This winter, two trees in Hasselt, Belgium managed to deliver a blow to a brick wall in a café parking lot, reports local designer Pablo Hannon, who sent these pictures from the scene of the battle.
“I drove past this spot many times, but like it goes, only today I ‘saw’ it,” said Pablo. Apparently, the first tree had already been attacking the wall very, very slowly for quite some time. It had been wrapping its roots around the brick so gradually that he never noticed anything. Nor did the property owners do anything about the tree’s “octopus thing,” as Pablo described the weird behavior of its roots.
It was only when a second tree made a much faster movement—falling through another part of the wall—that this long-standing battle of trees vs. wall caught the attention of humans.
Do we underestimate plant behavior just because it occurs on a different time scale and physical scale than animal behavior? Sara just sent me a long article in the New Yorker on plant behavior and intelligence, in which Michael Pollan investigates this question.
Many people see plants as weak and passive. Yet when we finally pay attention, we are shocked by the things they managed to do without us noticing, just because they do them more slowly than we would. For example, see the lively discussion on this blog about plants who’ve engulfed fences and other objects just by growing.
Have you experienced any slow but mighty plant behavior in your neighborhood?
Photos courtesy of Pablo Hannon. Thanks for another great contribution to the Urban Plant Research project!
urban plant research 
tree: 1. wall: 0.
Ha ha. It was two against one though, so maybe an unfair contest?
very interesting! and indeed i know of a mighty plant that was recently cut down, though… at the entrance to the mikz in revalerstrasse there was a tree devouring a wall… now it is gone. not so great picture here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/1e8yvd7kzv462nq/PA042756.jpg
Wow, thanks for sharing. I don’t know why I never noticed this! Glad you got a picture. I’ll have to walk by and see if there is anything left of the tree.
the stump is still there… at least it was last week.
Cool, as soon as it stops being so icy outside I’ll take a detour and look for it. Thanks again for the cool photo.
Interesting speculation – and great photos. The “octopus thing” is impressive.
Glad you like the pictures, I was very happy when Pablo sent them in. I bet you see a lot of trees vs. man situations in New York on your walks!
I love photos of nature taking back what was once theirs. When I was hiking last weekend I came upon a hut totally covered in moss and ferns. It was a natural green roof! The plants were trying to take over, one spore at a time.
Thanks for sharing, Molly. In the urban plant research project we have seen a lot of human vs. plant battles in which one side or the other is winning. Fortunately we’ve also seen a lot of symbiotic relationships where humans and plants coexist symbiotically… I guess if the hut was abandoned, it’s a positive thing that nature is gradually recycling it back into forest.