crew. During the stint of the show one project was threatened with removal by the Marrickville Council, a project in Sutherland Shire was halted halfway through construction due to council interference, and the unfinished plantings were later removed. The producers of the show were issued a fine from the authorities which they challenged, and the network accused the Canterbury Council of preparing to destroy work from their first episode, but their claims were later found to be premature and incorrect.
The last event included in this review is another eco-village that was inspired by the Pure Genius activists. The Kew Bridge Eco-village was established in July of 2009 on a brownfield site near Kew Gardens in West London. The community is reported as saying it wishes to demonstrate the practicality of permaculture principles; living in simple structures (composed of tree branches and recycled materials,) growing vegetables, and recycling waste. In December of 2009 the village had 32 permanent residents, and structures included a shower, a compost toilet, and a kitchen. The community organization relied on consensus decision-making, and was based on the intention of living a more simple, eco-friendly existence. Food supply was augmented by regular dumpster diving trips, with some residents describing themselves as freegans. The community included some previously homeless, while other members left their houses and jobs to live their lives on a daily basis upholding principles of anti-consumerism. The village conducted a host of events that included, arts and crafts workshops, film shows, yoga, face-painting classes, pagan festivals, live poetry, and music, as well as an annual seed swap. Although authorities evicted the eco-village in May of this year, most of the occupants have since joined other eco-villages such as the Hounslow community land project and Democracy Village at Parliament Square.
Leaves and Flowers
The leaves, buds, and flowers are the sections of the tree that bear in mind the future. Leaves collect energy and regulate important processes to keep the tree healthy and responsive to its environment as changes occur. They are also the formation site for flowers, the sexual organs of the tree. Flowers engage in the transference of genetic information across species, sometimes occurring within one organism, and sometimes occurring across two or more organisms. Plant genetics allow for these processes of self and cross-pollination to increase the genetic mixing. The process of pollination can be seen as the mixing of information through a widely dispersed medium, much like the flow of information from person to person through the Internet, which is definitely a source of inspiration and creation for the new pioneers in the field of guerrilla gardening.
This year has seen the evolution and progeny of guerrilla gardening come into full view. COMMONStudio is ‘an emerging design practice engaging in interdisciplinary approaches to objects, systems tools, and spaces with an emphasis on issues of urban ecology, social enterprise, and adaptive reuse’. The two existing projects from this design studio include (C)urban Ecology, a renovation on the original design of the curb section of sidewalk, where the planar section adjacent to the road surface is scored with lines parallel to the flow of traffic down the road, and a large divot in the uppermost portion of the curb. Both of these alterations provide space for soil and substrate to collect and eventually gather seeds of native grasses that then help to filter debris out of rainwater flowing into storm drains. The vegetation and soil also help to percolate and absorb rainwater, slowing the overall flow of water through the watershed and helping to recharge the local aquifer. These alterations create the largest possible positive impact on the built and natural environment while requiring minimal material and energy input. Altering the design of the built environment to include natural ecological services is possibly one of the most innovative ways to incorporate sustainability into design, and will prove to be an inspiring area of further innovation.
COMMONStudio’s other project is ‘Greenaid’ and is promoted with the slogan “Change for Change,” which is fitting because the project retrofits old gumball machines to distribute seedballs. These seedballs are of the same design as Fukuoka’s ‘seed pellet’ and Christy’s seed bombs, but they have the ecologically sound characteristics from Fukuoka’s physical design, with the implementation of Christy’s widespread availability, through the use of the gumball dispensers. This presents an incredibly sustainable business design considering that the products are meant to biodegrade and propagate plants that will beautify neglected landscapes, and the dispensary units are being recycled and reused for a new purpose, rather than trashed, or left unused. The company even distributes different regionalized seed mixtures, so that good-natured consumers do not spread invasive and exotic species. Many aspects of this company and their product are awe inspiring, however seedballs might prove to be either the most awesome toy, or the worst toy in the world from the perspective of a child. Considering that most other products from quarter machines are directly ingestible, or are disposable consumables that serve no real purpose, other than childish delight. It seems safe to assume that seed balls will have both positive and negative reactions from children, and their adult guerrilla gardening counterparts alike. As a benefit seedballs pose less of a threat to children than the toxic gooey toys that are available from quarter machines. Another detraction from the genius of this idea is the marketing and absorption of guerrilla gardening ideals into the consumer economy. If seedballs can be purchased what is next, buying temporary sod turf to lay down in the city streets as urban yards? Even though injecting the ideals of guerrilla gardening into consumer products would no doubt have widespread benefits, it also suggests that at this point guerrilla gardening as already been digested by the American subconscious, which could be good or bad depending on whether or not the idea is assimilated into everyday life, or rejected as a fad and left to decay without further development. Judging by the current trends in green living and the application of creativity to current environmental problems one can only hope that the ideals of guerrilla gardening will be assimilated into everyday life, and in the future litter will potentially all biodegrade leaving wildflowers in its wake.
