On the train to Zürich from Bremen I overheard a fellow passenger and tourist say. “I love visiting Switzerland. It is like being in paradise…” Unsaid but implied… because Switzerland is so clean. Paradise in the imagining of this man, is a clean place, empty of the detritus of humans. It is true, Zürich, a microcosm of the country, is as clean as ever.
But a relief— around the street trees, in the 0.5 sqm of garden bed the weeds have been allowed to flourish. The first plant that grabs my attention is intriguingly familiar, not because it is common in the streets of Sydney but because I suspect it is the unknown plant I recently spotted on Summerfield. In my mind a bridge forms spanning thousands of kilometres to North Rothbury in the Hunter Valley.
Further along the street, the garden bed flora are old friends growing in chaotic intensity together.
