#guerrilla gardening

[solarpunkani]

Listen I’m not saying that *I* have the balls to buy a reflective vest and go off on a roadside or retention pond somewhere and start fucking around guerrilla gardening

But I am saying that the past week I’ve driven past many MANY people in reflective vests either doing roadwork or maintaining roadside shrubbery or whatever and the amount of times I considered questioning what the fuck they were doing is zero and the amount of times I would’ve even had the TIME to question what the fuck they were doing is zero

I saw groups of people I saw someone solo I didn’t question it I just figured ‘eh they’re doing SOMETHING and carried on. Depending on the location you pick, anyone who WOULD Karen up and interrogate you won’t even have the time space or ability to

[kropotkindersurprise]

Take up guerrilla gardening to beautify your city and provide food for bees and other insects!

[victusinveritas]

[unstalgia]

Seed Bombs are little balls made up of a combination of compost, clay and seeds. The act of using the ball is called Seed bombing, which is the practice of introducing vegetation to land by throwing or dropping the seed bombs. The structure of the bomb enables the seeds to be launched over walls or distances, as the compost and clay act as a barrier to protect and nourish them, so they don’t need to be planted.

This technique is used by Guerrilla Garderners. Guerrilla Gardening is the act of gardening – raising food, plants, or flowers – on land that the gardeners do not have the legal rights to cultivate, such as abandoned sites, areas that are not being cared for, or private property.

[your-werewolf-boyfriend]

Me, upon finding anyone near the Mojave that likes plants: "Would you like a seed mix of like 10 native wildflowers to sprinkle in your yard/garden in the spring and have something you only have to water once a week in summer and once a month in winter?"

Anyway, if you live in the Mojave, which is THIS place below here*: 👇

*This map stretches out a bit far and is a little generous, there's a lot of overlap on what plants go to the Great Basin Desert to the north, and Sonoran Desert to the east of the Mojave.

Then let me know and I am more than happy to send you/literally drop off to you seeds! I have been running a small project called Keep Vegas Native! and we are a very small group (for now dormant until the early fall rains come for seed bombing) thats mostly on Telegram - but I have been collecting seeds as they now form, and building kits to drop seeds at suitable sites.

There's also some research I've been doing on how we could possibly use some of our more unique plants to attack and wipe out invasive species. Though this is still in progress as I need to wait collect even those.

Please DM me, please spread this to your plant friends, I'm traveling a LOT during this next year and if I get a couple people who are interested and start their own native garden it will be worth it.

[dipperdesperado]

guerrilla gardening is very cool

I’m really stoked to talk about praxis and solarpunk today. Hopefully, you all know what solarpunk is. I imagine fewer of you know what praxis is. Essentially, praxis is a term, used a lot by leftists, to talk about doing stuff. It’s a practice or activity, informed by theoretical and experiential knowledge. In our goal to create an ecological society informed by appropriate technology, we should think not only about the massive upheavals but the things that we can do right now. That’s where guerrilla gardening comes in.

Gardening in general is activism, but guerrilla gardening is like, super solarpunk. The rundown is essentially when you and/or a group of homies take some love-starved land and turn it into a garden (or just plant stuff there) without permission from the owner of said land. That lack of permission is what makes it guerrilla. This can lead to a better community, and supports abolition (of private property), autonomy, and collective resiliency. Ideally, you can get public support behind ya, and be able to work with the municipality to not get in trouble. The classic asking for forgiveness than permission, until you’re the one that can decide.

Where to Start: X Marks the Spot

When you (and your small-but mighty collective/affinity group) decide that you want to set up a guerrilla garden, the first thing you want to do is find a good spot. It can be that little line of grass that split up two sides of the road, a sidewalk bed, or an empty lot. You want to make sure there’s good sunlight and decent soil. If the soil ain’t good, but you wanna do stuff there, I’d recommend researching how to rehabilitate it. Obviously, that’s more work, though.

Once you have your target spot, you’ll need your tools and plants. Some basic things will be gloves, a trowel, a water source (like a can or hose), and plants/seeds. Some nice-to-haves could be mulch, compost, or soil amendments. It depends on what you’re planting and what your conditions are to know what you’ll need to bring. If you’re in a high visibility area, it could be nice to have some clothing that makes sure you don’t look suspect. That’s probably a good general rule of thumb. Act like you deserve to be in the space because you do! If you look suspect, people will think as much.

Prepping the Garden

Once you have everything you need, you’ll need to get the garden site ready. If you need to clear it out, whether there’s vegetation you’re not interested in, trash, debris, etc., do that. Ideally, you can also improve the soil quality with stuff like compost and organic stuff if you need to.

Time for Plants!

Here’s where the real fun begins. Get some plants going! You want the ones you pick to be a good fit for the target climate and soil. Even better if some of them are edible. When you’re planting, be sure to space the plants out and water them pretty well. If you're planting seeds, be patient! It can take a few weeks for the plants to sprout.

