Guerilla gardening is not necessarily on the side of the angels

Here's a Tribune story about Evanston neighbors upset because somebody mowed a vacant lot that they had "flower-bombed" with supposed "wildflower" seeds.

Personally, my sympathies are with the landowners, even though they didn't talk for the story. (They are some combination of developers and lenders whose condominium project went bust and who are being foreclosed upon.)

With hundreds of thousands of homes and other sites in foreclosure all over the country, municipalities all over the country are struggling to keep lots mowed so they don't drag down the appearance (and property values) of whole neighborhoods. Even the neighbors who did the flower bombing in Evanston say they don't want this lot to look untended.

So what did they do? They tossed their flower bombs (probably something like these Seed Ballz, which you can buy at many garden centers and mail-order outlets) over the fence onto somebody else's secured, fenced, posted property. And then they complained to the newspaper when someone (most likely the owners) mowed the lot.

The land owners can't win for losing. If they didn't mow, they would be the bad guys for letting the property look untended and dragging the appearance of the neighborhood down. When they do mow, they are the bad guys for cutting down flowers somebody else planted on their property without their permission.

It all points to the vital importance of an essential step in any kind of community gardening: Get permission, if not outright control of the land. Every vacant lot, no matter how neglected, has an owner somewhere. It may be hard to find them, but your local officials have an interest in keeping community appearances up and they should be able to help.

Chicago has an established mechanism for doing this. An organization called NeighborSpace helps communities get control of vacant lots and establish successful community gardens. The city, Cook County and the Cook County Forest Preserve are on board. If you don't know how to get started on greening a neglected space in your neighborhood, NeighborSpace can help you figure out how to proceed.

Much of the time, when I hear about "guerilla gardening," what it really comes down to is "couldn't be bothered to ask." It seems to me that common politeness requires you to ask permission before making free with somebody else's stuff, and property owners -- even slumlords -- are entitled to that courtesy. You should at least make an effort before you get all self-righteous about your community greening.

If you don't, you're running the risk that the property owner will act like he owns the property. I certainly don't want somebody coming into my yard and planting things I didn't ask for (although squirrels do it all the time). When I find plants I didn't plant, I reserve the right to remove them. That's called "weeding."

There's another issue, too, with tossing wildflower bombs around. Often the "wildflower" mixes that are packed into seed balls or sold by the can or bag contain plants that are not wildflowers, in the sense of being native species. It's usually just some mystery mix of random seeds that might be native to some other part of the country, or some other continent, but that in our area may be invasive spreaders here that could endanger local ecosystems. The land owners may have done the local forest preserves a favor by mowing those "wildflowers" before they got a chance to set seed.

I don't like the idea of scattering seeds around unless you know what you are planting, understand its characteristics and are willing to take responsible for controlling it and making sure it doesn't have harmful ecological effects.

In short, I think before you decide to be an eco-warrior by planting your neighborhood, you should put some thought and effort into doing it in a responsible way. And if you fail to do that, don't come complaining to me.

Got a garden question? I recommend you call or e-mail the Plant Clinic of The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, the Master Gardeners of the University of Illinois Extension or the Plant Information Service of the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe.

All contents of this post are copyright Beth Botts. Feel free to link or share a brief excerpt with a link, but please do not reproduce photos or any other part of this blog without my express permission.