What is Guerrilla Gardening?

There are so many different kinds of gardens, but if we had to pick the most contentious gardening approach we might nominate guerrilla gardening as a top contender. Occupying a space somewhere between gardening, activism, and covert ops, guerrilla gardening proponents see themselves as reclaiming disused spaces  in order to create sustainable beauty, re-wild the earth, or just grow affordable food. So let’s dig in and learn about more about what guerrilla gardening is and how folks around the world are using guerrilla gardening in their communities and some lessons we can learn from them.

Disclaimer: The ethics and legalities of guerrilla gardening are a bit beyond our scope—we’re gardeners, not lawyers—and this blog is for informational purposes only. We strongly suggest following all local laws and regulations when creating garden spaces.

The History of Guerrilla Gardening

Guerrilla gardening has surprisingly deep roots, pun intended. While folks have always cultivated plants in any available space, guerrilla gardening as a movement has its origins in the community gardens and vacant lot cultivation programs of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Some of these programs had official sanction, using community owned properties to grow community food. Some made use of unused or vacant lots to help lower-income folks grow gardens and feed themselves. While this movement tapered off over the course of the 1920s, versions of it re-emerged during the Great Depression and among activists and counter-culture communities in the 1960s and 70s. The environmentalists of the 1980s and 1990s further expanded the notion of guerrilla gardening to include planting both food and ornamental or native plants in disused or neglected spaces like highway medians, urban boulevards, utility right of ways, and of course vacant lots.

Today, there are guerrilla gardening groups in many communities, particularly larger cities. If you live in an urban area, there’s probably at least a few active guerrilla gardening organizations or active individual gardeners near you.

Is Guerrilla Gardening Legal?

Again, we’re not lawyers and nothing we say is legal advice but as far as we can tell the answer is “sometimes”. Spreading some native seeds in a vacant lot or on public property likely isn’t violating any law, but building a full-scale garden may be construed as misuse of the property, trespassing, or property damage. Those can result in criminal charges in many jurisdictions so again—obey local laws and ordinances.

Guerrilla Gardening for “Regular” Gardeners

There are many of us who love the ideas and motivations behind guerrilla gardening but what to stay on the right side of the law and work with rather than against property owners and local governments. The good news is that many community gardens and shared spaces can benefit from guerrilla gardening techniques without breaking the law. We’d like to offer these ideas as a way of adapting guerrilla gardening  for ‘regular’ gardens and gardeners:

· Working with local governments to establish community gardens and create garden spaces on disused land is a great way to get started. It never hurts to just ask for permission to start a garden in a local park, to write your civic leaders and suggest community gardens be a priority, or to attend a city council meeting and raise the issue there.

· For those of us with access to vacant lots, disused lawns, or similar spaces, re-wilding or introducing native flora is a great idea and some guerrilla gardening ideas like seed bombs and planting saplings and shrubs is a great start. Check with your local cooperative extension office for suggestions for native plants that may thrive in that space and benefit the local environment.

· Guerrilla gardeners have perfected the art of turning vacant lots into gardens, and once we have access to that kind of space we can use those techniques to create community gardens. We’re huge fans of community gardens, and we recommend them especially for gardeners in urban spaces as a way to both grow plants and bring people together.

Guerrilla gardening has a long history, and many of the lessons it teaches are relevant today. We hope you found this blog informative and that you’ve learned a bit that you can apply to your own gardening space. We’ll probably revisit the subject of guerrilla gardening in the future, so stay tuned!

As always, if you’re a guerrilla gardener we’d love to hear from you so please reach out either via email or in the comments! Likewise, if any of the information in this article was useful to you, let us know!