STREET PLANTS AND STREET PEOPLE

A sow thistle growing on a wall may flower and thrive.
A human with no-where to go will be less successful.

As you know - can't fail to have missed - I am impressed by street plants. They live in shop doorways and gutters and flourish there. People don't.

You may also have gathered from previous posts that I visit Oxford from time to time. What I haven't said in these posts is that while photographing street plants, I've been taken aback by how many people live on pavements there too. I mean, in almost every town people sleep rough - but in Oxford, to an outsider like me, the visible numbers are shocking - so many doorways are every night turned into cramped, temporary bedrooms.

The sycamore tree in a drain we have followed for the last few years
still lives but is getting a bit cramped.
Drains are not meant for trees - nor shop doorways for humans.
June 2016

I don't understand. Oxford is a place with one of the best universities in the world. It's a place stodgy with outstanding brains. You'd have thought they could have set aside some time to put their intellectual heads together and work out what can be done.

Meanwhile, council funding for charities working with and for homeless people in Oxford has been cut by £1.5 million this year.

I don't want to go on about Oxford over much. It's just happens to be where I get most shocked. It's the place where I think about homelessness more than I do anywhere else - even more than where I live. It's the place where I think, over and over "what are minds for if not for addressing these kinds of basic needs?" And it's where (I expect you were waiting for this . . . ) where I know someone who is taking part in an event to raise a little of the money charities need to help those who are homeless, or newly homeless, or newly with a roof over their heads. Having somewhere to stay - though important - is not the end of the matter. It means a life-style change and that doesn't necessarily come easy to everyone.

THE BIG OXFORD SLEEP-OUT

Weymouth, June 2016

It's always hard to think of an event that will draw people to raise money, to raise consciousness, to 'make something happen' without it being naff or offensive. Selling jam to raise money for famine victims it's . . . well, there's something uncomfortable about it. So it may be that the group of students and local citizens who will be 'sleeping-out' for one night may find it a bit awkward . . . Being in the open for one night is not the same as curling up under a cardboard box every night in November. However . . . however . . . however awkward it feels . . . sometimes if money is needed you have to go with the ideas you come up with; ideas that are within your reach to fulfil

By clicking the link you'll go to the Just Giving page of a first-time fundraiser. She won't be the only one coming at this from scratch but she happens to be the one I know . . . And while each participant has been asked to raise £100 by being cold for a few hours . . . it would be good if every one of them were to raise more, for it's not for themselves they are doing it.

Here's the link.

If any of you do feel moved to give - perhaps you will think of those street plants

And how people are rarely as resilient as they are.

Money raised will be shared between

Oxford Homeless Pathways

Connection Floating Support

Aspire, Oxford

Photos in this post were taken in Dorset, not in Oxford. But these kinds of plants live in both places.

Some other Loose and Leafy Street Plant posts.

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P.S. I suddenly realise it looks a bit odd, exhorting you to give when it seems (from the list) as if I haven't done so myself! But due to the nature of my card I had to use the 'anonymous' option.

THERE'S URBAN AND THERE'S URBAN

I have the unfortunate habit of setting out to take photos of plants when it's just about to rain, cloud over, turn into night-time or glare in the unfortunate way which dots white patches all over the place. Today's nigh-on fiasco was to go to the sea when the weather was wondering whether how much mist to through over the scene.

Such is life. Such is seizing the moment. It's often quite random the one you are free to seize.

And I didn't really chose this road either. It was where I happened to be when I looked to see what there was. In a way, the less promising the start, the more satisfying the conclusion.

Some kind of Sow Thistle?

Take the picture above. See the bollards on the pavement? (Over the road on the right.) I crossed to them and walked along beside the fence as far as the bend - the space of three lamposts. All the plants in this post were found along that span. In other words, they are in view - but you'd hardly know if you didn't look. This sow thistle, was about three inches high and caused enough of a blodge on the pristine brick pavement to stand out for a starter and draw me over. Notice the area is litter-free? That's often a bad sign when you're looking for street plants. But I was in luck. Not only is this sow thistle there but it has neighbours. There's some grass, and two others plants - one of them of the same ground-hugging kind as you'll see below.

People interested in sport and spectacle may remember that the sailing events for the 'London' Olympics of 2012 took place in Dorset and were based at the National Sailing Academy on Portland which had been developed with just that in mind.

I don't know what this plant is.
You can guess its size by comparing it with the bricks of the pavement and the small stone.

This road near The Academy is crisp and clear with nothing there beyond what's necessary. A road for cars. A pavement for people. Places for boats to spend the winter. Places for boats to be built and repaired. Warehouses. New. Stark.


(Well, not so new now - which shows how starkly maintained it is.)

It was tempting to brighten this picture to show the red pods more clearly.
But a grey day is a grey day.

There used to be huge oil tanks along this edge of Portland. They were dug up, knocked over, bashed out of the way and the ground levelled for the kinds of industries which take place in 'units'.

Some have plantings of grasses and other tough plants. I'm not sure if these clumps are truly wild or escapees.

The plant on the right) is  Knotgrass (Polygonum aviculare agg.). It was growing along the ground, away from the long blue fence, then standing upright. The segments of its stem looked as if they'd been plugged together in a row. It has pretty little pink flowers which are even less visible than the plant was when I started along the road.

(The clumps of something green along the building opposite are intentional plantings.)

It's not a flowery road. It's not a very flowery time of year. But here's another sow thistle; this time taller - with a yellow flower and white and fluffy wind-powered seeds and brightly coloured leaves.

And more flowers still?

Yes. By the last lampost before the road curves right . . .
The world seems full of different kinds of daisy-like flowers. I don't yet know what this is. Do you? (Take a look at its feathery leaves.)

Street Plant Bloggers
#urbanwildplants

From the long view - not much in the way of wild flowers.

Close to . . . ? Of course - they are always there!

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