In keeping with the propagation of creativity though, there have been many other alterations on the original seed ball idea. The Dutch Company Studio TX recently developed seed balloons created from biodegradable plastic called PLA. The balloons are painted with -
100% water-based chalk, and take 4-6 months to decompose, leaving attractive wildflowers rather than scraps of colored rubber. Although the balloons do not contribute to the germination of the seeds they contain in the same manner that seedbombs do, the idea of setting seeds aloft could be both beneficial and harmful. Making seeds airborne for distribution creates even more possibilities for distribution through guerrilla gardening activities, yet it also opens the opportunities for the spread of exotic-invasive species.
Another crucially important offshoot of guerrilla gardening is the organization NAG. Neighbors Allied for Good Growth is an advocacy group for the residents of the Greenpoint and Williamsburg neighborhoods in North Brooklyn. The organization came together to ‘recapture their waterfront, reduce local environmental hazards, and advocate for public policies promoting healthy mixed-use communities’ (NAG.org). NAG still has citizen groups distribute seed balls, and has followed the events of the original green guerrillas. In an interview with NPR, Michael Freedman-Schnapp, a co-chair stated that the guerrilla gardening movement of the 1970s “was a reaction to all the abandonment in the city at the time” (Adler). Therefore the main initiator of guerrilla gardening is abandonment, both financially and politically, and this statement rings true through all of the previous examples. NAG represents the future possibilities of guerrilla gardening efforts all across the globe. With guerrilla gardening activity occurring in major cities such as Los Angeles and Hollywood, New York, London, Berlin, and Toronto, there are major possibilities for these movements to organize and evolve into public advocacy groups that employ guerrilla gardening among a host of other activities that work towards the goals of community unification, environmental justice and equitable sustainable development.
A non-profit in Los Angeles called Tree People is another fledgling of guerrilla gardening. They began planting and encouraging people to care for trees in the 1970s, demonstrating how trees can help lower the solar radiation absorption in urban areas, commonly referred to as the heat island effect. The organization not only oversees the planting process but works with the community to educate locals about the importance of community unity and responsibility, which is an important aspect for trees that need regular watering until they are established. Treepeople.org calls this process creating a ‘functional community forest.’ Through they years they have also come to help the Los Angeles area deal with other issues of social-ecological infrastructure, implementing green design to recreate the ecosystem services of the forest through permeable paving, swales, rain barrels, cisterns, and French drains.
Seeds 2.0
Contrary to the current trend of remaining anonymous for personal preservation, two of the current leaders in the guerrilla gardening movement are David Tracey and Richard Reynolds. Tracey published “The Miracle Tree,” a novel bearing a striking resemblance to ‘The Giving Tree’ with a large dose of social criticism and satire. As well as “Guerrilla Gardening: A Manualfesto,” which serves as an introductory to the act of guerrilla gardening, proposing methods of carrying out the act and inspirational blurbs from the history of the movement. Tracey is a journalist and environmental designer, while Reynolds is an author, and horticulturalist whose blog became the homepage for organizing guerrilla gardeners across the globe. There are many traces of both of these figures on the Internet, including many videos of Richard Reynolds in the act of guerrilla gardening. Their public proclamations of guerrilla gardening defy the secretive and subtle aspects of other guerrilla gardeners such as Roly Polly and Lady Bug of the Los Angeles guerrilla gardeners, who chose to give pseudonyms when appearing publicly.