Garden Tending

Now that you have a garden going, it’s time to keep it up. You want to water them regularly and watch out for any invasives or weeds that could crowd out your plants. You might also have to add additional amendments to the soil, to keep the plants happy. Try to make sure to think about and account for issues in the garden. Whether that’s nonhuman neighbors or mean vandals, you want to try to think of ways to uphold the values of the project while protecting its continued existence.

Permablitzing

I also want to touch on some more specific types of guerrilla gardening. Firstly, let’s talk about permablitzing.

Permablitizing is a portmanteau between permaculture and blitzing. Permaculture is a type of gardening and farming that aspires to copy natural ecosystems to create harmonious gardens that are self-sustaining. It generally will include a mix of native, edible, and wildlife-attracting plants. Permablitzing is taking that permaculture idea and rallying the community to create a permaculture garden in a single day.

It looks a little something like this: volunteers collectively design and install the garden. They put in garden beds, plant trees, and shrubs, and install irrigation. There might also be compost systems, raised beds, or accessible walkways through the garden. Permablitzing is great because it’s relatively quick, it’s tangible and immediately garners buy-in. It’s more about finding the space to do this and finding people who are willing to participate.

Seedbombing

If you’re not able to work with a group, or you just want to be able to very quickly deposit new plants in places, you can seedbomb!

Seedbombs are small packages of seeds wrapped in soil that can be thrown or dropped onto the ground. This kinda stuff is great for rewinding and restoring neglected or degraded areas. Just make sure you do research! You don’t wanna introduce invasive or incompatible plants.

The basic seedbomb recipe is:

Soil

Clay or compost

Seeds

You mix them together, roll them into small balls, then let them dry. You can just toss them into your target areas. Seedbombing is great because it’s fun and creative while being a great way to un-neglect neglected areas. You can also do it alone or with the homies. It’s a very flexible guerrilla option.

Final thoughts

One of the most important things to think about when trying to enact social change is aligning your ends (the liberatory future you envision) with your means (the things you do to get to that vision). Guerrilla gardening is great to this end as a form of praxis because it allows for this to be realized in the here and now. It helps us realize that we don’t have to wait until people let us do what we think is right. If you see an issue, you can respond to it. Also, gardening is fun, gets you outside, and allows you to be more connected with the earth, which is just so so so good for you. Be smart, keep each other safe, and good luck with your gardening!

[climatecalling]

When Richard Reynolds first started gardening around London’s streets, he was so worried he might be arrested that he worked under the cover of darkness. Reynolds was one of the UK’s first modern guerrilla gardeners, a movement that encourages people to nurture and revive land they do not have the legal rights to cultivate. ... It’s important to remember that much of the unused or abandoned land that is potentially suitable for guerilla gardening in towns and cities throughout the UK is owned by local councils. Common examples of such locations include broken pavements with missing slabs, wasteland and the central areas of roundabouts. Although much of this land is already open for the public to walk over, actively gardening on it would become an act of trespass. The law of trespass sounds scary. However, gardening on this land would be a breach of civil law rather than a crime. This means that most guerrilla gardeners are unlikely to receive a fine or a criminal record. Landowners do have the legal right to use “reasonable force” to remove trespassers from their land. But, fortunately, it seems most councils have ignored guerrilla gardeners, having neither the time, money or inclination to bring legal action against them. Colchester Council, for example, were unable to track down the identity of the “human shrub”, a mysterious eco-activist who restored the flowers in the city’s abandoned plant containers in 2009. The shrub returned again in 2015 and sent a gift of seeds to a local councillor.

[gardenvarietygay]

Book Review* - On Guerilla Gardening by Richard Reynolds

I don’t read many books, I prefer audiobooks, and I don’t read many nonfiction books in any format. I’m a person who prefers to listen to a fictional story or at least something narrative. However, my husband very sweetly got me this book for Christmas since he knows I’ve been curious about the topic.

The subtitle to this book is “a handbook for gardening without boundaries” but I think that the title alone, which suggests an academic treatise on the broad strokes of a subject ie “On Medieval Chivalric Codes of Honor” or “On Governance” is more fitting. (I believe the actual title Reynolds is referencing is the manual On Guerilla Warfare by Mao Zedong, make of that what you will.) The first 117 pages of this book are pure tedium. If someone needed to be convinced that planting flowers by roadsides was worthwhile, I think the author might talk them into it and back out by the end. Reynolds spends his time detailing real guerilla movements, chastising people for making gorilla/guerrilla gardening jokes, and explaining that flowers are prettier than concrete. I found it muddled, condescending and boring but when I looked up reviews of this book people seemed to think it was refreshing or something.

From page 121 onward, we have the practical advice. Actually, we have some very impractical advice surrounded by way more introduction than necessary. Even though Reynolds has spent 117 pages bashing you over the head with war metaphors, he still feels the need to include yet more war imagery before every bit of advice. I wasn’t offended by the WMD jokes or the frequent references to guns, it was certainly and odd choice but whatever, I was just annoyed that he kept this stupid gimmick up for all 247 pages. Sometimes jokes aren’t bad because they’re offensive, they’re simply not funny.

