Ruderals - A Love Affair

The less told story of plant-material relationships.

Ruderals: A Love Affair – the less told story of plant-material relationships.

I would like to thank Loretta Bosence, Dr. Tim Waterman and Tom Keeley for all the guidance with this thesis. I would also like to thank Dr. Noel Kingsbury for sharing his knowledge.

Sheetal Muralidhara MLA, Studio 4 BARC0119: Landscape Thesis Thesis Supervisor: Loretta Bosence Module Coordinator: Dr.Tim Waterman Co-Coordinator: Tom Keeley The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL July 2021 (word count: 7456)

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Searching the ground for adventitious plants; plants that open up alternative pasts.

A still from Matthew Gandy’s film Natura Urbana: Brachen of Berlin, 2017 Source: Private video, access obtained from L. P. G. Moschetta from Cambridge University, UK (accessed May 2021) 4

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Pg. 8

1. Sites & Non-sites 1.1 Geo-Streets 1.2 Global Citizens 1.3 Chance

Pg. 17

2. Making & Un-making 2.1 Energy Exchange 2.2 Ruderal-ship

Pg. 43

3. Design or not to design?

3.1 Out of Context 3.2 Shifting Trends

Pg. 53

Conclusion

Pg. 62

Bibliography

Pg. 66

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INTRODUCTION The past year or more has been affected by the pandemic which meant closed doors and routinized walks to the grocery store. To pull away from the routinized thoughts, one looks to observing the even more mundane surroundings. We notice the constructed everyday bricks and street trees versus the ‘random’ plants that have situated themselves amongst these human-made elements, and we wonder - how did it land up there? How does it manage to hoist itself up on the brick walls carefully avoiding us? My initial inspiration for my research started off by walking with these spontaneous plant species that announced the arrival of Spring in my neighbourhood, in north east London. These plants seem to ‘roam’ around with me too, appearing, disappearing and changing at voids and cracks along my way.

These hidden gems providing a contrast to the hard, urban surfaces and are often dismissed as weeds (Kingsbury, 2021). I see them as a sign of hope and beauty that are so willing to survive in our highly urbanized cities built from low nutrient substrates. They are hope in the midst of ruination. Industrial progress has created more catastrophe in this world than what was imagined in the 19-20th centuries. The film Natura Urbana: Brachen of Berlin (2017), calls these types of unplanned plants ‘adventitious’ simply meaning ‘plants that have arrived’ in post-industrial times. The essay will look into the how and why the plants arrived in our neighbourhood cracks, by examining its intermingled relationships across geographical and geological contexts.

Landscape Architect Seth Denzin, in his essay, ‘The flora of bombed area (an allegorical key)’ examines botanist Salisbury’s study of adventitious plant species that emerged on London bomb sites. Denzin points out that it was not a study of a site, but of a process.

“What we should see, therefore, is not a plant growing in some ruins, but rather a plant for whom the bomb site resembles a Sicilian volcano” (Denzin in Gandy & Jasper, 2020, p.43). By Sicilian volcano, he means that many of the adventitious plants are not native to Britain. Many of the adventitious plants have origins in warmer climates and low nutrient landscapes. Adventitious plants first gained some attention after the Great Fire in London in 1666 and then later when it spread throughout Britain after World War II (Gilbert, 1989). The plants’ building of a curious relationship between ruination, low nutrient substrates across geographical regions (their original homes and their new homes) has given birth to the word, ‘ruderals’ in the 1800s.

Artist Robert Smithson once brought materials from a quarry and displayed it in a gallery. He called the original home of the material ‘site’ and the gallery to which it had arrived as ‘non-Site’ (Hutton, 2020). By doing this, he draws a connection between the two geographical locations in space and time. Applying this concept, the neighbourhood in London becomes a ‘non-site’ and the original home of the ruderals becomes the ‘site’.

Like Denzin, Smithson appears to see the ‘site’ as the physical reality and the ‘non-site’ as 8

a sort of display of that reality. The ruderals in the ‘non-site’ are the displays showcasing itself around the city hidden with truths.

Landscape Architect, Jane Hutton uses Smithson’s theory to draw out realities of the site, non-site and the in between journey of landscape materials. In her book ‘Reciprocal Landscapes’, Hutton traces the movement of five materials such as trees, soil, stone, steel and timber that were used in the construction of the infamous Central Park in New York (Hutton, 2020). Hutton’s findings through this exercise led her to reveal unequal labour exchange, transformation of raw materials into construction materials and the illusion of what a landscape architect symbolizes their project to mean and the contrasting reality of making them. She calls them reciprocal landscapes. Using this as a structural method, my essay will discuss and draw on adventitious plant-material relationships at various scales, and geographical regions. The discussion will contrast Hutton’s discoveries in many ways as the adventitious plants is not planned for or designed by any landscape architect nor is ruination. Certain parts of the discussion echoes Hutton’s vision, as I argue that the ruderal’s global connections form a basis from which landscape architects can pull away from the ‘illusion’ of their designed landscapes.

The luxury of adventitious plants is their visibility to anyone (especially landscape architects) along their everyday route for them to observe the plants’ dynamics. This already gives us an everyday relationship with the plant system that is often wasted due to being dismissed as ‘alien or invasive’. It is not only these plants that are ‘alien’ but our designs can be considered foreign too. In recent years, landscape architecture offices tend to take on projects that take place outside of their geographical regions. They are not fully aware of that ‘foreign landscape’ that they need to design for. The intermingled relationships of the ruderal environmental systems connect ‘local landscapes’ where design originates (designers’ familiar locality) with a ‘foreign landscape’. I argue that the designer here is the ‘invasive’ element rather than the ruderals.

Weed: non-native or alien plant species which was obtained globally and introduced to Britain for commercial and ornamental purposes Low-nutrient: material lacking in micronutrients that are usually found in rich top soils eg. limestone, brick, rubble, concrete, waste lands are low in nutrient that act as a host for ruderals Ruderals: derived from the word latin word meaning ‘rubble’

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INTRODUCTION

“The dream of alienation inspires landscape modification in which only one stand-alone asset matters, everything else becomes weeds or waste” (Tsing, 2015).

The ‘invasive’ designer is no different from the material specification in conventional landscape architecture practice. Materials for installed design in urban areas are specified as individual elements which are sourced from different locations and brought into the construction site (Hutton, 2020). How can we ‘mine or extract’ the relationship in which the materials exist instead of breaking its natural bonds and isolating them? Can we then use these relationships to specify materials in landscape architecture practice?

The ruderal systems that emerge in low-nutrient materials in urban areas are exposed to daily stress such as railways, pathways and roads. A crucial aspect of illuminating relationships is to see landscapes as a system and as a continued process. This essay is not about the plant or rubble, but about its unplanned bond.

Drawing from site visits and interviews, the essay tracks the story of three ruderals species dominating London in Spring-Summer, namely the Oxford Ragwort, the Dandelion and the London Rocket. Their bold yellow flowers stand out as they can be seen inserting themselves in the hardscapes of the city. The ‘yellow trio’ will act as the protagonists of the essay. The essay will mainly discuss the physical material relationships the plants have with their environment such as geology, temperature and so forth but will also intermingle aspects of commerce, gentrification and globalization. The essay weaves in the ecology-geology of ruderals with theories from disciplines of anthropology and geography. The inspiration for the essay draws from the works of geographer Matthew Gandy (2017). The essay also lies within the works of anthropologists Tim Ingold (2014) and Anna Tsing (2015) and landscape architects Jane Hutton (2020), Michael Hugh (1995) and Gilles Clement (2002) whose theories will be discussed in the proceeding chapters.

