missing the petunias

[urban_greenwatch]

On October 1st, it all comes down. Hanging baskets and roundabout planting, park planting and other displays like these huge troughs of petunias outside the council offices. Of course, the heady days of Oxford being a major competitor in the Britain in Bloom competitions is long gone, but the local competition, with its odd list of categories (community garden therapy award, best language school, best kept small front garden) persists, even as municipal planting falters and fades, to be replaced with more economic and wildlife-friendly shrubs and grasses. But here and there, pockets of petunias remain. Florence Park is always worth a visit; it doesn't have many beds, but they're always excellent. And there's this lot outside the council offices. I never much liked them (pink, blousy, common) until the crossing was shifted so that I walked past them every morning on the way to work. Close up, the colours and scents are spectacular -- ironic, considering that municipal planting is mainly aimed at distance viewing from perabulators or passers by in vehicles. And they were clearly shedding seed, water, fertiliser, spreading green threads out into the pavement cracks and crevices around them; an oasis of fertility in the concrete, glass tarmac. After they went it was a full week before I noticed that their illegitimate plantings had been cleaned out at the same time; everything scrubbed back down to stone. Until the next thing grows.