Earth Day Undercover: The Guerilla Gardeners

Meet Richard Reynolds. Based in London, he founded the website GuerrillaGardening.org in 2004, which has since sparked thousands of plant lovers around the world to join forces in their own cities and "garden without boundaries."

So, what is a guerrilla gardener?

"The term was first coined in New York in 1973 by Liz Kristie and her friends who formed the green guerrillas. It has taken them decades to go from being illicit, maverick gardeners just going out there and doing stuff to an official network of sizable community gardens... It shows what they call an eco tipping point."

What inspired him to join this movement?

"It just seemed like the obvious thing to do. I was in London, living in a tower block with no garden and I saw the opportunity right outside, these abandoned flower beds that the local authority were meant to look after, but they had forgotten about. So I just started doing it at night, photographing the before and after, sharing the news and then friends got involved. I found out about the guys in New York, Toronto. Some people are more activists and some people are like me who like gardening and yet don't have a garden... and see the opportunity to have a go to plant something."

You might be wondering, as I did, is this illegal?

"Technically, in the UK and in other places, in LA, it is criminal damager but the authorities generally tolerate what we do. They turn a blind eye. They don't have the money to have armies of professional garderers going around to all these locaitons. So if are starting points are overlooked and neglected then in most cases they just ignore it and get on with it. In some, like this week in Montreal, the authorities are being inspired by guerilla gardening by digging up the pavement, making the tree pits bigger and filling them with soil and say do it, make it your garden."

If you want to get involved, Richard says just go out there and do it, but if you want support, get inspiration and garden with people, you can find groups in your community on GuerrillaGardening.org. May 1 is International Sunflower Guerilla Gardening Day -- you can go to their event page on Facebook and join the 4,000 people already signed up across the globe.