The essay is composed to follow the movement of the ‘yellow trio’ at various scales. of exchanges. Chapter 1 will begin with looking into the original landscape homes or ‘sites’ of the protagonists which is Mediterranean and tracing its arrival to my neighbourhood in north east London. It will also examine the neighbourhood’s material properties leading to Chapter 2 which will zoom in on the bond formed between the ruderals and the rubble. Having extracted relationships at different scales, Chapter 3 will discuss ‘built’ projects that are markers in the history of landscape architecture timeline, asking if we need a new global trend to allow for ruderals to be accepted in our material palette.

The essay will conclude by emphasizing on the word ‘ruderal-ship’. Through the eyes of the ruderals’ stubborn affiliation with rubble and ruination, this essay will provide alternative ways to think about materials used and specified in landscape architecture; as a system of intermingled entities and not in isolation.

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Fig 01: Etching of the Oxford Ragwort and Herb Robert’ from the Series ‘Nourishment’ Just like Smithson, British Artist Michael Landy, collected ruderals from London’s streets, kept them alive and then drew them in life size Source: Herb Robert, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/ artworks/landy-herb-robert-p78725 (Accessed June 2021) Michael Landy, https://www.thomasdanegallery.com/ artists/43-michael-landy/works/12880/ (Accessed June 2021)

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‘The Yellow Trio’ in Forest Road, London

Fig 02: London Rocket

Fig 03: Oxford Ragwort

Fig 04:Dandelion

Source: Author’s own, photograph taken June, 2021

Source: Author’s own, photograph taken June, 2021

Source: Author’s own, photograph taken June, 2021

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INTRODUCTION

Notes: Plant identification and names are as per the information found in CABI, 2021, Invasive Species Compendium. Wallingford, UK (www.cabi.org) and Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (www.brc.ac.uk). It is note that plant scientific names sometimes change over the years and some plants have multiple common names. More details about the ‘yellow’ trio can be found in fig. 12.

Mediterranean: Botanists, Max and Ricky claim that most annuals and biennials under which the ruderals falls, originate from Mediterranean climate regions such as California, southern Austrailia. For this essay, the focus will be on countries such as Italy and Greece and hence the word Mediterranean used in the essay will refer to the countries surrounding the Mediterranean Basin.

References: Gandy.M and Jasper.S (eds.) (2020) The Botanical City, Jovis Berlin Hutton,J (2020) Reciprocal Landscapes - Stories of Material Movements, Taylor & Francis Tsing,A. (2015), The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins, Princeton University Press, New Jersey Gilbert, O.L. (1989) The Ecology of Urban Habitats, Chapman and Hall, London & NY Kingsbury, N (2021), Interviewed by Sheetal Muralidhara, 12 June 2021, Zoom Meeting

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Chapter 1 Sites & Non-Sites “They are the product of the interacting forces of urbanization, globalization and climate change, and are made up of organisms that have been brought together by the elimination or neutralization of barriers that had kept them separated for millions of years.” (Tredici, 2014)

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Forest Road, London

1

1.Oxford Ragwort from Mt Etna, Italy

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Mediterranean Basin

2.London Rocket, Mediterranean Basin

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3. Dandellion, Greece

Legend

Untitled Map Write a description for your map.

Forest Road

Epping Forest

Walthamstow Wetlands Fig 06 ‘Yellow Tio’ Origins and Current Distribution Range Source: Author’s own, July 2021

➤

Reference: CABI, 2021, Invasive Species Compendium. Wallingford, UK: CAB International. www.cabi.org/isc.

Fig 05 Forest Road, Walthamstow, London

N

Dandellion

London Rocket

2 km

© 2021 Google

Source: Author’s own, July 2021

© 2021 Google

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Oxford Ragwort

CHAPTER 1: SITES & NON-SITES

“Their connected difference invites me to explore global coordination in its multiple forms” (Tsing, 2015).

Anna Tsing in her book ‘Mushroom at the end of the world’ (2015), seems to take Hutton’s theory of reciprocal landscapes to a global level formulating a network between multiple sites and non-sites. Tsing uses the Matsuke Mushroom (a weed) that emerges in human disturbed forests to explore corners of the world. Tsing draws parallels between the pine forests in U.S and cypress and cedar forests of Japan as former sources of timber and its relation to the production of the Matsuke. Through commerce and ecology, distinctive forests converge through tracing a single weed.

Similarly, the fire or bomb sites in London and the natural wildfires that occur in the Mediterranean, converge to generate the arrival of the Oxford Ragwort and London Rocket. In this chapter, as I trace the journeys of the ‘yellow trio’ from the Mediterranean to London, it is important to note that the ‘yellow trio’ has spread to other parts of the world as a result of commerce or migration. Reciprocity begins to emerge between multiple ‘sites’ and ‘non-sites’ as a large scale global phenomenon.

1.1Geo-Streets My neighbourhood, Walthamstow borough in north east London developed into an industrial area after the opening up of the railway in the 1900s. It initially was largely a dormitory town, now a working-class neighbourhood dominated with double story brick houses that are in constant need of renovation. Gentrification continues as high rise apartment buildings take over empty plots of land. The neighbourhood lies in a unique spot which connects multiple typologies of landscapes, forming a perfect spot to observe and compare the emergence of the ruderals. It is located between the ancient woodlands of Epping Forest which was once actively managed for timber, and Walthamstow Wetlands which is a human made urban reservoir (Waltham Forest, 2021). The key access connecting the woodlands and the wetlands is my daily haunt, the Forest Road. The irony of the road’s name is that there is no obviously visible forest, but if one turns their attention to the side-walks, junctions, brick walls and fences, ruderals can be found clinging on. Clear visible yellow flowers belonging to the Oxford Ragwort, Dandelions and London Rocket are popular inhabitants that dominate these spots making it easy to follow. They can be seen inserting themselves in designed landscapes of the upcoming high rises to the slopes of the wetlands.

“Cities have created modified environments to which natural plant communities have generally not had time to adapt. In terms of biological time, cities first appeared less than 10,000 years ago. Their root systems, adapted to forest soil conditions, must cope with disturbed and compacted soils and paved surfaces” (Hough, 1995).

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Conventional analysis of the material of a city has become an outdated system.

Geological maps show the ground and below ground layers that are made up of natural deep time, but imagine a revised edition that documents out the recent construction of human induced geology. Looking at a standard geological map of London, one may gather that the main geology of London is ‘London clay’ which forms the central part of the city. It is mixed with sand, gravel and boulder clay with large chunks of chalk (Burton,1983). Burton’s dusty old book, ‘Flora of London Area’ shows that almost no species that are characteristic of the clay shows up in his flora surveys. Some of the gravel areas no longer exist today due to urbanization, but the species associated with the gravel/sand turn up on the shifting building rubble (Burton, 1983). Seeing that the flora mostly does not have associations with the deep time geology, we must begin to look into the brick houses, concrete pavements and asphalt roads as the ‘surface rubble geology’ of urban areas.

