plants

Caladium update. This is a rectangular stone planter brought up to a bench to be photographed. This side showing faces outward to full on sun when the sun shows, harsh and direct where I live, and this type of plant does better in shade. So there's a mistake right there and still it does okay. Behind it is a pot situated in a corner filled with morning glory vines that grew ten feet to the top and bent over but their leaves are all spotted because they need more hours of direct sunlight. A reversal of errors there. Between them a fountain made of copper tubing and discs to resemble lotus leaves inside a large pot.

The birds stopped landing here when I began shooting them with rubber bands for pooping all over and tearing up the pace. Plus the guy from India is feeding them. He owns the bottle shop downstairs and has a soft spot for pigeons. There are always crumbs scattered directly outside the store, he's often standing there inside watching them.

He purposefully creates a mess on the sidewalk in front of his business that invites an even greater mess of pigeon poop always right there on his sidewalk, metered street parking for his business.

This is an uninteresting but convoluted entry to two businesses featuring a few architectural alcoves that invite an open shelter to street-people in need of a rest, a place to tuck in, sometimes with sleeping bags. It invites drinkers who collect there, sometimes unable to hold their water or whatever liquid, a place with stains and other evidence of sloppy living, packages, wrappers, litter, clothing, wet patches, vomit, broken bottles, cigarette butts in planters. It could be nice but the place attracts a struggling clientele. Compared to the humanity down on their luck and unable to cope and drinking beyond capacity right there in the same spot the pigeons are lovely by way of contrast crumbs poop and all. And around the corner you'll notice the sidewalk dotted with spit out chewing gum, a ton of black and gray dots, another surface altogether to walk on, a Jackson Pollock sidewalk created by teens waiting in line for tickets to raves, I'm noticing no difference in class regarding sloven street-level disregard.

It is the pot that I drew when they started to show. Since a layer was packed without proper spacing they were expected to grow crowded, and they did.

One thing about living in a largely insect-free zone is there aren't any bees to pollinate plants. There are insects around and I see their damage, but not many of them. There were a lot of little flowers on the vegetable plants but only these three tomatoes and a few other things.

The caladiums did well and saved the project. The order was doubled at the end of their season and those plants are only now poking up through the dirt in patches here and there. They are expected to salvage raggedy pots up to Fall.