Another up and coming green designer with a guerrilla flare is Vanessa Harden. Her ‘cold war gadgetry’ inspired designs make guerrilla gardening into a fashionable spy warfare game. Pieces include a palm triggered ankle mechanism that drops ‘seed pills,’ Harden’s take on Fukuoka seed pellets, replacing compost and clay with gelatin pill capsules to create a smaller more covert method of distributing seeds. Her false camera design also incorporates these ‘seed pills,’ which are shot out of a camera casing, designed to cover the illegal act of distributing seeds with the less threatening and more socially common act of taking pictures. Other inspiring designs include ‘future tents’ which are accordion folded cardboard structures, with seeds embedded into the cardboard so that after the temporary usage period the entire tent, including the vegetable plastic covering (it had to be water proof somehow right?), can be broken down by the environment and will actually help germinate beautiful native wildflowers. The ‘Subversive Gardener’ design features a set of bags for the couple who wishes to guerrilla garden, but fear the legal consequences. The man’s bag features an opening along the bottom, which reveal an auger inside. The bottom flap is simply opened, the bag is then carried to the desired transplanting site, and the auger is used to dig a hole. Once the right depth requirements are met, the man moves on to the next spot while the woman working closely behind him opens the bottom flap to her bag, engages the mechanism to transplant the seedling into the hole, and then they both carry on like nothing ever happened. Although Harden’s designs are inspiring, creative, and oddly fashionably the do detract from the defiance that other guerrilla gardeners seem to own. Guerrilla gardening, as a practice mirrors natural diversity through resilient actions, and thus there is no need to dictate how another person goes about their secretive planting business, especially considering the thought of getting arrested for simple transplanting.
If Fukuoka’s seed pellet idea can be proposed and recycled so many times, then no doubt the current innovative ideas in natural ecological restoration will cycle throughout the future until they become refined as well. Paul Stamets author of “Six Ways Mushrooms can Save the Planet” write and speaks about the digestive powers of mushrooms. In his research he has explored the potential for mushrooms to break down complicated carbon chains that are only produced by man, as well as many other diverse ways mushrooms could be used for eco-restoration. Using this method mushrooms are used to clean oil soaked debris and collect toxic heavy metals from soils. Proving to be capable of incredible feats of ecological restoration the future of seed balls might in fact be spore balls, or even cultures for fungal or bacterial mats which could be deployed on aqueous oils spills to digest them, and break them down into component carbon structures which other organisms have a better chance of degrading.
Conclusion
Colliding conceptions of global and local, and rural and urban can be paired through the lens of guerrilla gardening. No other act directly represents the idea “think globally, act locally” with quite the same grace that guerrilla gardening does because guerrilla gardening seeks to bridge the conceptual gap between our rural and urban landscapes. The social conception that urban areas are composed solely out of concrete and man-made building materials is past due, if the Internet is brining cultural evolution and information into the sparsely populated country side, it can also help bring the benefits of the rural countryside into the urban jungle.
It is no coincidence that guerrilla gardening spawns from the organic movement which ties the health of soil to the health of plants to the health of people. It is a modernized form of conveying the same idea that we rely on the soil and the plants and the entire earth system as its individual aspects functioning together rather than individually as organisms or atoms removed from their systems or chemical compounds. Guerrilla gardening is a method of reintroducing hole, living systems into a society that has become dissecting and focused on only component parts of a larger functioning system. As Balfour stated:
‘Our health or wholeness has fragmented no less than our diet. A swarm of specialists have with the invention of science settled on the fragments to study them. A great deal is found out about each several disease; there is a huge, unmanageable accumulation of knowledge, and this and that disease is checked or overcome. But our wholeness has not been restored to us. On the contrary, it is fragmented into a great number of diseases and still more ailments. We have lost wholeness, and we have got in its place fragmentation with a multiplexity of methods, officially blessed and otherwise, dealing with the fragments in their severalty.’
(163-4)
If we are ever to live in a sustainable way then our food must come from as close as possible. Fukuoka, Balfour, Howard and Rodale all made the connection between organic food from healthy soil and healthy people. Balfour and Fukuoka even went so far as to declare that being personally responsible for ones own consumptive purposes would vastly improve health, not only through organic nutrition as preventative medicine but through the process of cultivation as a form of psychological healing. Guerrilla gardening presents a form of preventative prescription writing by gardeners, informing urbanites that their surroundings may increase their chance of infection, and it also presents the first steps required in developing urban agriculture and reinvesting in social-capital of blighted, impoverished neighborhoods through the sustainable development of social-ecological infrastructure.