The geology of the vertical elements of the street one day could combine with the ground and become mixed with the existing geology. It is ironical that the ruderals don’t prefer the original clay, instead seem to like the voids in the human-made brick walls.

Brick is after all fired clay. The manufactured bricks have arrived from the midlands of Britain and concrete and cement have arrived from the Isle of Portland south of Britain to form this ‘rubble-geo-street’ (Natural History Museum, 2021). The ‘geo-street’ forms an assemblage of things that have arrived from the city, country and the world i.e. the plants, the construction materials and perhaps the residents themselves are immigrants.

This analysis establishes that the ‘geo-street’ shouldn’t be dismissed as just another layer on the map, but we must understand the processes that emerge from it and what it resembles. Physically, it has perhaps not formed from geological deep time, but it resembles the deep time formation of the Mediterranean.

References: Tsing,A. (2015), The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins, Princeton University Press, New Jersey Waltham Forest (2021), Walthamstow Wetlands, available at: https://www.walthamforest.gov.uk/content/walthamstow-wetlands (accessed 4 July 2021) Hough.M (1995) Cities and Natural Process, Routledge London Burton, R (1983) The flora of London Area, Natural History Society London Natural History Musem, Visited by Sheetal Muralidhara, 8 June 2021 21

Fig 08: Surface Geology Map of London, 1994

Fig 07: New Surface Geology of the ‘Geo-street’

Source: Geology of London: available at: http://www. lnhs.org.uk/index.php/articles-british/249-geology-of-london (Accessed 12 June 2021)

Source: Author’s own collage, July 2021

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Fig 09: Collection of adventitious species in and around Forest Road, London Source: Author’s own, photographed May 2021

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CHAPTER 1: SITES & NON-SITES

1.2 Global Citizens The connection between the urban spontaneous ecology and the ecology of the Mediterranean have long been established amongst European planting designers and ecologists. The urgency to adapt to global rise in temperatures affecting temperate countries has got many of the leading planting designer community in Britain like John Little, Noel Kingsbury or Nigel Dunnett to kindle their love of the ‘Mediterranean garden’. One of the key ideas is to learn how to design with low nutrient substrates such as rubble for planting.

used by local communities in the original countries of the ruderals. Today we can still them being used in food and drinks in Britain.

First Succession Pioneers : Plants such as the ruderals that appear after ruination or in empty plots of land. They often die out as they are succeeded by more permanent vegetation such as shrubs and trees.

The Mediterranean has seen some of the earliest European civilization activities such as growing crops that constantly adapt to the harsh climates of the region. Limestone is one of the dominant parent materials of the Mediterranean that gives rise to low nutrient karst ecosystems (Zdruli, Kapur, Celik, 2010). In addition to this low-nutrient factor, fire is also a common consequence of the warmer climates (Keeley, Jon, Bond, William, 2011) Fire also occurs and moves through land due to the plant structures in the region and in contrast the plants that have originated from there have also well adapted to establish itself after a fire. This is no surprise, as we are here today due to combustion of mass and gases that occured billions of years ago. It is the basis of life.

The Oxford Ragwort originated from one such harsh landscape. It is thought to have originated on the volcanic ash slopes of the active volcano, Mt Etna in Sicily, Italy (Gilbert, 1989). Many factors such as the density of the ash are in play to allow for the first succession of vegetation which the Ragwort falls under. The Ragwort and other pioneer plants begin to weather down the ash and bind nutrients and water. The cracks of the volcanic lava fields once cooled down are not unlike the cracks of hardened concrete of Forest Road in London.

The Oxford Ragwort was collected by British plant hunters on their expeditions to Mt Etna and brought back to Oxford Botanical Gardens (Britain)in the1700s. The Ragwort is just one of the examples of the many plants species that have arrived in Britain through this method. Britain was probably one of the least diverse nations in terms of flora in western Europe (Kingsbury, 2012). Plant hunters are responsible for what we now see as the biodiverse ‘English Garden’. It is not only to Britain have species spread through colonial exploits, but to other parts of the world that Britain had colonized. Two of the trio, the Oxford Ragwort and the London Rocket have common names based on which one would think that it originated in Britain. Why not call this the Etna Ragwort?

Fig 10: British Plant Hunters in ‘foreign’ landscapes, Kew Garden Collection, 1888-1911 Source: Henry Ridley, available at: https://images.kew. org/history/portraits/henry-ridley-10645160.html (accessed 1 July 2021)

While the glory of the plant hunters is celebrated, there have been many cases where the native people of the land have thought that taking their plant away from their country is considered as stealing. The ‘yellow trio’ all have medicinal properties that are 26

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CHAPTER 1: SITES & NON-SITES

In 1922, plant collecting was confronted by a legislation pointing out the unequal exchange between the sites and non-sites of the collected plants (Kingsbury, 2012).

Many of the adventurous plant hunting expeditions were due to wealthy patrons looking to ‘enrich’ their gardens. Obtaining these plants was no easy task and many of the plant hunters have met their deaths trying to retrieve exotic species. Do we still need plant hunters today? With our capitalistic world progressing towards catastrophe and globalization, many native plants are and can disappear altogether. Globalizing the species can prevent such extinction and damage in one specific place. Ironically, ‘weeds’ can cause economic destruction by monopolizing agricultural fields. How will this challenge to the 1922 legislation be received by policy makers and the local communities? The legislation has another companion in the recent years as Brexit has imposed stricter rules regarding import and export of plants, seeds and substrates. There are other laws such as issuing of plant passports to regulate movement of plant material within Britain.

It will be interesting to see how this will further change the landscape of Britain in the years to come as we can see that no rules or restrictions can control the ruderals claim to be global citizens.

Fig 06 shows the ‘yellow trio’ current distribution around the world. Plant hunters seems to have united the continents that was once a single mass of land and then later drifted apart millions of years ago Fig 11. Many of the pioneers belong to the genre of the early plants that existed during the late glacial period (Gilbert, 1989). One of the very first plants the ‘cooksonia’ a fossil that is housed in the Natural History Museum in London shows that their structure are not far off from the ‘yellow trio’. The ruderals seem to dive deep into the past and yet hold the answers for the future. “the population of London has increased, so has the variety of plants brought unto the area ... persisting well in the disturbed conditions which are often the best the urban environment has to offer prospective plant settlers’’ (Burton, 1983).

Zooming into the city scale, the increase of the built up area of London has developed in stages, creating patterns of housing and industrial identity and this too can be related to the distribution of plants (Burton, 1983). In culturally diverse cities like London, where you would find migrants from any part of the world settle in, perhaps a familiar face for them are the ruderals such as the Dandelion. The attention-grabbing monopoly of the yellow flowers and their wispy needle like seeds is a delightful in contrast to the grey skies of Britain. Their needles can fly for miles in the wind which account for their early wides global spread. Dandelion fossils can even be found in Britain though they have thought to have originated in Greece or Himalayas (CABI, 2019). The ‘yellow trio’ amongst other ruderals form a sense of warmth, comfort, beauty and connection within a nation and across continents. It not only re-unites continents, but people too. It can be seen as a symbol of urban expansion.

