Plough Shares: Gardening’s Radical Edge

Though only a stone’s throw south of iconic landmarks such as the London Eye and Tate Modern, I’m in the grimy inner London neighbourhood of Elephant and Castle. Given the banality of the niggling concerns flitting across my mind (such as the observation that the deep red of my gardening gloves might clash horribly with the yellow swoosh of my Nikes – I’m crouching down), you’d be forgiven for questioning my assertion that the activity in which I’m involved is the latest chapter in an understatedly radical movement which throws into question the very tools through which we understand urban public space.

It’s 8pm, it’s dark, and I am Guerrilla Gardening. With a troop of around ten others, all part of a global community of thousands, we are sprucing up the flower beds at a road intersection, clearing litter, pruning Lavender bushes, and planting Tulip and Daffodil bulbs in preparation for spring. As the lights change to green and the gawking passengers of the bendy bus pull away, my mind slips from the possible fashion faux pas to the matter in hand.

Guerrilla Gardening is a term given to any autonomous and illicit gardening which takes place in public space without permission having been sought. Guerrilla Gardeners garden for a variety of reasons, from those who love gardening and are concerned solely with aesthetics, to the urban agriculturalists of the developing world growing food for subsistence or as cash crops to support their meagre incomes.

As the surprise of the bus passengers indicates, autonomous gardening is often regarded as unexpected and out of place in contemporary cities. Indeed, because permission is not sought, such gardening can even elicit controversy. It is this controversy which releases gardening from its allusions of sprawling suburbia to an undertaking akin to activism. Yet Guerrilla Gardening takes place in something called ‘public space’ and, surely, Guerrilla Gardeners constitute members of the public? So why is Guerrilla Gardening controversial, and what do we really mean by the commonly used term public space?

The work of geographer Don Mitchell has been hugely influential in the theorisation of public space. In his landmark text, The Right to the City, Mitchell suggests that the meanings which underpin the notion of public space are inherently political. The right to access public space, to physically occupy such space, is representative of one’s access to the political realm. Mitchell explicates this point in his key example, that of Berkley’s People’s Park, where those from counter-cultural activists to the homeless were excluded in favour of locked gates and underused basketball courts for the city’s middle classes. For alerting us to the politics imbued in pubic space, Mitchell’s thesis has rightly received wide critical acclaim. However, if public spaces are truly public, why does the public have such a limited role in the physical formulation of such space? And what happens when the public does take on that role?

Berkley’s People’s Park was public in all but ownership. The space was in fact owned in a private capacity by the University of California, and it was only the action of local residents that transformed the space from a derelict and enclosed lot to a greened and accessible parkland. In this sense, arguably, the People’s Park can be regarded as one of the most renowned and important Guerrilla Gardening actions. The Park finally met its demise on 15th May 1969, the space having been reclaimed in a heavy-handed fashion for the basketball courts so pined after by university authorities.

Likewise, since the 1970s, New York has been home to a similar public gardening movement. An economic downturn resulted in the landscape, particularly in poorer areas such as the Lower East Side, being scarred by derelict lots — the result of the demolition of outdated tenements. At the same time, those living in such areas suffered from a dearth of outside space. Community groups, such as Liz Christy’s Green Guerrillas and others, took it upon themselves to take over these spaces, clear them of rubble as best they could, and convert them into vegetable and flower gardens. Initial disgruntlement from New York City authorities turned to tacit acceptance and, in some cases, the offering of formal leases to gardeners, as those in power began to recognise the social and environmental benefits of such a scheme.

Since property values have recovered, however, that acceptance has dwindled. While some gardens, such as the Liz Christy Garden, have been protected and can still be visited, many have been lost. Battles have been fought in which the building of housing is pitched against green space. Just as in Mitchell’s discussion, however, the resulting homes are generally without rent control or subsidy and are thus of benefit largely to the middle classes.

There is no single right way to do Guerrilla Gardening. While historically activists may have taken swathes of urban land, Guerrilla Gardeners today may employ different tactics. Here in London, at least ten years of booming property prices have resulted in developers snapping up and building on every last inch of available space. Roadside planters, long abandoned by local councils, have become the Guerrilla Gardener’s fodder just as empty lots were to our predecessors.

