"I know that humanity is a door in a wall that doesn’t exist, so I can open it onto whatever gardens I like.."
Fernando Pessoa
The nature of human life seems to be to keep a very narrow focus in front of ourselves now, with the external world taking the hind most. Some things loom much larger than they maybe need to be, while other things lose some taint of necessity and fall back.
I've always been interested in micro-enviroments, those minor patches of ground which we pass everyday, with no sense of recognition. Actually, I guess mostly now these are all residues and revenants of construction and the ecology of those patches is severely constrained to infills of 'weeds' and a miscellanea of more domesticated plants that have wandered into these no-man lands. Folks pass up many interesting plants in the process though. One which I delight in telling folks about is the princess tree or Paulownia Tomentosa (also known as Empress tree and Sapphire Dragon tree). In Atlanta many folks no doubt have seen this tree growing in the crevices of concrete walls, in abandoned lots and such. As I became more sensitive to the shape of the juvenile tree – very large leaves, very tropical looking – I began to notice the enormous number of these seen-but-not-noticed plants all around the inner city (and on untended spots on the expressway also). It has the distinction of being known as the world’s fastest growing tree and as such there was an attempt not too long ago to create plantations for the wood since it is highly valued in other parts of the world for its qualities. But in the southeast it still seems to be known for its flowers. It's also called the Foxglove tree for its beautiful mauve flowers which do indeed look like those of the perennial known as Digitalis or Foxglove). You can see an online tout for it here. My father bit on the hype surrounding the Empress Tress and wanted to plant them on the bit of acreage the family had in Mississippi.. Gosh, I wish he had done that instead of planting pine trees as he eventually did. Probably wouldn't have made any money but … what a site that would have been!
No doubt there exists other oddities that surround us but which we are too preoccupied to notice. The thing about the Paulownia is that it easily makes itself known. Keep an eye out for it next time you go roaming around town – or at least the less well-manicured parts of town.
Oh yes, another plant which you can see in some untended areas around town is the Southern Catalpa (Aurea), also know as the Fisherman's tree for the large number of caterpillars which can wind up on the tree. I can remember that my grandfather in Mississippi had a pretty large one right next to his barn that we used to climb to the roof on and the Catalpa tree would be covered with caterpillars which had eaten most of the leaves by the end of spring and left just a tracery of lines. ...beautiful for us kids but kinda disgusting for some of the parental types. Very beautiful flowers -- if you can put up with the occasional worm.
Might be a good idea to take up fishing.
Or at least get out of the car and look around; no telling what you might find.
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Of course I'm just as guilty of the roving- head-in-a-moving-metal-can as the next person. One day while heading into town on Piedmont Road, turning onto Monroe Drive, Sloane said did you see that bush back there? I had not, and though we didn't stop then, we eventually did stop at the little public park and garden right at the corner of those aforementioned roads. And what a surprise! We've become so accustomed to the usual grasses, evergreens, Hydrangeas, maybe some Azaleas and the usual rightly colored suspects in the annual family (I call it Post Properties Gardening) that I don't bother examining stuff that closely sometimes.
At any rate, we stopped and I THINK the red plant was a Clianthus Puniceus: ferny leaves like a Mimosa almost and parrot-beak type flowers. Here is a picture of the actual flower and plant. But I am still baffled by another plant in the park with smooth green bark and thin tubular flowers. I can't decide whether it is a perennial that just grows really fast or is a tree like some eucalpyptus. If any one has an idea what it is, let us know. It's sorta driving me batty. This is a guest designed park and with plants (or at least some of the plants) being donated by the donor. The donor is the guy who owns Very Good Plants out in Lithonia. I’ve been out there and it is indeed a nice little boutique nursery. I'll probably wind up calling them up and asking them what the heck the thing is. It's a neat little garden. Stop and check it out before the cold hits. For the more goth among us, there is also a neat dead fountain in front, with stuff growing in the cracks.