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Fig 11: Map of continental drift Source: USGS, 2021, https://pubs.usgs.gov/ gip/dynamic/historical.html (Accessed 1 July 2021) Below images: Evolution of pioneers and geology Source: Author’s own photographs, June 2021

Cooksonia Fossil, early pioneers

Rock made from plants and fauna

A Pioneer today

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Arrived to Non-site through

Associated human made geo-street subtrates

Plant hunters > Botanic gardens> Post War/ Fire> railway> wind

Rubble (Brick walls + concrete pavements + mortar)

London Rocket (aka Hedge Mustard) Crop seed contaminant> Post War/Fire> (Sisymbrium species) railway> wind

Rubble (Brick walls + concrete pavements+ mortar)

Ruderal

Oxford Ragwort (Senecio squalidus)

Dandellion (Taraxacum officinale)

Recorded in prehistoric fossils of Britain> migrants>wind

Rubble (Concrete pavements)

Ruderal

Processes involved Brick=Firing of clay Concrete=mixing cement+aggregates Cement=heating and powdering limestone, clay, sand

Oxford Ragwort (Senecio squalidus)

London Rocket (aka Hedge Mustard) (Sisymbrium species)

Dandellion (Taraxacum officinale)

Origin

Associated deep time geological subtrates

Processes involved

Volcanic ash, disturbed

Volcanic eruption, heat, stress, cracks

Mediterranean

Calcarous, disturbed

Fire, heat, stress,

Greece (some speculate from Northern Himalayas)

Calcarous, disturbed

Heat, stress,

South Italy

Fig 12: Plant-material details in Non-site (left) vs Site (right) Source: Compiled by Author

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Fig 13: The Oxford Ragwort in Forest Road, London

Fig 14: The Oxford Ragwort in Mount Etna, Italy

Source: Author’s own, Photographed July 2021

Source: Photograph by artist Ellie Heo for the project ‘Ragwort’, available at: https://www.a-n.co.uk/blogs/ the-ragwort-2/ (Accessed July 2021)

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Fig 15: ‘Fireweed’ flourishing on London Bomb Sites, 1950s

Fig 16: Pioneer species resprouting after fire in Portugal, western Mediterranean Basin

Source: When fire weeds flowers, Availble at: http:// www.lnhs.org.uk/index.php/10-sections https://blogs.iwm.org.uk/research/2015/06/when-fireweed-flowers (Accessed 1 July 2021)

Source: Keeley, J. Bond, W. Bradstock,R. Rundel, Philip (2011), Fire in Mediterranean Ecosystems - Ecology, Evolution and Management, Cambridge University Press

bottom image: The Great Fire of London, 1666

bottom image: The largest recorded eruption of Mt Etna in 1669

Source: London Fire Brigade, 2021, Available at: thttps:// www.london-fire.gov.uk/museum/history-and-stories/ the-great-fire-of-london/ (Accessed 12 June 2021)

Source: The 1669 Eruption, available at: https://www. italysvolcanoes.com/ETNA_1669.html (Accessed 12 June 2021)

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Fig 17: ‘Geo-Street’, Walthamstow, London Source: Author’s own, Photographed July 2021

Fig 18: Geological profile containing limestone near Greece, Mediterranean Basin Source: Zdruli, Kapur, Celik, (2010) Soils of the Mediterranean Region, Their Characteristics, Management and Sustainable Use, availble at: https://www.researchgate. net/publication/271587202_Soils_of_the_Mediterranean_ Region_Their_Characteristics_Management_and_Sustainable_Use (Accessed 11 June 2021)

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CHAPTER 1: SITES & NON-SITES

1.3 Chance: Britain has seen the spread of urbanization since the establishment of the first railway system. The railway and their grassy banks has been a link for ruderals ever since their establishment in the 19th century (Burton, 1983). The railway seems to form an exchange between rural and the urban and areas in between. Despite being a wellknown carrier of seeds, there has been little studies on the journeys of specific ruderals like the London Rocket or Dandelion who both pollinate through wind. Many of the studies of alien species are not done until it’s too late (Kingsbury, 2021).

London Rocket was introduced by chance through crop contaminates by migrants (CABI, 2019). It gained prominence after the Great Fire in London in 1666 and spread after world war II.

There are has been some early observations of the Oxford Ragwort’s affinity with railway by Botanists Kent and Druce in mid 1900s. Cultivated in the Oxford Botanical Garden for around a century till it escaped and had soon claimed the walls around Oxford which gave birth to its name (Gilbert, 1989). It made its way to the Great Western Railway System and got caught in the speeding air behind the trains. I see the railway as an important marker in our journey of the ‘yellow trio’. Looking at the thinking behind human progress of building the railway as a prominent symbol of industrialization.

It is to achieve work and production through the means of minimal human effort and time. Similarly, the ruderals require no maintenance, nor any effort to plant it or even plan to plant it, and hence, is a showcase of the very thinking behind human advancement. It is not just a result of human or natural disturbance, but it can also cause ‘disturbance’ or ‘ruination’ for economy such as having the power to destroy agricultural crops by out-competing them.

“Druce (1927) described how he observed a seed drift into a railway carriage near Oxford, remain suspended in the air, then drift out again many miles down the line” (Gilbert, 1989).

By world war II, the Oxford Ragwort had spread throughout Britain enjoying the smoke blackened walls of the station, the heat of the metal tracks as it reminded it of the black volcanic hot ash of Mt Etna. The transport of soil has aided the distribution. Maybe if it weren’t for the railway, visitors may still photograph the Ragwort in the botanical gardens and think of it as a rare sight. The unplanned nature or to simply put it chance plays a huge rule in the distribution of the ruderals. Standard elements such as rainfall, geology, temperature, air quality etc. are elements that allow us to make speculations of predictions of the success and survivability of plants, but chance should also play a very big part of this speculation.

Fig 19: British railway zips past the rural areas, 1964 Source: Science Museum Group Collection, Available at https://www.railwaymuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/ our-environment/green-corridor-railways-and-landscape (Accessed 1 July 2021)

The chance of certain plants escaping our gardens to the streets, the chance of migrants’ boats from the Africa across the Mediterranean basin carrying seeds, the chance of the failure of our cities to adapt to catastrophe giving birth to the ruderals instead. The 38

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CHAPTER 1: SITES & NON-SITES

Landscape Architects design for growth and attempt to predict if the plant-materials they have specified will adapt to their conditions and wishes. The Dandelion a familiar face globally is now seen as ‘weed’ of anthropogenic grasslands or cultivated grounds. If the Dandelion is able to survive the geology of natural deep time and anthropogenic geology, it seems to form a mediator between the two. What the ruderals seem to be telling us is to design to the way they adapt and one of the ways they do is through chance and ruination. The important thing about chance is that it can never be seen in isolation – for one thing to chance upon something involves a relationship of two or more factors acting together. We would simply call it being in the right place at the right time or at the wrong time.

Kingsbury, N (2012), What next for the plant hunters? Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/9547881/ What-next-for-the-plant-hunters.html (Accessed June 2021) CABI, 2019, Invasive Species Compendium, Available at: https://www.cabi.org/isc/datasheet/52773 (accessed 10 June 2021) Burton, R (1983) The flora of London Area, Natural History Society London Tsing,A. (2015), The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins, Princeton University Press, New Jersey

Chance can play over many time scales. After the Great Fire of London in 1666, there was a population boom of the London Rocket (Perring and Farrell, 1977 in Gilbert, 1989). Mysteriously, it disappeared after a century and then reappeared to announce the end of World War II. Urban ecologist, Gilbert says that in a few hundred years, similar decline may face some of the ruderals. A new set of plants may begin to take over the ‘yellow trio’ in the years to come opening up another past and future.