Much of the work of early organic theorists was founded upon the ideals of placing humans in close proximity with the natural systems, which provide nourishment for us. Often this discussion becomes confined to the realm of food because food serves as an obvious connection from earth to person. Vandana Shiva spoke about food representing the direct connection between solar energy and human energy, by stating that harvesting food is “harvesting sunshine.” She made very clear the point that all of our energy, in one form or another, comes from the sun. Even petroleum, the cause of so many social, political, and environmental discussions and arguments originated as solar energy 300-400 million years ago. It is blazingly obvious that we function in a closed system, and that we are heavily dependent on the already present energy flows. As much as we confide in the statute that technological innovations and increased energy have so far yielded increased production, we cannot continue to ride the dead horse of technology as a solution to our environmental disdain.
Although food often becomes an easy to target topic of environmental debates, it still does not present an area of widespread success in environmental policies. Only in the last ten years have effective policies concerning sustainable food economies been created. Through studies such as Sonnino’s “Feeding the City” we see the formation of the idea of ‘bio-regions,’ which embody the connection of an areas ecological footprint with their resource policies. Urban areas are the epicenter of new developments in many aspects of social and political functions, and creating sustainable food economies in these areas presents a challenge that would provide extremely valuable information for other areas to follow in their examples. Urban community gardens not only increase the value of the local property, they also help connect the food webs that will be necessary to support urban populations when food economies start to feel pressure from fuel shortages, and recreate social capital in areas where crime, abandonment, and politically disenfranchised people are held in cycles of poverty. Without guerrilla gardening, there would be no affront to the political processes which continually eat away at social capital by reclaiming areas gardened through guerrilla efforts, and selling them to developers to effectively replace the minimally existing urban open space with more sky rise condominiums.
Guerrilla gardening was the forefront of such gains in knowledge formations that assert the rights and responsibilities of local land that people require to thrive. Without Liz Christy’s movement and the actions of so many unnamed guerrilla gardeners, urban community gardens would not exist. Without the direct action that is guerrilla gardening and its current place in the physical and virtual world, urban areas would be further confined to unnatural building materials. In thought guerrilla gardening marks the merging of previously discriminating knowledge formations supporting stereotypes that urban areas were dangerous and ugly, but provided the birthplace for new culture emerging out of combined traditions of the past, whereas rural areas were perceived as ecologically healthy yet widely socially inhospitable due to deeply imbedded social traditions. On discriminating knowledge formations and the role of the scientist in environmental affairs Fukuoka in his ‘One Straw Revolution’ remarked:
“’you might be wondering why I have this habit of picking on scientists all the time,’ I said, pausing to take a sip of tea. The youths looked up smiling, faces glowing and flickering in the firelight. “It’s because the role of the scientist in society is analogous to the role of discrimination in your own minds.”
(Fukuoka Pg. 171)
Although he wrote this more than 25 years ago, the sentiment of this statement still resonates with our contemporary social, political, and ecological ailments. Proper dissemination of the true ideals of the environmental movement were blocked, lobbied if you will, by proponents of stagnation. We live in a time when communicating with our representatives has never been easier, but because of this development, our attempts to communicate mean even less. In this time of high-speed low human quality communications it becomes clear that to have our opinions heard by politicians we must make them feel our presence. It has become obvious that power is seated so deeply in the hands of decision makers that for citizens to have any impact on our representatives, we must make ourselves numerous and present. As S’bu of the Abahlali movement remarks on the power of numbers:
“[Y]ou write emails, you write letters, They don’t understand those things, they will squash it and put it in the bin. The language that is understood in our modern democracy is through putting thousands of people on the streets. . . our power remains in our numbers, unity is our strength. That is the only language they will understand.”
Guerrilla gardening represents a more encouraging and successful manner of recruiting people into a less discriminating thought pattern, by being accessible to anyone, and presenting ideals that protesting can be a family friendly, safe, and representative of culturally diverse display of true human needs.
With its roots deeply penetrating the organic movement, guerrilla gardening is a necessary for of direct action that collects essential building blocks from the knowledge formations of the past and the innovations of the present and integrates them into a new movement, calling for affordable food, community unification, reinvestment in areas of declining social capital, increased urban open space, and ecological restoration through investment in social-ecological systems. Guerrilla gardening represents the human movement towards sustainability in social, ecological, political systems, which only it can represent, being a movement of people, powered by the people in accordance with the true flows of natural energies.
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