ABSTRACT
The enquiring observer of plants in the city may be struck by the extent to which they depend on horticultural and technical props for their survival and health. That individual may wonder what motivates people to use plants the way they do and what purposes they serve; pollarded lindens at the base of thirty-storey tower blocks, tropical plants, dusty with age and neglect, crammed into the dark and unused recesses of an office interior, the unbroken turf and isolated trees of every city park. Why do people put so much energy and effort into the nurture of cultivated and fragile landscapes that are usually far less diverse, vigorous and interesting than the ‘weedy’ landscapes that flourish in every unattended corner of the city? Why indeed is the one tended with such care and attention and the other ignored or vigorously suppressed?