The case of the ephermarlity of the ruderals echoes Tsing’s thought that landscapes forms in patches. To trace journeys and relationships, we must move in and out of these patches (Tsing, 2015). I challenge the landscape architecture profession to look into factors of chance that emerge from these patches – what seeds and substrates have the trains brought in or have migrants brought in? We can make use of these ‘migratory paths’ to see how adaptable our plant-material specifications are. Chance is unplanned global coordination, what we may call fate and we as humans are inseparable with it.

The next chapter will zoom-into the bond that enables this chance to take place.

References: Zdruli, Kapur, Celik, (2010) Soils of the Mediterranean Region, Their Characteristics, Management and Sustainable Use, availble at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271587202_Soils_of_the_Mediterranean_Region_Their_ Characteristics_Management_and_Sustainable_Use (Accessed 11 June 2021) Keeley, J. Bond, W. Bradstock,R. Rundel, Philip (2011), Fire in Mediterranean Ecosystems - Ecology, Evolution and Management, Cambridge University Press Gilbert, O.L. (1989) The Ecology of Urban Habitats, Chapman and Hall, London & NY Kingsbury, N (2021), Interviewed by Sheetal Muralidhara, 12 June 2021, Zoom Meeting 40

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Chapter 2 Making and Un-making ‘‘Growth, in this sense, is a process of self-making” (Ingold & Hallam, 2014)

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CHAPTER 2: MAKING & UN-MAKING

“Artefacts can develop that pursue natural processes in derelict surroundings according to ecological rules initiated and maintained by technological processes” (Latz, 2000).

Anthropologists Tim Ingold and Elizabeth Hallam look at the word ‘making’ and ‘growing’ together and not in isolation. They say that growth and making are interchangeable processes and one cannot be thought of without the other. The results of growing is an organism such as plant or human and the results of making by a human is an artefact such as brick or a pavement. Interestingly the term artefact is also used by landscape architect Peter Latz while designing with post-industrial landscapes. Latz’s philosophy for the Duisburg Landscape Park, Germany is to not to ‘make’ the whole landscape, but leave some of it to chance or in other words ‘make’ and ‘grow’ itself. They explain their theory with essays such as basket weavers, stone craftsmen, tracing their material stories in constant engagement with human interaction. I argue that the ruderals can be seen as a ‘craftsperson’ too. Ruderals have gained their name due to a result of human activities or human made processes. They play a mediator between what we have always clearly distinguished between the natural and human-made. This chapter examines reciprocity in a more zoomed in sense by looking at the strong relationship and energy exchanges between the ‘yellow trio’ and the concrete pavement or brick wall cracks.

2.1Energy Exchange The first seed that finds its way through chance blowing around in the wind settles itself in a crack along the busy road. Some seeds like that of the Dandelion are said to survive for ten years before they dry out (Gilbert, 1989). This seed begins nurturing the void space in the rubble. The rubble material initially has formed over millions of years, which has then been extracted by humans, crushed, mixed and fired - passing through various hands and borders has perhaps landed itself and now is part of a wall or pavement.

A mix of urban and natural processes give rise to the cracks such as when materials have expanded and contracted due to the fluctuating hot and cold of the climate or interactions between laid brick walls where the lime mortar has dissolved due to acidic rain. One can also find ‘cracks’ when one pavement type transitions into another type.

This forms mini sinkholes as water runoff carrying minerals flows in here. The tap roots of the ruderals begin to bind soil particles and nutrients in particular nitrogen (Gilbert, 1989). Oil from cars delivers carbohydrates that fuels bacteria or fungi to decompose substrate particles (Tredici, 2014). The plants are fixed in firmly not giving in to tugging by humans or the strong winds that form wind tunnels between buildings. Tap root plants such as the Dandelion are sometimes called companion plants as their tap roots surface up nutrients for plants with shallower root systems (Gilbert, 1989).

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Bringing our story back to Forest Road in London, the Forest Road Bridge is bounded by brick wall on one side and a metal mesh fence on the other. The London Rocket and the Oxford Ragwort that have grown a considerable size and flowered by early summer have become columnar supports for multiple cobwebs that have decided they want to live by the noisy vehicular road. Some of the demolished sites which perhaps will soon be taken over with high rise apartments due to gentrification, see the ruderals begin to grow to bush sizes and begin preparing the space for the second stage of succession. Most of the time in land tight city like London, the ruderals can never finish their success story of becoming woody forests. Unlike in smaller towns or rural parts of Britain where derelict and ruined sites maybe left untouched for many years. Roadways and boundaries of private plots in the countryside are lined with hedgerows which are maintained and preserved over many years and begin to form important ecological connectors between sites. I argue that roadside ecological connectivity in larger cities like Forest Road can benefit from ruderal vegetation where there is limited space for vegetation. Pavers which allow for ‘gaps’ can be used instead of pouring long lengths of concrete.

The gentrification at the junction of Blackhorse Road-Forest Road in the past two years that I have lived here, is fast expanding as low brick wall houses are now becoming modern high rise apartments generating massive wind tunnels. Construction seems to have been never ending for the past couple of years. The construction teams of new development have barricaded or placed materials on the designated planting roadside verges. Due to constant disturbances one barely sees birds here except circling over the Walthamstow Wetland. Tinier fauna like bees and spiders are common visitors for the ruderals. To see the bright side of this grim urbanization, the wind-borne seeds are picked up by the additional wind created by the speeding cars and bikes and void spaces between the new high rises. I argue, that landscape architects must take advantage of this new process that prevails here. Perhaps, the urban processes generated by constructed assemblages sourced from various ‘sites’ can be used to aid the movement of the plant species like the plant hunters did many years ago. The material becomes dynamic.

References: Latz, P (2000) The Idea of Making Time Visible - Post industrial landscapes, Available at: https://www.latzundpartner. de/en/projekte/postindustrielle-landschaften/ (accessed 1 July 2021) Gilbert, O.L. (1989) The Ecology of Urban Habitats, Chapman and Hall, London & NY Ingold,T & Hallam,E (eds.)(2014), Making and Growing- Anthropological Studies of Organisms and Artefacts, Ashgate London Tredici.P (2014), The Flora of the Future, Celebrating the botanical diversity of cities. , availablie at: https://placesjournal.org/article/the-flora-of-the-future/ (Accessed 15 June 2021) 45

2 DIGGING THE OVERBURDEN

Fig 03: Rocks formed from living plants Source: Author’s own photograph at Natural History Museum

Fig 20: Botanial drawings often show just the plant without its connection to the substrate Engraving of the Oxford Ragwort by William Baxter, 1834, Science Museum Group Collection Source: The Green Corridor: Railways and the Landscape. Available at: https://www.railwaymuseum.org. uk/objects-and-stories/our-environment/green-corridor-railways-and-landscape#&gid=1&pid=1 (Accessed July 2021) 46