In London, a typical Guerrilla Gardening dig is organised online, through the message board of www.guerrillagardening.org. Gardeners arrive at the specified time and place equipped with tools, plants, and an appropriately sunny disposition (no matter what the English weather may throw at us). While to the casual observer Guerrilla Gardening may appear similar to the flash mob approach taken by TV’s trendy garden makeover shows, sites do in fact receive a lot of day-to-day TLC by local residents. Solo gardeners, who take responsibility for individual sites, may be seen tending these plots almost daily, calling on the masses only when there’s a lot of work to be done.

Through Guerrilla Gardening, the meanings and politics that underpin the notion of public space shift as members of the public encroach upon, and appropriate, public spaces for their own ends. The act of gardening is therefore invested with a great deal of power. Through working the land, gardeners have felt legitimised in expressing ownership over the spaces occupied. As such, the seizure of large parcels of land, as in New York and Berkley, effects an explicit challenge to the authority of the landholder and, in so doing, challenges the authority of the wider politics this landholder stands for. For Ronald Reagan, the efficacy of such a challenge was clear. As the then governor of California, the clearing Berkley’s People’s Park by any means available was a priority. “If there has to be a bloodbath,” he said on the matter, “then let’s get it over with.”

Yet can smaller Guerrilla Gardening actions, such as those taking place in roadside planters, be aligned with the same radical qualities? In answer to this question, I would argue for an emphatic ‘Yes’. Though instead of that self-evident land grab politics, small scale Guerrilla Gardening embodies a finely nuanced response to urban and global spatial politics. Instead of merely regarding everyday space as political based on who occupies that space, as Mitchell does, the very physicality of space itself becomes important as questions over who can and cannot modify that space, and why they might chose to do so, are raised.

Speaking with Guerrilla Gardeners in London demonstrates the complexity of the issue. While most don’t see their activities as political with a capital ‘P’, many happily call themselves ‘activists’. Likewise, the assertion that Guerrilla Gardening is undertaken as protest against the council’s poor management is vehemently opposed. Indeed, there is recognition that without councils leaving spaces abandoned, Guerrilla Gardeners would lose their central resource — empty space. After all, Guerrilla Gardening may be political, but it’s also fun. Yet this does not indemnify those councils. Guerrilla Gardeners often comment, with good authority, on the poor work undertaken by council maintenance teams often subcontracted to private companies. In one South London borough, Guerrilla Gardening gained prominence when it was revealed that local residents were receiving an itemised bill from the council that stipulated grounds maintenance charges, when the only work undertaken on that site was by Guerrilla Gardeners!

Guerrilla Gardening can also act as a vector through which to discuss wider political activities. Volunteers from the group Grow Sheffield use Guerrilla Gardening as a way to demonstrate the practical possibilities of sustainable living. From community orchards planted in local parks, to street-corner plots growing salad greens and herbs, the city’s residents are presented directly with a practical solution to food insecurity and the ludicrous environmental hazards posed by air freighting crops available, quite literally, on one’s doorstep.

For artist Paul Harfleet, Guerrilla Gardening, while he may not term it as such, makes up a central part of his current work. In his Pansy Project, Harfleet plants pansies in spaces signifying homophobic abuse. While still continuing the personal project of planting and photographing pansies in his home city’s public spaces where he has himself received abuse, Harfleet has also responded to commissions. So as part of the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, Harfleet planted pansies in the London park where gay man David Morley was beaten to death. The process of planting takes place surrounded with an air of ceremony, and for Harfleet, the project’s interest arises from the performance of that ritualistic act, and the idea that the public see, and are intrigued by, the out-of-placeness of both the gardeners and pansies.

Whether seizing tracts of land for counter-cultural activism, or using small corners to prompt awareness and discussion of homophobic behaviour that so often go unacknowledged by mainstream society, plants and politics may be entwined in many unexpected ways. Autonomous activity by members of the public demonstrates how space itself, not just its occupants, is an important political substrate. Because gardening seems so ordinary, its use in extraordinary circumstances is attention grabbing and thought provoking in situations where other political activity might be less effective.

Of course, even when undertaken without an explicit political aim in mind, Guerrilla Gardening retains its status as a refreshing interlude in the humdrum routines of urban life. Through Guerrilla Gardening the city is transformed, but so too are participants. From being passive consumers of space, they become active, able to physically inscribe their vision of the city onto the spaces surrounding them.

Back in south London, the lavender pruned from the intersection is dried, stuffed in cloth bags, and sold, deodorising sock draws across the country and raising money for more Guerrilla Gardening. And hackneyed schemes from urban policy makers attempting to promote community involvement are sidestepped, in favour of digging — and a well deserved pint afterwards of course.