Green Shoots of Recovery? by Jonathan Owen
From Market Matters May 09
Have you got your spuds in? Easter is the traditional weekend to get your Arran Pilots in the ground and, without giving away too many trade secrets, I’m hopeful of a bumper crop this year. But what if you live in a flat or the middle of a town and aren’t fortunate enough to have access to a garden or allotment? You can grow flowers or spuds in a bucket on your balcony or in a window box, but what if you’re more ambitious than that – do you fancy a spot of guerilla gardening?
Despite the sorry state of the economy, one person who sees some green shoots of recovery is self-confessed guerilla gardener Richard Reynolds. He works for an advertising agency during the day but at night he moonlights (literally) as the not-so- evil mastermind behind the London-based guerilla gardening movement. He lives “dahn sarf...” at the Elephant and Castle - one of the roughest areas of south London - and he doesn’t have a garden. In 2004 he began to relieve his frustrations by litter- picking, rubbish removal and brightening up the area by (illegally) planting wild flowers on it’s grim roadside verges and roundabouts without permission from the Council. This could be the best thing to happen to the neighbourhood since 1945. I still have nightmares remembering after-hours bus trips back from the Elephant and Castle to Stockwell when I was at College in the 1970’s.
Richard’s website www.guerillagardening.o rg has a nice tongue-in-cheek Eco-warrior feel, “It is literally like warfare; once you’ve taken the ground, you have to hold onto it,” he says. Guerrilla gardeners have to endure regular skirmishes with local residents and the Metropolitan Police but Richard’s worst encounter to date is being searched for ‘bomb making equipment’. This turned up a carboot full of wood chips, since when word seems to have got around the nick and he’s been left alone.
Once they understand what’s happening, local residents are invariably supportive, helped by Council officials who turn a blind eye to someone else maintaining their verges. Rumours persist of Council workmen ‘accidentally’ losing bunches of nasturtiums when passing a guerilla working party. Richard points out that London Boroughs and the GLA don’t have enough resources to tend to all their green spaces but, if guerrilla gardeners were given formal permission to do so, then all sorts of Health & Safety requirements would kick in. Thus far officialdom has turned ‘a supportive blind eye,’ he says.
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