COMMONstudio
- Seed bombing is when people throw capsules containing seeds and fertilizers at vacant lots in urban areas.
- Videos showing seed bombing have millions of views on TikTok.
- It might seem uncontroversial, but it's technically illegal and, according to TikTok creators, is fundamentally political.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
"Illicit," "radical," and "revolutionary" are just some of the words TikTok's guerrilla gardeners used to describe the work that they do.
By throwing seed bombs (capsules consisting of seeds and fertilizer) at vacant lots, the green-thumbed social media stars often break the law and flout local regulations.
Several of these creators told Insider that they are engaging in a righteous act of civil disobedience by launching the horticultural grenades. And that's why they're proud to publish them on TikTok, often to hundreds of thousands of viewers.
"It's political," said Ellen Miles, an environmental activist with over 50,000 TikTok followers, who goes by @OctaviaChill on the video-sharing platform. "And it's direct action that changes things for the better," she added.
Seed bombing's rebellious roots
Creating a seed bomb is simple, and TikTok is rife with tutorials on how to make them.
"You can wet some red clay powder, mix it with compost, mix the seeds in, which should be native to the region and noninvasive, and roll it into little balls and let them dry out," Miles told Insider. "Then you just literally yeet them at the soil."
Seed bombs are believed to have originated in Ancient Japan. They were known as Tsuchi Dango, or "earth dumplings." They were also used by some Indigenous North American tribes.
But the practice of throwing these capsules as a form of rebellion has its roots in 1970s New York.
In 1973, a group of urbanites living in New York City's Lower East Side was desperate to transform the decaying urban jungle around them. Unable to convince local authorities to act, the group designed prototypal seed bombs to toss over fences and into vacant lots.
Initially, the Green Guerillas used condoms filled with tomato seeds. They did this to reclaim urban land, and make community gardens accessible to as many people as possible.
Alaina Wood, also known as @thegarbagequeen, is a sustainability communicator with almost 200,000 TikTok followers. She told Insider that the motivation for seed bombing is the wish to bring nature to disadvantaged communities.
"Many urban areas don't have green spaces, particularly for communities of color," Wood explained. "So, the premise is that they are going to turn these vacant spaces into something that will be useful and helpful for the community."
Jeremiah Jones, an environmental activist with 13,000 followers on TikTok, said this is partly what inspired him to get involved with guerrilla gardening.
"When we spend time in green space, you'll see that our health, emotionally, and our physical health depends on natural green space. So it's about amplifying that and making sure that everybody has access to that," Jones told Insider.
'I wanted to do something tangible and immediate'
Miles, 28, who runs an organization called Nature is a Human Right alongside her TikTok account, was so eager to remedy the problem of unequal access to nature that she left her job as a creative strategist to focus on it full-time.
She told Insider that her mission feels particularly urgent because the pandemic has exacerbated the negative effects of nature deprivation.
"Most of the things that are lethal comorbidities for COVID-19 are things that are fueled by being nature-deprived," Miles explained. "So heart and lung problems, diabetes, things like that, are all significantly worse if you live in a nature-deprived area. Then also, obviously, lockdowns have impacted people's mental health if they didn't have a park or a garden to escape to."
Miles had tried to improve access to these spaces by using "top-down" approaches, like speaking to local authorities and petitioning the United Nations, but found that using social media was more efficient.
"I got quite frustrated with the lack of pace at which things were going to change and I wanted to do something tangible and immediate," she said. "That's why I started guerilla gardening, and seed bombing, and started obviously posting about it on TikTok where the response was mad."
Miles' videos have found a large and dedicated audience; her posts have more than one million likes on TikTok.
Her success is part of a wider trend; seed bombing and guerrilla gardening videos perform particularly well on TikTok.
The hashtags #seedbombs, #seedbomb, and #seedbombing collectively have over 5.4 million views on the social media platform. #guerrillagardening and #guerillagardening have over 10 million views in total.
Gen Z loves the 'illicit' nature of seed bombing
According to Kim Karlsrud, the co-founder of the COMMONstudio, a creative agency that distributes seed bomb vending machines around the US, Gen Zers on TikTok are attracted to seed bombing videos because its transgressive.
"There's something kind of sexy and compelling about illicitly planting seeds," she told Insider.
Seedbombing is technically illegal in most parts of the US, according to Conservation Jobs, but few people have ever been prosecuted for it.
Some creators avoid the slim possibility of being caught by wearing balaclavas and doing it in the dead of night, whereas others wear high-visibility jackets to look inconspicuous.
Jones, who goes by @prophet.jeremiah on TikTok, does neither of these things. He said he is at peace with the fact that he could one day be arrested.
"I understand that might be the consequences of the actions that I'm taking, and that's okay because those actions are advancing values that not only I believe in but I think benefit everybody," he said.
Jones said that guerrilla gardening is "revolutionary," and he would urge those thinking of partaking not to be put off by the legal risks. "I'd thank you for getting in the trenches," he said.
Flower power is rising, and the revolution will not be televised - it will be posted on Tiktok.