The Home Crowd

A Journalist for The Mirror UK, Julie McCaffrey recently spent some time with fellow Brit Richard Reynolds, the alpha guerrilla gardener, and owner of the website guerrillagardening.org.  Sneaking around under the cover of night, Reynolds shirks the laws and regulations regarding cultivating public lands.  And he’s not alone, since 2004, he’s collected more than 4000 members to his beautification movement.

But…why?

From The Mirror UK,

Four years ago, after moving from Devon to the concrete carbuncle of Elephant and Castle, Richard grew tired of seeing the raised flower-bed at his front door neglected and overgrown.

“I love gardening,” he explains. “I missed it since I moved to London and decided I couldn’t wait for the council. So I got off my a**e, dug up the flowerbed myself and planted cuttings my mum gave me.”

A dark corner that used to reek of urine now ripples with a variety of different colours and wafts with the sweet smell of lavender and sage.

The story goes on further to highlight frequent times that Reynolds and his crew almost get arrested, yet usually let off with a warning.  After all, who wants to be the cop that ensures public safety and welfare by getting a gardener off the streets, keeping the world safe, one rogue gardener at a time.  The neighbors are happy about the volunteer work being put into the neighborhood, and it gives a group of people a sense of accomplishment.  The only downside however is the law.  Cultivating public lands doesn’t seem so bad until you consider that, if not maintained, some of these pet projects may wither and die, leaving a weed-infested mess, and your local municipality on the hook to re-plant.  Or, perhaps, on a more ridiculous scale, how about a nice field of corn in the middle of your favorite park.  Everyone loves corn right?

So I was relieved to see this picture on Reynolds’ site, highlighting an improvement over the course of 2 years.

Only question I have is, what is a 30 year old man doing out at all hours of the night gardening?  Shouldn’t he be at the local pub?  And what fuels his jolly band of volunteers to get their hands in the dirt in pitch darkness?  My guess would be meth.

I doubt this’ll catch on here in the states though, and here’s why…

• Anyone referring to themselves as a “Guerrilla” with 4000 followers breaking the law under the cover of night would possibly find themselves tending to the gardens of guantanamo bay.

• Immigrants.  Right now they have the landscaping market cornered as a low-paying job that most of us don’t want.  But if you’re out there, doing it for free, for your own self-gratification, and in the cool night air instead of the scorching heat of summer…. you may spend the rest of your days ever suspicious that there’s a thirty year old pickup truck laden with rakes in your rear view mirror.