Is guerilla gardening legal?
Guerrilla gardening can be an easy, low-cost way to beautify a neighborhood and to prevent negative consequences of vacant land, including illegal dumping and other crime. Guerrilla gardening is, however, by definition, against the law: a civil trespass against the land of the landowner. Two of the earliest celebrated guerrilla gardeners were the 17th-century English Diggers and the 18th-century American Johnny Appleseed. The earliest recorded use of the term guerrilla gardening was by Liz Christy and her Green Guerrilla group in 1973 in the Bowery Houston area of New York.
What are the ethics of Guerrilla gardening?
Guerrilla gardening is usually done on abandoned or vacant land that has been neglected by its legal owners. Guerrilla gardening is usually considered a form of squatting and does have legal implications in some cases including tresspassing, vandalism and possibly burglary if you removed anything durring the clean-up. While there are laws regarding trespassing and damaging property, there are no laws pertaining specifically to guerrilla gardening and, as long as it is being done in a public space, generally, it comes down to what individual councils will permit. This creates a grey area and there are key issues to be aware of.