“I wanted to put up a plant in a way that people would recognize that it wasn’t supposed to be there,” Martindale said.
There are gardeners looking to break the mould, so they look to the cityscape for opportunities to beautify neglected spots of Toronto. Martindale and his friend Eric Cheung are guerrilla gardeners. What began as street art, soon became an inquiry into the uses of public space. With a pair of scissors and some staples, Martindale can turn any poster advertisement into a planter. In his view, this is a more positive use of public space.
Photo provided by Sean Martindale
Since last summer’s inauguration of the Pocket Plant Project on the Queen street. light post, Martindale and Cheung have expanded there gardening spots. Where traditional guerrilla gardeners concentrate their work on beautifying established green spaces, Martindale looks to make the streets a little greener.
“I am deliberately growing over these illegal ads and showing that space can be used differently,” he said.
The posters that clutter the city have led Martindale to plan an intricate layout for his pocket plants.
“The planter is a cone-shape, with the base slightly open, so when we water the plants the water drips down through the bottom and it would go into the next pocket,” he explained.
Martindale avoids cutting through community posters or public service announcements, because he feels those are positive uses of public space. He’s concerned with aggressive companies that post up the same promotional poster all over the city. This led Martindale to start planting covertly.
“Our point was to try and avoid crowds and go at the break of dawn when there weren’t that many people around,” Martindale said. “But we found that people have been supportive of this project. Plants are something positive and it’s something people like to see in their environment.”
Barry Parker, a horticulturalist with the Toronto Rock Garden, agrees
“I’m very for the idea of guerrilla gardening, but I’m not impressed,” he said.
Parker has noticed many signs around guerrilla gardens that say “water me,” an anthropomorphic attitude towards gardening that he says is superficial.
“Gardening involves patience, commitment and ongoing cultivation,” he said.
Parker also doesn’t like the fact that most guerrilla gardeners are planting exotic plants, because eventually they turn into mush.
Martindale recognizes the environmental issues involved with bringing in an unknown species.
“We try and avoid invasive species or anything that would have a chance to spread outside of our planters,” he said.
Because his pocket plants are ephemeral spots, his team looks for native plants that are cheap and hearty. They work aesthetically and won’t cost him an arm and a leg.
His team’s initiative to take guerrilla gardening to the street, coupled with his creative strategies for making the city greener, highlights his DIY mentality.
“We kind of taught ourselves over the course of it. We’ve seen what plants survive best and which ones are most supportable,” he said.
With these pocket plants blooming all over Toronto, Elyse Parker, who’s been the director of Transportation Services in the Public Realm at Toronto City Hall since 2009, is humbled by the fact that people care about their public space and take interest in planting flowers and looking after them.
“Guerrilla gardening may have been an issue in the past. It’s certainly not now. Since the city put a new focus on improving the public realm, there’s been a lot of support,” she said.
Her only concern is that these street plants aren’t poisonous and don’t block a driver’s sight lines.
Once Martindale gauged the support level from the community, his approach to guerrilla gardening became more participatory. He wants the community to join in. This is why he chose to take his work to the streets and not city gardens.
This motivation to get groups involved stems from his psychology and how he became involved with guerrilla gardening.
“For me it was a desire to participate and take a more active role in my own environment and try to encourage others to do the same.” Martindale said.
“When there’s more engagement and more people taking an active role, I think our environment becomes more interesting and dynamic.”
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