Guerrilla Gardening Granny in Totnes GGTV7

Richard Reynolds and his 93 year old grandmother go guerrilla gardening in Totnes Devon. She gets a kiss from a stranger for her efforts and Richard tries (and fails) to get some locals interested in planting veg.

Guerilla Gardening.Org


From TV Guide: Urban guerrillas by Helen Ganska

Helen Ganska reports the revolution has begun.

Guerrilla gardening is political gardening.

It is a form of non-violent direct action, primarily practiced by environmentalists. Activists take over an abandoned piece of land which they do not own to grow crops or plants.

The gardeners believe in re-considering land-ownership to reclaim land from perceived neglect or misuse and assign a new purpose to it.

There are six guerrilla gardeners in the Channel 10 show.

They are Ally – gardening guru; Lilly – 'Jill of all trades' with a penchant for power tools; Scott and Pete – construction experts; Dave – keeping the public and the law on side and Mickie - the mastermind behind the disguises.

Executive producer Nick Murray talks about the show from his car while waiting to see if the council have got wind of their illegal project.

“Every week we have different decals on the side of our trucks and logos on our clothes to make sure we keep our cover,” he says.

“Channel 9’s Domestic Blitz was up here the other day and was shut down by the council and so we thought we would need to get away with it for a bit longer.”

On set two weeks ago the gardening team had filmed 18 ‘stings’ and had one shut down by the council with another one shut down but then allowed to be resurrected.

“With the council we try and buy a little extra time and if we push it back up the bureaucratic chain then we can buy some time.

“It can take them a while to work out if we should be there or not.

“Often we can be on the border of two councils and it takes a while to determine whose land it is.
“That is often why the land that we select is derelict and disused.”

The earliest record of guerrilla gardening was in 1973 when Liz Christy and her team transformed a derelict private lot in the Bowery Houston area of New York into a garden.

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