Jungle in the City

Vancouver is a very green city. The amount of greenery is incredible considering the buildings are reaching higher and higher, almost touching the clouds. In fact, there are days when the top ten to twenty floors on some high rises are lost in the fog. That must be unsettling, looking out to a curtain of clouds. The shrubs, trees and evergreens are planted throughout the city, cleaning the air with their own breathing, giving us cleaner oxygen. 

The amount of plants makes one want to have the same natural surroundings inside or at least on the balcony, if luck is on you side with that option. Currently, my little jungle is enjoying the warmth inside during the chill of the winter. Last year I lost faith in a couple of California Lilacs I purchased, frozen over a week and half of deadly -20°C weather. I had to heat the hummingbird feeder with a telephoto lens warmer for a camera. I didn't want to lose my new lilacs so I brought them inside, along with my Japanese dwarf maple, my calenchoe and my 2 potted bleeding heart plants. I'm sure they will be confused from the sudden warmth but it's better that the harsh winter temperatures. My perennial bulbs, Crocosmia Lucifers, will survive so they will enjoy a dormant winter wonderland.

In my window, I have a bell pepper blooming already even though it's only 2 inches tall. I have a Chinese Money Tree that was recently pruned and rooted, resulting in three new Money Trees. Recently, I was attracted to some little succulents, adding them to my Lipstick Plant; a Chinese Money Plant, a String of Turtles, Peperomia Hope and Peperomia Glauca (Gray Baby Tears). I also have been growing a bonsai Mimosa plant, also known as a Sensitive Plant. 

All of these additions to my living roommates are doing very well considering I don't do very much to them other than water every once and a while. In the spring I will be growing tomatoes again where my balcony is perfect facing morning and afternoon sun. I had about 100 cherry tomatoes and some big yellow beauties too. A delicious snack!

With all of the greenery, I'm surprised when I see a block of newly cut trees, the severed trunks the only remnants visible hugging the sidewalk. A line of these beautiful cedars shaded a block of the city in the west end and now with them gone, the area looks naked, and similarly allowing pedestrians to a view of the surrounding architecture hidden by those branches. I wonder if the tenants above the trees feel naked too without the veil hiding their windows.

Do we take the local greenery for granted until a sudden change occurs and that natural decor disappears? The hills of Los Angeles burnt from the Santa Ana winds fueling a spark, the loss of their forests and structures devastating the area, while we watched from afar on the news channels. Jasper, a ski town in Alberta Canada, burnt from a forest fire also a year before. Lillooet, BC Canada also burned to the ground two years ago. As a child from the Gen X generation, I have seen so much and it's almost overwhelming, with all of the technology created in our generation to now witness it live on any streaming device. Watch our world burn - has it just become another streaming series to which we are desensitized? Was this happening regardless of the cameras, drones, streaming visuals and constant reporting over the internet? Or have we entered a new and frightening future of extreme weather, battering Mother Earth to the core? Will Gen X kids see it all from the start to the end? Will we be old enough to see our plant saved? Is this a natural cycle of our solar system, creating new growth after devastating death?

In my humble apartment with my self-grown jungle, I've lost my views of the surrounding mountains and Stanley Park to new apartments reaching the stars. Have we opened the door to overpopulate a small peninsula, with only room for growth vertically, and forgotten to leave room for the roots? Infrastructure is key and without it, the city could stunt in growth like a plant without aerating the roots or changing the pot to a larger size. Will Vancouver starve its root system while still reaching for the sun?