International Sunflower Guerrilla Gardening Day

International Sunflower Guerrilla Gardening Day is an annual event held on May 1. It was created by a group of guerrilla gardeners from Brussels in 2007. May 1 is a great time to sow sunflower seeds in NYC! In tree pits, traffic medians, abandoned planters, along bike lanes, cracks in sidewalks.

The term “guerrilla gardening” is applied to gardening on land that the gardeners have no legal rights to utilize. Guerrilla gardeners may have different motivations, but most often they garden on abandoned or neglected land in order to make the site of use and/or more aesthetically attractive.

The guerrilla gardening movement is believed to have emerged in the United States (Liz Christie in Manhattan's Bowery!) in the 1970s. Over the decades, it has spread throughout the world. There are groups and associations of guerrilla gardeners in many European, Asian, and American countries.