Guerrilla gardening is political gardening, a form of direct, peaceful action, which involves taking over and planting up a (usually abandoned) piece of land (often) at night.   It aims to improve public space through gardening.   Guerrilla Gardening happens in small groups all over the world, and a website is used to enable members to find out what is going on in their area and globally.   Some protests are large scale and involve thousands of people; others are small scale and might just involve a few people.   The patches of land that are worked on are of various sizes.   The time scales of projects vary, sometimes taking place over just one night/day, and sometimes over months.   Some projects involve community groups such as schools and neighbourhoods.

Guerrilla Gardening is political because the members intend to reclaim the streets, we want to challenge the established way of things, it aims to take control of empty space and use it for a positive purpose.   Bernard Stiegler talks of our misery because of our living in aesthetically and politically deprived environments; Guerrilla Gardening attempts to change this by improving the environment through direct action.

As a form of protest, Guerrilla Gardening is affective because it is a very visible process which gets support from many sections of society.   Although it is illegal (criminal damage), arrests are rare, since it seems ridiculous to arrest someone for planting a lettuce or sowing seeds.   However, sometimes gardens are destroyed.