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What Does It Mean ? What does this all mean for the Ground Crew ?

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Old 04-16-2009, 09:21 AM   #1
Antaletriangle
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Join Date: Sep 2008
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Default The secret life of the 'guerilla gardener'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle...-gardener.html
video on link above.
Louise Gray
Last Updated: 10:43AM BST 15 Apr 2009

"Thank-you for the sunflowers," shouts the old woman over the roar of the traffic. "They were lovely!" Evidently, she approves of the strangers in wellies and luminous vests who, every few weeks, turn up at the dead of night to plant bulbs along the fume-choked roadside in her neighbourhood. Although what these so-called "guerrilla gardeners" are doing is illegal, she has no intention of calling the police.

Guerrilla gardening may sound anarchic but it is the preserve of middle-class people frustrated by the downtrodden appearance of their local community. When I go out with a small band of them, armed only with trowel and pitchfork, I find well-spoken, university-educated, socially aware individuals – the kind of nice boys and girls you tend to see protesting against runways or signing petitions on climate change.


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Digging in some daffodils on a central reservation in East Dulwich, a well-to-do part of south-east London with a bohemian spirit, a charming accountant and a charity fund- raiser tell me they decided to start tidying their neighbourhood after hearing a programme about guerrilla gardening on Radio 4.

The act of illicit gardening has a long history in Britain; some date it as far back as the Diggers, a group of socialists who fought for the right to cultivate land in the 17th century. Today, it is more commonly perceived as a hippie movement that grew out of the so-called Summer of Love in 1967, and has been causing problems ever since; think back to the May Day riots in London in 2000 when the statue of Winston Churchill was given an impromptu turf mohican.

But guerrilla gardening does not have to be a political protest. It can be as genteel as planting cowslips on a neglected verge – which may be why it is being taken up by people who have never broken the law before.

Around the country, frustrated urban gardeners are digging up roundabouts; working mothers who can't get an allotment are spiking spears of asparagus into unused flower beds to grow their own; and office workers are throwing "seed bombs" out of their train window to brighten the daily commute.

Richard Reynolds, a strategic planner for an advertising agency who learned how to garden from his mother and grandmother, is the unofficial leader of a growing movement in London. Frustrated by his lack of a garden in Elephant and Castle, one of the roughest areas of south London, in 2004 he decided to brighten up its notorious roundabouts.

Within months, he had caught the attention of the media. When the council finally cottoned on to what he was doing, it was too embarrassed to ask him to stop, and sanctioned the activity as a form of community gardening.

Last year, Mr Reynolds wrote a handbook, On Guerrilla Gardening, which contains advice about fighting weeds and bad soil conditions, rather than offering tactics for avoiding the police ("fighting the filth with fork and flowers", as he puts it). Soon available in paperback, the hardback edition has been so successful that Mr Reynolds now gives talks to horticultural societies around the country, including at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew.

He admits that it is largely the middle classes who are attracted by guerrilla gardening. "It involves those who are interested in gardens, which does make it middle-class. But there is something anarchistic about what we are doing because we are not asking for permission – not because we want to bring down the state," he says, "but because the state is befuddled in bureaucracy, and it is simpler just to get on with it than to wait for them to do it."

Tom Clougherty, of the Right-wing think tank the Adam Smith Institute, agrees that the rise of guerrilla gardening is a direct result of the interfering state. "It is absurd the amount of hoops you have to jump through when you are doing something most people would appreciate," he says. "If people want to make their community cleaner and more beautiful, they should be supported."

However, the gardening aristocracy is less certain. Monty Don, a grow-your-own advocate, is uncomfortable with anything that does not have official permission. "Guerrilla gardening is pretty dysfunctional behaviour because it tries to bypass communities as well as legislation and bureaucracy," he says. "There is a strong element of japes and quick-fix about it, without any meaningful engagement."

But Mr Reynolds argues that the movement will only get bigger during the credit crunch as people look for places to grow vegetables. "There is an increasing realisation that the focus on our personal betterment is not making us happy," he says. "Going out there and taking responsibility for a shared space with other people, on the other hand, can warm the soul."


• 'On Guerrilla Gardening' by Richard Reynolds (Bloomsbury) is published in paperback next month. To reserve your copy for £8.99 plus 99p p&p, go to books.telegraph.co.uk, or call 0844 871 1515
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Old 04-22-2009, 05:48 PM   #2
Carmen
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Default Re: The secret life of the 'guerilla gardener'

Love this movement. Hope it catches on in cities round the world. Thanks Ant, for this great thread.

Love and Light

Carmen
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