Did you ever wonder… what can happen under… under a manhole cover? I had to stop in my tracks while strolling around Sonntagstraße in Berlin-Friedrichshain recently – there was something alive down there!
It was like a little apartment house: in almost every window, a leaf or two could be seen.
As you can see, I investigated these underground residents right up close, but still, it was too dark inside their dwelling for me to determine whether they were one plant or several, or indeed, one per window.
Here are a few individual leaflets in their portholes:
Looking at these photos a few weeks later, I wonder how these manhole plants have been handling the recent heavy rains and what will become of them next time a human needs access to whatever is hidden under circle of metal.
The temporariness of squatter plants like this is very intriguing to me. All that effort to grow in a place that’s not really theirs to occupy. Will they manage to reach maturity and spread their seeds before they are squashed or washed away? If not, was their life worth it somehow, anyhow?
love this post. maybe they are houseplants of the teenage mutant ninja turtles.
It’s like an apartment of plants. :)