Guerrilla Gardening | CULTURE / TRENDS

We've been closely following the explosion of Urban Farming and Gardening in our Trend Tracking Report and now we're hearing about a new incarnation: Guerrilla Gardening. This new gardening movement also involves street art, another trend we've been tracking.

Street artist Posterchild has made it his mission to turn all the empty flyer boxes littering the city streets of Toronto into planters.

Posterchild explains:

"I’ve always been amazed by the state of most flyerboxes. More often that not, they are empty. Some haven’t been filled in years. Yet, there they are: everywhere in the city- at every intersection. Taking up valuable sidewalk space. Some are supposed to offer free news and culture print publications that make revenue from ads, some are supposed to offer free junk-mail type publications, with the expectation that someone will stop and take one completely beyond me. A rare few are supposed to offer a free publication of a certain political or religious leaning- probably bankrolled by whatever church or group can finance the publication of that message. For whatever reason, a great many of them offer nothing but an empty box.

But that offers a great opportunity for some people!

Graffiti artists love them as a platform for their stickers and tags. People with trash but nowhere to put it love them as a makeshift receptacle for garbage.

I tried to think of better ways than “Garbage Can” to re-imagine the interior spaces of these flyerboxes- better ways to make use of the whole box- not just the exterior walls.

This is what I came up with. I think it’s pretty great, if I do say so myself. The boxes makes a perfect platform for planters- and with them you can guerrilla garden almost anywhere in the inhospitable concrete city! Best of all, it leaves the sides open for writers and artists.

…and with this “impending collapse of print media”? You may just see these appearing in old, abandoned Newspaper boxes."

Also check out a similar project: Poster Pocket Plants where advertising posters are converted into planters.


Urban Prankster: Turning Flyer Boxes into Planters
Guerrilla Gardening: Off the Wall Gardening

-dh