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Guerrilla courtcase

A garden makeover at the centre of a dispute between Sutherland Shire Council and Guerrilla Gardeners could wind up in court.

jannali-roundabout-2A garden makeover at the centre of a dispute between Sutherland Shire Council and Guerrilla Gardeners could wind up in court.

The producers of TEN’s show say a fine from the Council will be challenged in court. It follows the removal of a garden at a Jannali roundabout.

Executive producer Nick Murray said: “Sutherland Council is the only council in Australia to have ripped out a garden that we planted.”

His crew had transformed the roundabout with an old boat, a tall tree, flagpole and plants. But in the style of the show’s clandestine makeovers, it did so without permission.

The council removed the show’s garden, replaced it with native plants, and issued a $600 fine.

The local community rallied to object to the original garden’s removal. They called the council efforts “boring” and landed 400 signatures on a petition objecting to the garden being removed.

Sutherland’s website said, “The Guerrilla Gardeners did not properly prepare the soil, and installed plants and decorations that had the potential to be visual distractions and obstructions for motorists. The flag pole they erected close to overhead power lines also raised public safety concerns.”

It also noted that the incident “has been the subject of inaccurate and biased media reporting.”

Souce: St George & Sutherland Leader Sutherland Shire

4 Responses

  1. @Kev – from my neighbourhood: the Newtown purple band rotunda and succulants are still there, but the grass humps/chairs died immediately and got removed.

    The VW that was cut in half and installed at Moore Park in the intersection: last I heard half of the car had gone but the other half was still there. Not sure what happened but maybe someone crashed into it.

    Also, a cactus garden at St Peters Station got ripped out by RailCorp (this ep has not yet aired).

    I have a feeling most of the gardens will have gone or be substantially reduced.

  2. Well it looks like it is still an improvement on what was previously in the roundabout garden. I the GG’s had done nothing, it would still have looked disgusting. The GG’s doing something ended up getting the council to put native plants in the roundabout. So despite the GG’s doing up a roundabout with unsuitable plants and objects, a positive result still came out of this. (Courtcase aside!)

  3. It would be interesting to see a “follow-up” episode showing the various Guerilla Gardeners gardens 6 months after they had been planted to see how successful they have been. I have a feeling most will have reverted to something similar to what they looked like prior to their “make-over”.

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