Part beautification, part eco-activism, part social outlet, the activity
    has been fueled by Internet gardening blogs and sites such as
    GuerrillaGardening.org, where before-and-after photos of the latest "troop
    digs" inspire 45,000 visitors a month to make derelict soil bloom.

    "We can make much more out of the land than how it's being used, whether
    it's about creating food or beautifying it," says the movement's
    ringleader and GuerrillaGardening.org founder, Richard Reynolds, by phone
    from his London home. His tribe includes freelance landscapers like Scott,
    urban farmers, floral fans and artists. I want to encourage more people
    to think about land in this way and just get out there and do it," says
    Reynolds, whose new handbook for insurgent planters, "On Guerrilla
    Gardening," is out this week.

    The activists see themselves as 21st century Johnny Appleseeds, harvesting
    a natural bounty of daffodils or organic green beans from forgotten dirt.
    It's a step into more self-reliant living in the city," says Erik Knutzen,
    coauthor with his wife, Kelly Coyne, of "The Urban Homestead" to be
    released in June. The Echo Park couple have chronicled "pirate farming" on
    their blog, Homegrown Evolution. Guerrilla gardening, Knutzen says, is a
    reaction to the wasteful use of land, such as vacant lots and sidewalk
    parkways. He's turned the parkway in front of his home into a vegetable
    garden.

    One of a slew of DIY gardening currents, such as permaculture (design of
    highly sustainable ecosystems), urban homesteading, composting and free
    fruit movement, guerrilla gardening is a response to dwindling green
    space, limited land and suspicions about food sources, say experts. It's
    also part of a time-honored American tradition of gardening public spaces.

    "It reminds me of the Vacant Lot Cultivation societies," says Rose
    Hayden-Smith, a Food and Society Policy Fellow with UC Cooperative
    Extension. In the wake of the economic meltdown of the 1890s, many
    American cities, from Detroit to Philadelphia and Boston, formed Vacant
    Lot Cultivation associations to encourage residents to grow food on public
    land. The Liberty and Victory garden campaigns of World Wars I and II,
    respectively, also exhorted Americans to raise food on untended public
    land. "If the federal government was paying attention, they'd be
    encouraging this right now," with the price of food and fuel," adds
    Hayden-Smith. Guerrilla gardens can serve the same purpose as the Victory
    gardens," says Taylor Arneson, editor of the Los Angeles Permaculture
    Guild newsletter and a proponent of sustainable food production. He and a
    friend raised a farmers market worth of crops -- corn, beans, squash,
    tomatoes, lettuce, watermelon, cucumber and more -- in a guerrilla dig at
    a large planter bed in front of an office building on Bundy Drive in West
    Los Angeles. Farming in broad daylight, they got support from office
    workers and kids excited to see real cornstalks.

    Arneson's approach is to plant first and make arrangements with
    sympathetic locals to hook up to water taps later. Keeping a guerrilla
    garden irrigated is one of the trickiest parts of the game. Arneson, a
    graduate student in village-scale permaculture design, says he rules out
    99% of the vacant lots he scouts because they don't have a reliable water
    source. He looks for some elevation or berm that will let the plants catch
    water.

    After more than a year of growing crops at the Bundy site, he and his
    friend planned to live on the produce grown there last winter. They
    planted garlic, potatoes, radishes, carrots, lettuce, onions and more, but
    in January the owner of the property, after first leaving a cease and
    desist letter, roto-tilled the whole plot.

    Property owners who don't take kindly to others gardening on their land
    have laws on their side. But most freelance growing is done in the nooks
    and crannies of public land, where the law is murkier. Spokespersons at
    the Los Angeles city departments of Public Works, and Recreation and Parks
    were unaware of laws proscribing citizen gardening in public spaces. A
    patch of wildflowers on a city-owned lot wouldn't be removed until it
    dried up and became a fire hazard, according to the city's Street
    Services' Lot Cleaning Division.

    Back at that median oasis in Long Beach, Scott is making introductions.
    "This is Aloe nobilis. Put them in the ground and in five years you could
    turn out 10,000 plants," he says. Scott may not have title to the land,
    but he tends it as if he did, weeding and pulling out trash -- he's found
    such debris as car parts and condoms in there. He's bummed when he spots a
    bare patch. "It's kind of depressing when I see how much work needs to be
    done," says the Norwalk resident, who works for the government. "This
    whole section, there's something in the dirt. This is old landfill and
    they probably just used that dirt." He built the garden up over a period
    of years, planting early in the morning to avoid detection. Police have
    questioned Scott at his traffic island during early morning plantings,
    part of the uncertainty that comes with guerrilla gardening. Several of
    his unsanctioned gardens along the San Gabriel River have been wrecked by
    agave thieves, who, he thinks, steal the leaves to make tequila. "You just
    take a deep breath and go back to it," he says.

    But homeowners in Long Beach have encouraged his work on the median. Today
    the garden is a veritable nursery. He's taken out hundreds of plants
    incubated here, some of which he moves to unapproved gardens he's planted
    and tends in Norwalk and Whittier. Why does he bother with all the work,
    expense and dodging authorities? "I'd like to show cities that they can
    use plants like these, not have to water as much and cut down on
    landscaping costs. Within two to three years, a site like this can
    generate thousands of plants." Scott sees his Long Beach garden as a
    showcase for drought-tolerant, low-maintenance city landscaping. But he's
    in a bind. How does he broach the subject, given his unsanctioned status?
    "I wish I could get together with the city," he says. "But I'm
    apprehensive and pretty much keep under the radar."

    Meanwhile, over at landscaping headquarters for the city of Long Beach,
    superintendent of grounds maintenance Ramon Arevalo waxes on about one of
    more than a dozen gardens done by "road planters," as he calls guerrilla
    gardeners. "It's like an underwater scene, a cactus garden that looks like
    a corral reef. It's beautiful. It's been there on Loynes Drive for 10
    years, and we don't know who did it. You should see this place!"

    It's Scott's garden. I tell him I have seen it and know the mystery man
    who planted it. Arevalo is ecstatic. "I can't wait to know him! He's been
    the talk of this place for 10 years. He's like the 007 of gardening," says
    Arevalo, laughing heartily. He says a homeowners association has
    complained that their medians are ugly. Why can't theirs look like that
    cactus island?

    Arevalo is impressed by Scott's use of drought-tolerant plants and assures
    there will be no repercussions if he comes forward. There is no law
    against planting on city landscaping, except for ficus trees, whose roots
    wreck roads and sidewalks. The city discourages unapproved gardening but
    tries to work with road planters it discovers. "If you want to do this, my
    advice is to contact myself or the council person," says Arevalo. "We want
    to partner with people who care about where they live."

    At a time of shrinking city budgets and skeletal landscaping staffs, it's
    a hint at where guerrilla gardening could go -- to approved brigades of
    citizen gardeners helping cities turn wasted space into food and flowers.
    After years of looking over his shoulder, Scott can come in out of the
    cold dawn plantings. He has Arevalo's phone number and attention.
    "I'll do whatever he wants," says Arevalo, chuckling. "I want to buy him a
    coffee."