Weeds of Melbourne
March 8, 2020 3:31 PM   Subscribe

'Within Melbourne’s gardens, reserves, infrastructure and wasted lands sprout all of the traumas and dislocations of the past, and so these will do from now to the end of recorded time, no matter the investment of labour and personal or collective suffering devoted to revegetation. The weeds, a thousand strong, are the newest layer atop the bay sludge and basalt spills that form the Melbourne geology, a seedbank that has made itself a permanent stratigraphic marker of the arrival. Just add light and water.'
posted by Fiasco da Gama (8 comments total) 20 users marked this as a favorite
 
OMG it's just what I always wanted.
posted by Coaticass at 4:28 PM on March 8, 2020


This is delightful. I like that the tag for pavement is actually 'crackplants'.
posted by spamandkimchi at 5:58 PM on March 8, 2020


And I just clicked on one of the pavement plants and read this exchange on Ruby Saltbush (Enchylaena tomentosa)
August 28, 2019 at 12:41 PM
I don’t think this should be included as a weed as it is an indigenous plant. Including it here offsets it’s value as a tough groundcover which provide fruit for both birds and reptiles. I have never seen it become weedy in a garden situation.

Weeds of Melbourne
August 29, 2019 at 10:48 PM
As mentioned elsewhere, this project uses the term ‘weed’ without a negative moral judgment attached. How else should we describe a plant that is self-seeded and growing from the crack between an asphalt patch and concrete kerb?

This Enchylaena is tough, adventurous, indigenous, and absolutely growing on this Northcote corner as a spontaneous urban weed. That’s something fantastic and worth celebrating.
posted by spamandkimchi at 6:11 PM on March 8, 2020 [7 favorites]


"Captain Crackplants" is a great eco-superhero name.
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:42 PM on March 8, 2020


i love weeds and i love and miss melbourne 😢
so thanks for posting this double whammy! hours of fun here...
posted by toycamera at 10:45 PM on March 8, 2020


Ok, so there's a terrific little book called Weeds and What They Tell, by a German scientist called Ehrenfried Pfeiffer. I lost my copy years ago, but it is fascinating how much you can glean about soil chemistry from the kind of weeds that grow there - and they can also alert you to the presence of underground springs, which is important if you want to sink a well on your land.
posted by um at 1:17 AM on March 9, 2020 [5 favorites]


I will be honest, if there weren't code enforcement, and cranky neighbors, I would let my entire acre+ yard return to the prairie. The wild flowers are gorgeous, the tall grasses are amazing, the birds and pollinators love it, and it's so much more interesting than golf course lawns. We already get dirty looks because we refuse to let chemical companies spray poison on the yard to kill bugs and weeds, and slowly but surely, behind the privacy fence, I'm letting the native plants take over.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 11:26 AM on March 9, 2020 [1 favorite]


Our company bought a piece of farmland (for reasons) and used a giant log cabin as an office - we let the fields go fallow and the wildflowers and tall grasses were magnificent.

I was sick for 9 months straight with hayfever.
posted by porpoise at 12:50 PM on March 9, 2020


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