Fig 21: A London Rocket carefully pulled out from a brick-wall on Forest Road can be seen with flattened roots binding substrate particles Source: Author’s own, photographed July 2021

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CHAPTER 2: MAKING & UN-MAKING

Fig 23: Pouring concrete during pavement construction works

Fig 24: Lava pouring our from a volcano

Source: Concrete Services (2021) available at: http:// www.quiklay.co.uk/concrete-services/ (accessed 1 July 2021)

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Source: Britannica (2021) https://www.britannica.com/ science/volcano/Lava-gas-and-other-hazards (accessed 1 July 2021)

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CHAPTER 2: MAKING & UN-MAKING

2.2 ‘Ruderal-ship’ Whilst we talk about making, we cannot forget unmaking. The rubble has to loose its original form to ruination to make space for the plant’s growth. Dandelions enjoy finer textured substrates that is used for roadside grassy patches than the Oxford Ragwort and the London Rocket who like to brace themselves on brick walls. Fauna like Molluscs also begin to gather at the dark openings in the rubble from where the stem emerges out. They help convert any dead plant material into ‘soil’ (Gilbert, 1989). In the Dust Blooms Project, artist Toland attempts to make a sculptural model of the Dandelion. In such an undertaking, one must study the last 30 million years of how it has evolved, and in more recent years, evolved to adapt to the anthropocene (Toland in Gandy & Jasper, 2020). Drawing parallels to it, the seed ‘grows’ into the rubble as the sculptors hand ‘grows’ into a mouldable material caressing it. Eventually a bond is ‘made’ between the sculptor, the moudable material and the Dandelion as the sculpture ‘grows’.

The in-between time from ruination to maintenance is when these cracks and voids develop to produce basic ‘soil’. “The results suggest that texturally the rubble substrates are as good as any topsoil” (Gilbert, 1989). The word soil itself is used in association with growing plants. Such growth is associated with material accumulation and one can say that the plant itself ‘grows’ into the rubble and the rubble into the plant through the absorption of the nutrients, water and gases. They become one and we cannot rightfully distinguish them. The plant is ‘growing’, ‘making’ and ‘unmaking’ at the same time.

Landscape architect, Johanna Gibbons in a recent lecture, said that for their upcoming project in the Natural History Museum they had to source very specific plant-material from around the world cause nursery’s just weren’t making them. If the ruderals are their own craftsperson and doesn’t need a human made nursery to nurture and discpline them, then are nurseries just an illusion?

In the more recent years, planting designer, John Little has been experimenting with growing from rubble on rooftops and echoes Gilberts findings. There has been a lot of talk by leading planting designers in Britain about growing Mediterranean like plants on rubble for gardens, but we also need people to talk about how to design or not design, maintain or not to maintain available spaces like the brick walls and the pavements instead of just focusing on the assumption that the future of planting is for gardens or similar areas that is ‘designated’ for planting. If we build more roads with pavements and walls, we must also accept that we are allowing for ‘making’ and ‘growing’ of more ruderals. This establishes an inserperable relationship of ruderals with humans, fauna and substrates - a ‘ruderal-ship’. The next chapter examines and challenges beliefs of such design visions.

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Fig 25: ‘Ruderal-ship’ Plant, material and fauna accumulation and energy exchange Source: Author’s own, photographed June 2021

References: Gilbert, O.L. (1989) The Ecology of Urban Habitats, Chapman and Hall, London & NY Gandy.M and Jasper.S (eds.) (2020) The Botanical City, Jovis Berlin Gibbons,J (2021), ‘Work-in Progress’ Lecture, Bartlett School of Architecture MA/MLA, University College London, 27 April 2021 51

Chapter 3 Design or not to Design? ‘‘third landscape” as “the sum of the space left over by man to landscape evolution – to nature alone... This can be considered as the genetic reservoir of the planet, the space of the future” (Clement, 2003)

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CHAPTER 3: DESIGN OR NOT TO DESIGN?

“Naturally reclaimed industrial landscapes often have an ecological, historic and topographic diversity that is far richer than the land reclamation and rehabilitation programmes have created” (Hough, 1995).

Order can only be achieved to a certain extent until it is interrupted by chaos. I argue, that planning and designing only takes us so far. It is not unlike the concept of uncommissioned ‘vandalism’ such as graffiti in public spaces which is not readily accepted as ‘art’. The acceptance of ruderals as something of significance can be seen as sort of trend or marker in our human historical timeline. Right now, we are seeing a new trend emerge with the abundance of the ruderals. The use of anti-planning and non-design can be seen emerging in the academic field (eg. in University of Sheffield), but one does not come across many implemented ‘non-designs’. Recent years has seen works in post-industrial landscape such as Gilles Clement’s Parc Henri Matisse in France. These projects attempt to make a claim or a statement to embrace nature’s agency of postindustrial landscapes. More than a century ago, during the industrial age, the Parc Buttes Chaumont in Paris, not far from Parc Henri Matisee in Lille was another marker in our human timeline as it saw the emergence of an engineered landscape. In this chapter, I will examine both these projects’ relationship with ‘sites’ and ‘non-sites’ and work towards asking if we need a new global trend to accept the significance of our learning from the ruderal-ship systems. The case studies chosen are out of the Mediterranean Basin and Mediterranean climate regions. They are specifically chosen as key makers of change in the landscape architectural history.

3.1 ‘Out of Context’ Parc Henri Matisse opened in 1995, the same time landscape architect Michael Hough wrote about the convergence of natural and urban processes in the city and the significance of spontaneous vegetation. He says we need to “cooperate” rather than “confront” natural processes and look for inspiration in agriculture or woodland management that has not been affected by industrialization. Drawing parallels back to the once heavily managed woodlands of my neighbourhood’s Epping Forest, is now left to its own agency to survive. Gilles Clement demonstrates a similar process through his design of ‘Derborence Island’ Parc Henri Mattise’s main debatable piece is the ‘Derborence Island’ which is a raised recycled concrete-rubble platform in the park upon which vulnerable species were planted and left to their own agency. The concrete island is surrounded by contrasting maintained lawn which is accessible to the public. The Island takes its shape and inspiration from the forest of the same first name in Switzerland that has been 54

untouched by industrialization, growing on limestone and has continuously evolved since the ice-age (Gandy, 2012). ust like the Oxford Ragwort or London Rocket, the plants growing on the concrete Island connects the non-site of Parc Henri Matisse to another geographical location.

The design can be seen as ‘out of context’, a term some landscape architects use when a building is built in the middle of a landscape, like an out of place object. The ‘out of context’ aesthetics is frowned upon by the wealthier residents in the neighbourhood and has called this park ‘unsightly’ (Gandy, 2014). This is not surprising. If we look at the gardens of the wealthier families in southwest London, we can observe the curated planting and the regular maintenance of the extensive lawns. This is unlike, the northeast of London which we have explored in the earlier chapter where the gardens and streets are mostly left to the chance of the ruderals due to lack of wealth. They become the home to the ‘third landscape’. A term that was given by the Parc’s designer Gilles Clement in 2002 for taking roots from the ‘third estate’.

The Derborence Island falls into the criteria of the ‘third landscape’ - it is highly biodiverse than its surroundings, it is abandoned, it is not modified by humans, and it has some sort of legal protection (Gandy, 2021). I would argue, that perhaps the statement that Clement is attempting to make here would have been stronger if the concrete island was left not planted with vulnerable species and if it was completely left to chance.

