From Publishers Weekly
With the rallying cry, "Let's fight the filth with forks and flowers," this lighthearted guide is a seriously silly romp through the adventurous pastime of gardening other people's plots. Reynolds, after five months living in a 10-story tower block in London, missed gardening and began surreptitiously cultivating the planters in front of his building, gardening in the dead of night to avoid interference. He started a blog to share his delight in illicit gardening, and discovered he was part of an international movement. Reynolds draws inspiration from pioneers of the movement: New York community gardens built on vacant lots, dispossessed Honduran Chiquita workers who appropriated abandoned banana plantation land, and Gerrard Winstanley, founder of the short-lived but influential Diggers who, in the tumultuous year of 1649, planted beans and barley on public land in Surry, England, "that every one that is born in the land, may be fed by the Earth his Mother that brought him forth, according to the Reason that rules in the Creation." He borrows techniques from more infamous guerrillas such as Che Guevera and Mao Tse Tung ("the guerrilla 'must move with the fluidity of water and the ease of the blowing wind'"). Both a manifesto and a manual (tips include how to build seed bombs and deal with pests unique to the guerrilla form of gardening: authorities and landowners), the book delights with tales of exploits from the anarchic, artistic community of guerrilla gardeners.
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--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Review
'Reynolds is quickly becoming both a subculture celebrity and a public intellectual, challenging ideas about what it means to live in a city' New York Times 'Probably the most unusual garden book of 2008, On Guerrilla Gardening is well-researched, thorough and truly inspirational' BBC Gardens Illustrated 'This lovely book is both a celebration of the international movement's recent history, and a how-to manual that advises on hardy species, planting techniques and social engineering' Guardian 'Exciting, high-adrenalin stuff. This is gardening repackaged for the 21st century' New Statesman
