Donkey

My front yard is already filled with pretty and native plants. Even if it wasn't, putting seeds in someone's yard is a jerk move when you don't know them or their history.

I can't take care of a yard filled with plants that make me sick. My yard accounts for most of the neighbourhood's butterfly population on account of everyone else poisons anything in their front yard that isn't grass because of this kind of bad behaviour.

Yes, I'm cutting back a lot of the extra growth out front. It's a fire hazard, there's too much underbrush and I don't intend to be responsible for burning down the neighbourhood. Cutting back plants to reduce fire danger and ensure that I can take care of a garden neglected for over a decade is not a bad thing.

We got twice as many flowers this year because the flowering plants could actually reach the sunlight.

General rule of thumb with seedbombing is that blasting your seeds into private property (especially gated/fenced property) is way more risk than its worth. Not only is there a risk of getting tangled up in some dusty ass low level court, but cookie cutter suburbs and manicured golf courses with evergreen lawns and not a dandy in sight are far from prime seedbombing soil, as they'll most likely be herbicide-ed into an early plant grave.

And just to be clear, that's not a bad thing just because your efforts have been wasted or because the seeds were wasted, but rather because it just gives the owner another reason to bust out their Plant-Killer 3001EX and squirt a gallon of chemicals into the earth. Maybe that's an exaggeration, but depending on where it is and how much you shoot, it might not be that far off.

Guerrilla gardening has its place and that place is in empty, neglected areas that receive no attention apart from getting mowed or weed-whacked every month or two.

The idea is this: when your area was developed and buildings and roads were constructed, many plant species were extirpated from that area, and most plant species are becoming more and more isolated with populations in increasingly scattered locations

You are re-introducing plants into areas that either are suitable habitat, or where you could feasibly care for them

But the thing is

Guerrilla gardening appeals to the part of your brain that wants to stick it to The Man and do something exciting and risky and cool and "punk"

And I think that part of your brain can be ultimately self-serving.

Because many of the most effective actions you can do don't FEEL badass and subversive. They don't LOOK badass and subversive. Direct action is often boring as fuck and not illegal and won't be recognized as courageous and cool because it's very mundane and often tedious and sometimes gruelingly hard.

The truth is

Two or three friendly conversations with your neighbors about native plants are worth a thousand seed bombs

This type of popular image of "direct action" glorifies and lionizes this idea of an individual person doing something Cool and Illegal, and for the most part, this is a fantasy and a lie and a product of the terribly anti-human, anti-community, hyper-individualistic type of society we are in

Do you want to make your neighborhood into a lush paradise for native species? Talk to your neighbors. Do you want X institution to stop using pesticides on their grass and start a pollinator garden? Call them. Email them. Now find other people in your area who can support you and try again. See if your library can tell you about local environmental organizations. Reach out to the guy who runs the farmer's market or the lady who is in charge of the gardening club. Build up a list of contacts.

Do you know how you can get people to grow native plants? Do you know the number one super easy way to get people around you into growing native plants?

Grow native plants yourself, and when they spread or produce seeds, offer everyone free plants.

I cannot possibly recommend this method enough.

please don't seed bomb golf courses or any other place that is very heavily managed

Why?

It won't do anything. The plants will be immediately killed.

If, by some miracle, the seeds you planted matured and flowered, they would attract bees and butterflies...which would then be poisoned by whatever toxic chemicals are contaminating the area

Here's a small lesson about nature: the golf course is constantly being seed bombed already, by a group of plants we know as "weeds." (The more technical term is pioneer species or disaster species.)

These plants are specifically adapted for the niche of re-populating barren and destroyed areas. And activities like mowing, tilling, and spraying simulate extreme disturbance that in nature would result from floods, tornadoes, extreme overgrazing, and the like.

Thus, heavily manicured areas have to constantly use herbicides to kill weeds.

My use of dandelion as an indicator is based on my observations of it in the Eastern USA, so this may not be true of some areas...but if there is nothing but manicured grass in an area, with no dandelions, it's safe to assume that virtually any plant you could seed-bomb isn't going to make it either. Either because of spraying or because the area is just extremely hostile.

Dandelion is nature's perfect seed bomb and I'm not sure any human could improve upon it. What I'm saying is, if it's POSSIBLE for flowering plants to establish and bloom in a manicured area, dandelions are already there. If there's turfgrass and no dandelions, I would assume that the area is being sprayed or that it's simply too hostile for most life.

im "cant have anything that even remotely could be used as a weapon in the house" psychotic. im "if i miss my meds one day i have to go to the hospital for homicidal and suicidal thoughts that literally aren't my own thoughts but theyre controlling my actions" psychotic. im "im seeing horrors you cant even imagine to the point where i dont exist in the same world as you anymore" psychotic.

im not going to hurt you, i just need help. when im rocking in the corner talking to myself at 3am, remember that i am in a state of terror. im afraid for my life. i either genuinely believe everything is trying to kill me, and i only know one way to deal with it; or something is telling me to be violent or else it will kill me; or i have dissociated so hard that i autopilot myself to violence to try and wake myself up.