Landscape architect, Peter Latz, in his designs for post-industrial landscapes often leaves parts of the site to chance. An example is the Duisburg Nord Landscape Park where the former railway tracks can be seen housing the Dandelion, the Ragworts, and the Buddelia amongst other ruderals that can be seen in the London as well. Whilst I am not promoting the use of exotic plants in our design, by juxtaposing these various ‘designed’ examples, one can see the significance of the reciprocity between ‘sites’ and ‘non-sites’ as an evolving global phenomenon. This forms a new context for landscape architects to consider whilst designing and constructing.

Anti-planning or non-design: Spaces that are supposed to be ‘designed’ but are intentionally left to nature’s agency Third estate: the order that represented the majority of the ‘common people’, who had lesser rights than the minority aristocats in the politcal landscape of French History. It was the marking of the French Revolution in 1700s.

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Fig 26: Central Engineered Hill, Parc Buttess Chaumont, Paris, France 1867

Fig 27: ‘Derborence Island’ Parc Henri Matisse, Lille, France, 1995

Source: Bibliotheque nationale de France, available at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paris_et_ses_ environs_1890-1900_square_des_buttes_chaumont.jpg (Accessed 12 June 2021)

Source:Parc Matisse, available at: http://www.gillesclement.com/cat-banqueimages-matisse-tit-Parc-Matisse-Lillle(Accessed 12 June 2021)

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3.2 Shifting Trends Similar to the Derborence Island, the Parc Buttes Chaumont (1867), has an engineered limestone-concrete hill in the middle of an engineered lake planted with exotic trees and shrubs. The hill was left over quarry works that was engineered with concrete to look more natural (Komara, 2016). Concrete tree stumps were placed and railings were made to look like winding vines. Any marks of labour from the former quarry works were covered up and the grandeur of engineering, a double industrialized landscape was revealed. Any existing cracks in the quarry landscape that would have been a home to a rich mix of adventitious plants were filled up with concrete. These techniques used marked another point in our timeline of landscape architecture evolution set in the emergence of the industrial age. In contrast to the public perception of the Parc Henri Matisse, the Buttes Chaumont was looked at in awe by the public.

Why was the engineered ‘marvel’, a fake perfected landscape, so well received? I argue, that the ruderals on the brick walls of Forest Road are no different. They are an engineered marvel too, yet they are brushed away by the public. They are the results of and a showcase of the aftermath of industrialization, but unlike the Parcs, they are free of cost, they are everywhere, they don’t have any famous designer behind their existence.

The process of ruination or any results of it does not seem to have a place in our consumer oriented capitalistic society with exception of those with a more poetic or artistic eye. Clement by making the Derborence Island inaccessible to the public, closed some doors to publicizing the statement he was attempting to make.

References: Gandy,M (2013), Entropy by design: Gilles Clement, Parc Henri Matisee and the limits to Avant garde urbanism, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Volume 37.1, P 259–78 Clement, G (2003) The third landscape, available at: http://www.gillesclement.com/art-454-tit-The-Third-Landscape, (Accessed June 2021) Komara, A (2006), Concrete and the Engineered Picturesque: The Parc des Buttes Chaumont (Paris, 1867), Journal of Architectural Education. p5-12 (accessed June 25 2021) Strohmayer, U (2006), Urban design and civicspaces: nature at the Parc desButtes-Chaumont in Paris, Department of Geography, National University of Ireland, Cultural geographies. p557 (accessed June 25 2021) Jorgensen.A & Keenan. R (eds.) (2011) Urban Wildscapes, Routledge

Gandy asks if the Derborence Island is more of a sculpture than a space and calls it ‘Avant-garde urbanism’. By illuminating the relationship between social perceptions, designers’ visions and the ‘out of context’ landscapes, we can see that one cannot expect to change the minds of the public by telling them, but by challenging them and asking them. The term ‘avant-garde’ a French word associated with aesthetic expressions that face initial unacceptability and are seen as radical or unorthodox. The ruderals do no not shy away from challenges and nor should we.

Drawing on more subtle interventions of wildscapes in urban areas by Landscape Architect, Anna Jorgensen. In the book, ‘Urban Wildscapes’, characteristics such as community, dynamism, process and multiplicity are associated with adventitious vegetation that can be used in ‘anti-planning’ or ‘non-design (Jorgensen, 2011). Perhaps, the public will be more accepting if we introduce ruderals subtly till their eyes get accustomed to it. Parc Henri Matisee in some ways is like a key event on a timeline with the ‘urban wildscapes’ as its repercussions.

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Fig 28: The railway park part of Duisburg Nord Landscape Park, Germany has many of the species I observed in London Source: Duisburg-Nord - The railway park , https://www. latzundpartner.de/en/projekte/postindustrielle-landschaften/duisburg-nord-bahnpark/ (accessed 1 July 2021)

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Fig 29: Railway in Britain showing the same species as Duisbarg Nord Landscape Park, Germany Source: THE ANNUAL INVASION OF BUDDLEJA DAVIDII , https://www.railwaymagazine.co.uk/6346/the-annual-invasion-of-buddleja-davidii/ (accessed 1 July 2021)

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CONCLUSION “Our attitude towards nature is a strongly contradictory blend of romanticism and gloom” (Mabey,1973) The temporality of the ruderals allows to think of landscape design not in their stable forms. I have established that the ruderals act as a mediator between the anthropogenic and natural. They not only help us think about globalization ecologically but even the approach we should take towards cultural and social aspects such as immigration. We cannot go back to how things were, we cannot suddenly cut off ties with those we dislike, we need to observe what is emerging in front of our eyes and see how to work with it.

By juxtaposing sites and non-sites, I have brought out the paradoxical situation that we are in as the world rapidly shifts towards climate ecological catastrophe. To establish a new form of acceptance and thinking with ruderals, we must clear the confusion regarding the differences between ‘out of context’ with the case of classical design which uses exotics and a ‘design’ that trusts plant-materials to have their own agency.

Through the exchanges, either equal or unequal, examined through the three chapters I establish the various space-time scales that are at play to allow for the agency of the ‘yellow trio’. The zoomed in scale is elaborated with Ingold and Hallam’s theory of ‘growing and making’ , the mid-level scale of Parc Henri Matisse and at a global scale by drawing connections to the landscapes of Britain and the Mediterranean. There are not only spatial scales, but various timescales that are in play here. We see geological deep time drifting apart over millions of years that ‘converges’ through the spread of the ruderals, we see how a certain age like the industrial age which spans over few hundred years can speed up and drastically alter deep time processes and we see temporal signs of the ‘yellow-trio’ as first successional species that emerge in spring-summer.

I have established that without un-making something, we cannot make something or allow for growth in Chapter 2. The ruderals allow us to think with fire and heat as a basis of bonds to form and break. Extreme wildfires and heatwaves flood the news channels today. Fire and heat is not something that is something that organisms need to adapt to, it is because of combustion do we exist today. I largely used fire as a symbol of ruination in the essay, such as bombing, war or natural wildfires. We see that there is a sense of reciprocity between ruination and life to emerge.

