Buddleia has something of a stranglehold on our wastelands. The non-native species so beloved by butterflies and bees was introduced into the UK by Victorian plant-hunters and, ever since, has come to dominate our railway sidings, roadside verges and derelict urban plots.
But guerrilla gardeners have attempted to fight back in recent years by increasing the range of species taking seed on neglected sites with the use of the “seedbomb” – a fistful of compacted compost stuffed full of differing seeds which is tossed over a fence in the hope it will trigger a more diverse habitat on the other side. It’s the ultimate hippy grenade with roots spreading back to before the days of the Diggers.
A new book called Seedbombs: Going Wild with Flowers by Josie Jeffery introduces this concept to modern readers, but the idea of seedbombing first germinated in Japan with the ancient practice of tsuchi dango, which translates as “earth dumpling”. The idea was again popularised in the 20th century by Masanobu Fukuoka, an advocate of “Do Nothing Farming”. And there have even been proposals in recent years to adopt the idea on an industrial scale to repopulate vast areas with trees.
Personally, I think seedbombs are a delightful idea and, if done with the sort of forethought demanded by Jeffery, I really can’t see why anyone would reasonably object.
But the precise legality of throwing seeds onto someone else’s property, even if the site is derelict and showing all the signs of having long been abandoned, is still unclear. Could it be classified as littering? Or could a particularly intolerant and belligerent landowner press for a seedbomber to be held liable for vandalism or trespass through a civil action, as one lawyer I spoke suggested could, in theory, be possible, depending on the “injury” caused to the property?
