What Happened Next (a Bit of a Rant)

If you saw yesterday’s post, you might react to today’s snapdragons with some of the bewilderment I felt.

The snapdragons are in full flower, remarkably unscathed by their journey in plastic bin bags to the compost heap.

We have to assume that they were pulled up to a fixed human schedule that did not allow for nature’s variations year to year.

And yesterday’s tulips? Bulbs that replenish themselves from sunlight, go dormant and re-flower year after year, grown in a hospitable climate?

The same.

I suppose if it is a plant, it doesn’t matter?

I’ll not pretend I have not discarded plants (including hundreds of seedlings) or killed plants through inattention or optimism about their success in my climate. While not able to feel holier than thou, and not having all the answers, I took these pictures to symbolise the wider harms we do to nature, which has no rights.

No right to live out a normal life-cycle, no right to live where they have lived for thousands of years, nor to be varied (thinking of apples, bananas, potatoes, etc), nor to grow on their own roots (roses), nor to be spindly, nor to seed around – not, in many cases, to exist as a species at all.

I dare say it seems a bit spacey to think this way about plants, which are generally (though not accurately) regarded as insensible. And I confess to be smarting from watching a local flower meadow being turned into housing.

But even if this doesn’t bother anyone other than a crank, I can rephrase in a language that is widely understood: money. This looks awfully expensive.