Guerrilla gardening snips into Hayden
Drivers witnessed a mysterious man clipping random branches from trees on common property outside the Strawberry Fields neighborhood fence on Sunday. He neither stopped walking nor dropped the cigar he was smoking with the non-clipping hand. Guerilla gardener, or shearing enthusiast? (SHOLEH PATRICK/Press)
Sometimes one of life’s unusual vignettes springs from an otherwise ordinary day.
Around 9 a.m. Sunday, we drove up Atlas Road near the Strawberry Fields subdivision in Hayden. It was a perfect morning. A parade of robust, green trees lined the sidewalk outside the white border fence, leaves fluttering in the breeze. I noticed a middle-aged man enjoying his morning constitutional.
Cigar in one hand, pruning shears in the other.
His coordination was impressive. While casually puffing the stogie left-handed, he snipped off tree branches to the right as he walked, leaving a trail of trimmings on the grass in his wake.
What the heck?
Keep in mind, this was not his land. I imagine it belongs either to the homeowners association in common, or the city of Hayden. He was not a landscape worker. He did not focus on completing one tree before moving on to the next. He was just some guy, randomly snipping where his shears passed without missing a step.
Did brushing against branches annoy him? Is he some kind of green activist?
I had to know: Is this a thing, spontaneous gardening on common land, probably without permission?
Apparently, it is. It comes close to “guerrilla gardening” — planting, tending or green-beautifying — illegally, mind you — on public or common land. It may have started as a form of protest, but mostly guerrilla gardening today is an attempt to beautify urban, paved or simply ugly areas with natural wonder.
Back in the 17th century, an idealistic group called Diggers grew fruit and vegetables on St. George’s Hill in Surrey, U.K., on land that wasn’t theirs, quietly protesting the notion of private property amid a starving populace.
I’m not sure if guerrilla ranching is a term, but more recent stories of Idaho livestock grazers on federal land come to mind. They (unsuccessfully) argued that the fact the land was public gave them the right to keep livestock there for free, with or without permission or compensation.
But the vast majority of guerrilla gardening today is more about green inspiration, using land to grow food or flora, and perking up a drab city feel, secretly or openly.
New Yorkers planting flowers in a spot of dirt along a busy street. The SoCal Guerrilla Gardening Club added drought-tolerant gardens in poor neighborhoods. Pennsylvania’s Guerrilla Gardeners of Downtown East create compacts: If residents agree to keep their sidewalks litter free, the group adds and maintains seasonal flowerpots where trash piles once stood.
Sometimes efforts catch on big, like International Sunflower Guerrilla Gardening Day, May 1 — a tradition which started in Brussels. Now emulated across the world including the U.S., sunflowers appear in traffic medians, abandoned planters, even sidewalk cracks.
Maintenance is part of guerrilla gardening. Maybe our Sunday clip-walker is a green enthusiast, or maybe he just likes snipping things. Either way, sir, thanks for the inspiration.
I can hear my unruly shrubs calling.
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Sholeh Patrick is a columnist for the Hagadone News Network with a black thumb. Email [email protected].