Boneyard

Documenting flora| 3| 03/02/2020


I love the story this landscape tells. A scene of death, destruction and rebirth; this is the story of nine months in this pot. In the center of this vessel we see the archaic ruins of once great Black Nightshade. This shrub had coaxed itself rather quickly into the undertadultlerted soil. Tunneling it's roots further and further the plant dervoured the nutrient dense feast. Soon the black stem grew and it would sport shiny, black berries bursting with a poisonous, glycoalkaloids syrup. Small grasses thrived around the foot of the growing behemoth. Bigger plant's tried to outgrow the nightshade, but would find themselves strangled by the plant's tyrannical roots. The black stemmed monster found itself all-powerful, too poisonous to be touched by mammals or birds and too big to to allow neighbours to compete, this Nightsahde owned this pot. But alas it would be the plant's own success that would be it's downfall. The beast outgrew it surroundings and like a big fish in too small of a pond it starved to death. Slowly rotting, it sagged towards the Earth. It was here, when a summer's heat engulfed the pot. Four days of fourty degrees sucked the vessel of life's fluid. The scene lay as dead as a desert, the once great Nightshade becoming no more than two tortured stems. The sun punished all flora whom dared to set foot in this pot. Nothing could survive, nothing could grow, nothing thrived in this vessel. No relief was in sight...

February would arrived. With February, comes the shortest month and the heaviest rains. A series of downpours that taunt you for thinking this is still summer. With the hail and precipitation, once dry soil came back to life. Micro-bacteria long dormant awoke, together they would gnaw at the rotting skeleton till only the hard cellulose shell was left. Into this boneyard, thistles, milkweeds and dandelions carved out their plots among the dead Nightshade. Using the energy of their deceased, distant cousins the weeds began bloom. The moss now wet, began to swell awakening its sleeping cells. From a barren landscape to a thriving metropolis in only thirty days. A mish-mash of undergrowth now live in the skeleton of a long dead shrub. Together they all compete for the glory to grow, to reproduce, to thrive.


It is the determination of weeds I find compelling. That raw brute strength is inspirational. Whether it is the smallest or cracks or the blandest of soil something will take root. Something will conquer only to overthrown by a more adaptable, sturdy organism. This scene for me isn't a pot infested with weeds but instead a vessel filled with survivors and opportunists. This is a pot that enchants me with its sight and with its story.