‘I call it botanarchy’: The Hackney guerrilla gardener bringing power to the people

Guerilla gardener Ellen Miles in Hackney, east London. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

Anarchism gets a bad rep. In the popular imagination, anarchists dress in black, they smash windows and hurl firebombs at police. Or else, they are young social misfits with green hair and too many piercings. Often they are both.

But what if anarchy could be beautiful, what if it could bring local communities together planting flowers in the streets? For Ellen Miles, the new doyenne of guerrilla gardening, it is. “I call it botanarchy,” she says.