Dream Green's story
Guerrilla gardening is a form of grassroots direct action where people green their neighbourhoods. Founded by activist Ellen Miles in 2021, Dream Green is an East London based social enterprise. We're green-fingered vigilantes on a mission to make our cities greener by giving everyday people the information, inspiration, and tools to plant in public places.
Our green planet is getting greyer. Concrete already outweighs every tree, bush, and shrub on Earth. The rapid greyification of human habitats is harming both people and planet – worsening air pollution, raising urban temperatures, killing off biodiversity, and creating food deserts.
Rather than wait for municipal solutions, guerrilla gardeners take matters into their own hands – using plants to reclaim public space for public (and planetary) good. Guerrilla gardening can mean planting bulbs in a street tree bed, scattering native wildflowers onto a bare road verge, or turning a vacant lot into a community allotment. It can be an agile, anonymous solo mission, or a big group operation. The result is that lifeless corners of local streets are transformed into bright pockets of food and flowers!
Dream Green empowers individuals and communities to get guerrilla gardening, by providing accessible online guides, real-life workshops, and tailored one-to-one support. We have provided youth groups with nature-based skills, communities with grant funding and expert guidance, and festival-goers with messy, radical fun. Our work combines hands-on action with timely ideas about community and climate action.
The dream is to achieve a world in which cities are more green than grey, and all communities can have a say in shaping their neighbourhood.
Useful learnings from Dream Green
Commit to care
-A guerrilla garden is not just for spring! Be your site's gardening angel, ensuring it's watered, protected, litter free, and nourished.
Let nature lead
-Work with nature, not against it. Go organic, embrace undervalued lifeforms (from "weeds" to woodlice), and prioritise native species.
Act local
-Act in the area where you've put down your own roots. Others' neighbourhoods are theirs to shape (though you can support them!)
Seek sustainability
-Borrow and repurpose instead of buying new, use peat-free compost, and source plants and parts as locally as possible.
Have fun!
-Reasons we guerrilla garden might be serious, but the act doesn't have to be! Play music, bring snacks, get creative, and celebrate small wins.
Dream Green's metrics
Number of people attending gardening workshops;
Number of online guides downloaded;
Number of communities groups supported.
