S the manager of an indie-rock band fronted by an accordion player, Camille Acey, 23, is used to uphill battles. So when Ms. Acey and the band, Movers and Shakers, decided to build a "rock garden" on the roof of a loft building in Long Island City, Queens, they solved the obvious problem with 175 pounds of neutral-tone buttons from a company that donates surplus materials to artists.
Ms. Acey was a contestant in a "gardening challenge" sponsored by ReadyMade, a Berkeley-based do-it-yourself magazine for those who are young, hip and inclined to turn their soda empties into camp stoves. The participants, chosen by the editors, had to remake a 100-square-foot space, relying on found objects and the landscape's existing features, all within a $200 budget provided by the magazine.
"Creative reuse was the central thing for us," said Ms. Acey, who writes a Web log and has sought gardening advice online from other bloggers. "I'm not a high-end person who's going to go spend $200 at Home Depot."
Ms. Acey may not fit the traditional image of a gardener, but she shares a passion that is blossoming among a certain segment of culturally plugged-in urban 20-somethings and early-30-somethings. They may not own backyards, but they are determined to make things grow. Many quietly cite Martha Stewart as an influence, while making clear that they disapprove of her "commercialism," as one of them, Briana Drennon, put it. And like 1960's hippies, some see what they are doing as an act of protest against the degradation of the environment and the spread of agribusiness.
"I'm thinking about gardening as a radical political act," said Fritz Haeg, 34, an architect who teaches in the environmental design program at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif. "It means completely questioning the way we live, the way we get our food, the way we use and abuse natural resources, the way we occupy public space." Mr. Haeg plays host at a monthly salon that draws a young, flamboyant crowd. Events are themed "avant-garde knitting" was a recent topic.
While gardening has yet to reach critical mass among this group, it is beginning to make an impact. Peter Bosselmann, chairman of landscape architecture and environmental planning at the University of California, Berkeley, said he has seen a bit of a shift among applicants for the graduate program over the last four years. Traditionally, students came with experience in horticulture, but now, Mr. Bosselmann said, they increasingly have art-related backgrounds.
"It's pretty clear that young people are decidedly interested in or concerned about the landscape," he said. "Most perceive it as chaotic or in need of care and health, in need of introducing ecological principles, in need of being more artful, more structured."
Ms. Drennon, 27, who calls herself "a typical L.A. indie walking stereotype" complete with art degree and tattoos, said her gardening habit began with "a pot of rosemary on a windowsill."
"Everything just sort of rolled from there," she said. Lured by a 2,000-square-foot yard, she moved from a funky Koreatown loft to leafier Venice. She also joined You Grow Girl, an online gardening site that says it "speaks to a new kind of gardener." The site, at www.yougrowgirl.com, is the brainchild of Gayla Sanders, 30, a graphic designer in Toronto, who started it out of frustration with other online gardening communities. To her, they all seemed aimed at an older suburban audience, with a significantly higher disposable income.
"There definitely is this stigma that gardening is something that women who are housewives do, or something that only goes on in the country," Ms. Drennon said.
On an April morning, seed packets spilled across her 40's-diner-style kitchen table. The seeds, for flowers and vegetables with names like papaya pear hybrid squash and Flaro-French flageolet, were booty from a seed swap organized by You Grow Girl. She said that members send around a big box of seeds they aren't going to use. Each takes what she wants, adds her own leftovers and mails the box to the next person on the list. "It's like Secret Santa in April," Ms. Drennon said.
