Defiant Gardens

"Yes. This book is inspirational because it’s a collection of stories about how people have created gardens in the midst of war. That includes soldiers on the Western Front building little gardens among their trenches when they got a moment of peace, or the ghettos in Eastern Europe during the Second World War. It shows the power and the need and the hunger for gardens as a respite from the horrors of war. Very much so: even though I live in relatively peaceful South London, there are similarities. There may be lots of things people can do to try to find their humanity and escape from the horrors of one’s everyday life, whether that is fighting on the Western Front or fairly dreary monotonous living. But gardening is something that you can turn to simply with a bit of scrappy land in front of you and saving a few seeds from your food. Other escapes or calming activities are often more inaccessible. As a guerrilla gardener I am constantly trying to point out to people that the land is just there. That bit in your street or the traffic island is there. You might not have thought about it before, but you don’t need to escape on some rural vacation – just take advantage of what is around you."