Bee Bombs: What is Guerilla Gardening?

In an increasingly concrete world, gardens and green spaces are some of the few connections people have with nature. However, not all gardens are created equal. With the EPA reporting that gardening tools like lawnmovers produce 242 million tons of pollutants every year, it seems like American yards are not as green as we would like them to be. However there is a very easy - and quite pretty - solution: native plants!

Photo of Red Columbine, a native wildflower to North America (including NJ!). 

Native plants are plants indigenous to the region they are in, and can grow without human intervention. It is well known that native plants benefit the environments they are in, from helping fight erosion to promoting biodiversity. However many are pushed off of their environment due to habitat destruction, the introduction of invasive species, or through chemical means (i.e.     pesticide). The easiest way for a local nature lover to help their neighborhood is through the planting of native species. But what about public spaces? Urban areas with no gardens? That's where bee bombs come in. 

Bee bombs, also known as seed bombs, are packages of wildflower seeds that are native to the area. They often have sand included in the packages for easier spreading. In a very unofficial capacity, seed bombs are made to throw wildflowers into the mix of city life. They are easy to make on their own, and when done correctly grow very well! And because of their reproductive strategies they will grow year after year if they seed well. Their low maintenance and high success leads us to our next point: guerilla gardening.

Photo of a California Poppy Field 

The Biophilia Hypothesis, coined by biologist Edward O. Wilson, is the idea that humans desire and have a tendency to connect with nature and other forms of life. In urban and more industrialized areas, there is difficulty in finding green places. Even the places that do have such greenery tend to require maintenance that is just not implementable for many. Guerilla gardening is the act of planting crops or plants in areas that the gardeners do not have rights to cultivate on. Bee bombs are a great tool for guerilla gardeners as they are able to spread wildflowers that will need little attention other than some good-ol-fashion watering. 

These increases in greenery can boost people's mood and mental health according to Marc Berman from the University of Chicago. Guerilla gardening also helps combat social inequalities, as access to nature has some particular barriers for lower income people. In 2018 apartments in the first couple of blocks near Central Park in NYC costed 25% more than in other neighborhoods. These spatial inequalities  in the closeness of parks are not random, and while there is variation across urban areas, the correlation between race and access to greenery is there. 

Increasing the amount of native plants in your area not only helps you, but the bees. Bees and other pollinators are incredibly important to our global ecosystem, which we are a part of. Their pollination allows us to farm food and a multiple of other necessities that we could not live without. However since 2006, bee populations have been on the decline. A large contributor to that is Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), which is when a majority of worker bees abandon the hive leaving the queen and a few nurse bees to tend to the young. The causes of CCD can be attributed to many things, however at large it is pesticide, habitat loss, chemicals, disease, and climate change. A lot of which leads right back to humans. While many changes have been made to help combat CCD, you can do something too! Plant native wildflowers and plants in your garden. As stated before, native plants are a boon to their respective ecosystems. Bees have shown increased preference for native plants, as a majority them have specializations for foraging their own native plants. So in all, PLANT THEM NATIVE PLANTS!

Us AP Bio students (+ Ms. Eckert) have done our own project to make pollinator beds, that is plant beds of native wildflowers that will attract pollinators. First created 5 years ago, AP bio students have worked hard to make the bed a great place for our neighborhood bees. Here are some photos from this year (2022)!

 

The original bed (2017 AP Bio)

                                                                                Period 7 hard at work (2022)

                                                                                Me at the plant bed 

                                                                    Syd and I checking in on the plants

                                                                               For the Next Bio students

Growing your own plants may seem daunting, however if the right plants are grown you can both beautify your neighborhood and help the Earth!