As a member of the Vancouver Guerrilla Gardening Group, and of course, through this blog, I am often privileged to be in contact with guerrilla gardeners around the world – a very cool feeling! The similar challenges we all face – and of course, the differences – are fascinating to me.
This week, Julia from Berlin emailed our group to let us know about the destruction of Garten Rosa Rose, a community garden in the Friedrichshain neighbourhood of Berlin. The garden, started by a group of neighbours in the spring of 2004, was situated on three adjacent vacant lots. That’s right – the gardeners didn’t own this space.
Julia writes: “The property had been sold last summer to an investor and the new owner never contacted us to let us know; we found out by chance. Despite a lot of moral support from different politicians, ‘nothing could be done’ since it is private property and we have a new fast-track building permit process here in Germany. We have been trying to buy the property ourselves for years but were too slow in getting the money together…”
On March 14, the gardeners of Rosa Rose were evicted by police, a real blow “as the first flowers are just blooming and we are still harvesting winter vegetables and herbs,” says Julia. The account of the garden’s destruction is shocking and sad, and my heart goes out to these Berlin gardeners.
I know there are some people that will say, “but it wasn’t their property – what do you expect?” And part of me recognizes that part of being a guerrilla gardener means accepting the transitory nature of your plantings, and the possibility that your plants could be mowed down by the City tomorrow. But still, I find what happened at Rosa Rose disheartening. I can only imagine how the gardeners must feel.
I wonder if this would happen here in Vancouver. On one hand, despite the rapid pace of development, the City officially has a positive attitude toward community gardens. There’s the Green Streets program, for example, as well as a project to see 2010 new community garden plots available before the 2010 Olympics. And the City was open to a collaborative effect between gardeners and Onni Developments, in which a community garden was temporarily established on an Onni-owned lot downtown. (The gardens will exist for one or two growing seasons or until the development permit is approved for condos.)
On the other hand, money talks. And if green space is in the way, look out. Ultimately, developers have greater sway than do community gardeners. A forcible eviction – such as happened at Rosa Rose – isn’t unthinkable here. When will we value community and green space over the almighty dollar?
In true guerrilla fashion, the gardeners of Rosa Rose haven’t given up and are trying to raise enough money to buy the property back from the developer. To learn more or to help, visit their website.
Nancy Bond says
Such a shame to see all that hard work destroyed. But, I guess that’s the nature of the game when played on private property, though that doesn’t take the sting away, of course.
zupakomputer says
That really REALLY sucks.
It seems just to depend on what local govts and councils are in charge when it comes to how any green spaces, public and private both, are dealt with. Where I live for example there’s a dualism with the public land, because the talk is positive for preserving trees and plants, but then they always prune public plants badly and I’ve seen them spraying poisons on the paved areas, plus they allowed tarmacing right around urban trees instead of leaving the grassed areas around them.
Private here is really bad, there’s an epidemic of idiots hacking old trees into ugly stumps.
However, I’ve also lived elsewhere in the UK, and in say National Trust areas they are very careful to preserve roadside plants and let wildflowers and plants in general grow in the paved areas and out of walls and so forth, and they wouldn’t allow trees to be hacked up.
Generally, built-up places where all the bad-looking planning permissions get approved treat anything natural very badly; the UK is a mixture of the ugliest most depressing urban places imaginable, and areas of the most beautiful landscapes of just about every type. I can’t wait for nature to completely overgrow the depressing urban places.
Dee/reddirtramblings says
Oh how sad. Maybe they will get some donations now that they’re plight has been shown on the internet. Too bad they couldn’t do that first.~~Dee
kate says
I used to live in Germany and was fascinated by garden culture there — people renting little parcels of land just to sow seeds, big community gardens thriving. So it’s sad to see a good project fail.
But I’m also curious: If the new landowner had been a standup person and had wanted to, how would he have known who to contact before having the garden destroyed? It’s something I’ve thought about because I, myself, would like to garden on a neglected piece of city land (namely grow a pumpkin where there’s actually room). But I’ve been considering the risks of losing a fat pumpkin before harvest and wondering if I should label the thing at all. Maybe just an email address? Am I hopelessly naive?
Anyway, thanks for the interesting food-for-though.
colette says
That’s a sad story about the Berlin garden. :(
My daughter, (sosylvie.typepad.com) sent me a link to your blog to check it out. I must say, it is very interesting and I will be back to stay longer, when I get more time. Great site!