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Urban Forestry
19 April 2022
We've been spending a lot of time on Nob Hill lately, not hobnobbing with the wealthy so much as commiserating with the hospitalized. Once in a while, we take a break, walking around the block with a camera.
Urban Forestry. Nikon D300 with 18-200mm Nikkor at 44mm (66mm equivalent), f8, 1/125 second and ISO 200. Processed in Adobe Camera Raw.
We spotted this intrusion on the best laid plans of men poking through the marble wall of a tony apartment complex. It was really old-world elegance with a spectacular view to the south. So when we saw this rebellious little sprout, we stopped and made a picture.
Call it urban forestry, if you like.
The wind blows dirt into every crevice of a city. The sidewalks, the concrete, the walls, the windows. And seeds with them. And before you know it something sprouts, even in a drought.
We take a weed whacker to the spurious growths in the sidewalk in front of our last century domicile but we fortunately don't have any marble walls with joints like this in them. Not whackable.
Our neighbor lets them run wild. Every three or four years he crawls around with a bucket and plucks them out one by one. A month later, the new crop is in.
We like to think of gardening as good exercise without the stink of a gym. So we don't mind swinging the hefty whacker around every week or so.
And there's a certain satisfaction in knowing you have it better, at least in one measure, than those wealthy squatters on Nob Hill.