In Belgium, there are handful of independent groups that believe abandoned lots and other unused public land can be claimed back by the general population. The reason for the tag “guerrilla” is because these rogue gardeners do not own the land, so the acts are technically illegal. This doesn’t seem to deter the participants but in fact motivates them.

“Asking permission takes time,” explains Girasol, a Brussels sunflower guerrilla who is behind the Brussels Farmer blog. “Sometimes it's harder to convince someone on paper, but easier to convince them once they see results.” He and his cohorts also thing that “formalising an idea can destroy it. We believe that initiatives shouldn't always require authorisations.”

There tends to be a wilful ignorance by the police. “When they ask us what we’re doing, and we tell them we're planting sunflower seeds, they usually laugh and drive away,” says Girasol.

He and a handful of his art school friends founded the 1st of May as International Sunflower Guerrilla Day in 2006 after brainstorming about using public space. It has evolved to its current well-established incantation, where this past year at least 6,000 people on Facebook claimed participation in the event.

“It is about wildly planting sunflower seeds in urban areas. And this can be done, reclaimed, shared by anybody, anytime, anywhere.” For Girasol, it is less about the actual gardening and more about what it represents – positive change can be done by anyone, anywhere. “A loose organisation with a simple idea and tools that anybody can use is able to have a significant impact on media, environment, society and culture.”

While the start of the movement is hazy – some even calling America’s 19th-century Johnny Appleseed the original Guerrilla Gardener, Richard Reynolds of the UK gets the credit for really making the effort international. His website GuerrillaGardening.org was created in 2004 to track his own guerrilla gardening efforts in his London neighbourhood and has blossomed to a huge online community with more than 30 countries listing guerrilla gardening activities.

Meanwhile in Flanders, the Ghent-based site Guerrillagardening.be tries to motivate locals to plant where they see fit. “If there is a wasteland somewhere, you might as well sow seeds and plant crops,” says the site’s founder, Iamazone. (Neither subject wants to give their full names, for obvious reasons.)

GGG is a second guerrilla gardening group based in Ghent. “When you know it's possible to grow something on it, a lot of space looks useless,” say the co-ordinator. For GGG, it’s less about activism, more about producing food. “Being able to eat something you find on the street is an amazing feeling.” On 30 April, the group planted pumpkin seeds across Ghent, choosing that particular vegetable to highlight the amount of seeds that are wasted, thrown in the trash once the pumpkin is cut open and used.

The fact that there are two groups in Ghent quickly leads to the inherent problem with guerrilla efforts. By nature, guerrilla activism is anti-establishment and individually empowering. As soon as one creates a group to organise efforts, there is an automatic establishment of hierarchy and power: who runs the group, who sets the meetings, who arranges the details – plus the matter of costs.

This explains why Girasol is not working too hard to promote his efforts – it actually contradicts the original intent. “A lot of people are still expecting us to promote this event every year,” he says. “We would like to see more people involved, more leaders, more trend-setters picking up on this. This has to become a cultural phenomenon instead of the work of an organisation. Our goal is to have this going by itself, to have lots of people claiming ownership of this in their own neighbourhoods. Gather some friends, buy some sunflower seeds and plant them wildly in their city. And do this every year.”

Girasol doesn’t stop at gardening: “If you have a good idea, go out there, do it and document it. Don't wait for permission. Don't wait for friends or government support. If it's worth it, and if you share it, people will get interested and will help you carry on with it. And all this will happen sooner than you could imagine. It only requires you to pick up that idea and get started.”

www.brussels-farmer.blogspot.com
www.guerrillagardening.be 
www.guerillagardeninggent.wordpress.com