Writing style aside, the advice is pretty middling. The plants recommended are just based on the author’s personal experience growing plants on medians in London. Gardening is like politics, extremely local. I’m not begrudging the man his foxgloves and daffodils but they’re just not a good choice for an internationally-distributed book. He actually recommends planting invasive plants (as in plants that he knows are invasive in most places including the UK) so that they take over. He includes the barest of caveats about making sure you keep them in check, however the gordian knot of finding that balance will not be untied for us. Since specific gardening advice becomes useless before it even crosses a time zone, it strikes me that rather than spending 12 pages on plant recommendations, they should’ve simply cut this section or suggested broad categories for the international release.

We are told that seed bombs are the preferred method to scatter seeds and that some people put them in eggshells, some people mould them into guns (just like in war!!), some people put industrial binding agents into them, and some people use a device that somehow uses laughing gas. There are no recipes or real instructions, just anecdotes. There is no explanation of how laughing gas aids in seed spreading, that one might be a joke. On subjects such as water, tools, choosing locations, etc. the advice is very basic but solid enough.

To be frank, once I got into the anecdotes without advice section I started skimming and never stopped. There’s every possibility that on page 240 of this book he really turns things around and makes this mess into a manifesto but I don’t think that would save it for me.

This book left me generally unimpressed. The concept was cute until it was aggravating, the writing was such a repetitive slog that I ended up skimming over paragraphs, and the advice seemed either so specific that it couldn’t be generalized or so basic that it needn’t be printed and sold. The cover is cute, that’s a good thing because it will be staying closed on my bookshelf for a long time. I believe the first edition of this book came out in the early 2000s and it shows. Maybe if I read this book in 2008 I’d have been charmed but in 2024 I’m just annoyed and confused.

*Inspired by @plantyhamchuk’s gardening book reviews.

[roseredsnow]

Before and after of the path I just strimmed!

I don't normally go this way unless I'm taking the dog to the grassy bit you can see on the left to play, but went this way this morning to avoid some dogs he doesn't like and realised it would be a good spot to pratice using the strimmer.

I was gonna get the grass up on the sides but I didn't bring the hoe with me just a paving tool and my back was starting to hurt so job for another day but it's started.

While I know the aesthetic of plants everywhere looks pretty it's sometimes at deterement to accessibility, making sure paths are clear is pretty important.

[justalittlesolarpunk]

Solarpunk Sunday Suggestion:

Go seedbombing

[bumblebeeappletree]

Let's make the world a greener, happier and more creative place. Brenda will present a 16-point action plan to support The Guerrilla Garden Manifesto of inspiring garden rebels everywhere to make the world a greener, happier and more creative place both for themselves, for other people and for the community at large.

TEDxChilliwack 2018 took place on April 14, 2018 at G. W. Graham Theatre in Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada. The theme of the event was "Time to Reboot". Learn more at http://tedxchilliwack.com. Brenda Dyck is a self-styled guerrilla gardener who hopes that her wit, sense of humor and passion will inspire you to make the world a greener, happier and more creative place. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

This video was originally posted on YouTube on May 4th, 2018

[solarpunkani]

*poke poke*

*nudge*

You wanna guerrilla garden some swamp milkweed around a retention pond so bad.

[psych-is-the-name]

2023 is gonna be full of flowers because I'm going out seed bombing the rich areas of town

[asteroidtroglodyte]

I have trained my ear to hear for the Cracks in Reality; The gap between what a person says and what they believe; the slight delay in the beat that says I am reading off the page as opposed to i speak from within. A spot where I might lodge a prybar of rhetoric; a Crack in the Consensus through which I might reach and change their mind.

I have trained my eye, too, to seek the Cracks in Civilization. Cracks in the asphalt. Forgotten boundary land. Abandoned lots. The Unmanicured earth. Hillsides run riot with invasive Mustards and Rapeseeds. Places where no one will mind a vagrant; places where no one will see me return the seeds to their homelands; places where the mowing mulching munching machines of Empire will not notice the baby Poppy and Lupine and Gallardia before they can unfurl their tiny, delicate, ancient flags.

The Land belongs to them, you know? Actually. We just live here.

There are children in my neighborhood. I point to tiny flowers and say “look. See.” They make sounds of wonder. I put bags of seeds in their hands and tell them they can do magic; they can summon flowers from dead dirt. I tell them the names of flowers and the names of bugs and the names of stones and they gather to listen. They have so many questions. I do my best.

And the Cracks widen a bit.

The chains and bars of Empire rust a bit.

This year, there will be flowers. I know this because last year I planted flowers.

The children will see the flowers, and they will say “those are ours!” They will want to defend the flowers.

If I do everything right, then one day, when they are no longer children, there will be a choice between Flowers and Empire; between yet another strip mall or suburban development or Amazon fulfillment center and

THEIR FLOWERS

And it will hardly be a choice at all.

I can dream. I can try.

[solar-sunnyside-up]

As the sun returns to us so does my burning rage over bus stop neglect.

[cognitivejustice]

Another incident of guerrilla gardening, this time outside Tokyo’s Iidabashi Station. City officials discovered a small garden of zucchini and tomatoes growing in a plot of land that was previously used for cigarette butts and puke

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