Along with a new global trend- we need a new word that emphasizes on working with systems of nature like ‘ruderal-ship’. The ruderals marking another milestone in human history is joined by recent global trends such as ‘make your own’ or ‘self-sustain’ or ‘recycle’. These trends are more accepted by youth and supposedly the younger ‘welleducated’ people (Kingsbury, 2021 and Gandy, 2013).

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Anna Jorgenson sees characteristics of wildscapes as something that is the opposite of design. Something that need not be planned out or designed, a ‘non-design’ as a term that is gaining popularity. What will the future of landscape architects be if we begin to leave our sites to chance? Will the ruderals begin doing our jobs? It is perhaps our duty now like Clement to partly be an activist or an advocate of the ‘ruderal-ships’. We can do this by designing with the various assemblages at play within our ‘project boundaries’.

During my research investigation of tracing the origins and journeys of the ‘yellow trio’, I must admit that it is not an easy task unlike Jane Hutton’s tracing of more tangible material stories. Ruderals tend to emerge, disappear, evolve creating hybrids, and even have their scientific names changed. There is an advantage to this challenge as they are telling us what to make of human-nature relationships at any given point in space-time.

The irony in Hutton’s use of the word reciprocity is that it is used to highlight unequal exchanges in terms of human labour and ecology between a site and non-site. The irony of the unequal exchange that reveals itself in the context of the ‘yellow trio’s’ stories lies in inequality created by our capitalistic socities. The ruderals seem to mark the differences between the ‘wealthy’ and the ‘poor’ yet trying to unite them through its stubborn love affair with the inevitable ruins of our capitalistic world.

Landscape architects are at a leading position to mitigate and ‘heal’ the earth from post-industrial ‘damages’. There is a greater responsibility as we deal with the design of public spaces, the spaces that the public use everyday. This brings us, as landscape architects to see the importance of the everyday and the mundane. It is not merely enough to proclaim that our designs are a symbol of resilience and sustainability as the key argument of the essay of illuminating intermingled relationships has given rise to questions such as – what are we trying to sustain? or be resilient for? If we design for the public’s everyday life of mundanity, then we must also see the hidden (or very obvious) truths of the everyday and the actions our lifestyles put forward. The ‘ruderal-ship’ system provides us with a way of thinking and challenges us to open up to alternative pasts and futures.

References: Mabey, R (1973), The Unofficial Countryside, Collins London Gandy,M (2013), Entropy by design: Gilles Clement, Parc Henri Matisee and the limits to Avant garde urbanism, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Volume 37.1, P 259–78 Kingsbury, N (2021), Interviewed by Sheetal Muralidhara, 12 June 2021, Zoom Meeting Jorgensen.A & Keenan. R (eds.) (2011) Urban Wildscapes, Routledge 63

Searching the ground for adventitious plants; plants that open up alternative futures.

A still from Matthew Gandy’s film Natura Urbana: Brachen of Berlin, 2017 Source: Private video, access obtained from L. P. G. Moschetta from Cambridge University, UK (accessed May 2021) 64

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Online Articles & Webpages: Bernard, K & Daye.M (2019), The missing bodies in Architecture’s Talk of Embodied Energy, Available at https://failedarchitecture.com/the-missing-bodies-in-architectures-talk-of-embodied-energy/ (accessed 7 March 2021)

Wikipedia (2021), List of plant communities in the British National Vegetation Classification, Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_plant_communities_in_the_British_National_Vegetation_Classification (Accessed May 2021) Wildflowers of London:herbal remedy anyone? Available at: https://tiggerrenewing.wordpress.com/tag/ hampstead-heath/ (accessed 30 June 2021)

CABI, 2019, Invasive Species Compendium-Sisymbrium irio, Available at: https://www.cabi.org/isc/datasheet/50196#tosummaryOfInvasiveness (accessed 10 June 2021) CABI, 2019, Invasive Species Compendium-Senecio squalidus, Available at: https://www.cabi.org/isc/datasheet/117086 (accessed 10 June 2021) CABI, 2019, Invasive Species Compendium-Taraxacum officinale complex (dandelion), Available at: https:// www.cabi.org/isc/datasheet/52773 (accessed 10 June 2021) Clement, G (2003) The third landscape, available at: http://www.gillesclement.com/art-454-tit-The-ThirdLandscape, (Accessed 30 June 2021) European Comission (2021), The Mediterranean Region, Available at https://ec.europa.eu/environment/ nature/natura2000/biogeog_regions/mediterranean/index_en.htm (accessed 30 June 2021) Graham, S (2016) City Ground, Available at: https://placesjournal.org/article/city-ground/ accessed 7 March 2021) Kingsbury, N (2021), Available at: https://www.noelkingsbury.com/noelsgarden-blog/2019/1/11/olivier-filippi-and-the-mediterranean-garden-of-the-future (accessed 1 June 2021) Kingsbury, N (2012), What next for the plant hunters? Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/9547881/What-next-for-the-plant-hunters.html (Accessed 30 June 2021) Manaugh, G (2012) Mining the Lower East Side, available at: https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/ex/sustainablecitiescollective/mining-lower-east-side/36620/ (accessed 7 March 2021) Pyne, S (2010), The ecology of Fire, available at: https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/theecology-of-fire-13259892/ (accessed 30 June 2021) Komara, A (2004), Concrete and Engineered Picturesque: The Parc des buttes Chaumont, Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1162/1046488041578158 (accessed 7 March 2021) Kullmann,K (2017), Hong Kong Grounded, Photographing the zones of contact between the multilevel metropolis and the mountain, Available at https://placesjournal.org/article/hong-kong-grounded/ (accessed 7 March 2021) Tate (2002), Michael Landy, Herb Robert, Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/landy-herbrobert-p78725 (accessed 30 June 2021) Tredici,P (2014), The Flora of the future: celebrating the botanical diversity of cities, Available at https:// placesjournal.org/article/the-flora-of-the-future/ (accessed 30 June 2021) Waltham Forest (2021), Walthamstow Wetlands, available at: https://www.walthamforest.gov.uk/content/ walthamstow-wetlands (accessed 4 July 2021) 68

Films & Videos: American Freedom Alliance (2020), The Ancient Mediterranean, available at https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=NNyJz__Bw0A (accessed 1 June 2021) Denizen.S (2020), Kiley Fellow Lecture: Seth Denizen, “Thinking Through Soil: Case Study from the Mezquital Valley”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klJb9M-_3cg (accessed 7 March 2021) Fillipi.O (2019),Bringing the Mediterranean Garden into your Landscape, available at https://vimeo. com/352971855 (accessed 1 June 2021) Gandy.M (2012) AA School of Architecture, Marginalia- Cultural and Scientific aspects of urban wastelands, Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXQVGBUAnAc (accessed 7 March 2021) Gandy, M (2017) Natura Urbana: The Brachen of Berlin (Natura Urbana – die Brachen von Berlin), access obtained from L. P. G. Moschetta from Cambridge University, UK (accessed 30 May 2021) Rossellini, R (Director) (1954), The Journey to Italy, Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ9e0ReGwy8 (accessed 15 June 2021) Interviews: Kingsbury, N (2021), Interviewed by Sheetal Muralidhara, 12 June 2021, Zoom Meeting Lectures: Gibbons,J (2021), ‘Work-in Progress’ Lecture, Bartlett School of Architecture MA/MLA, University College London, 27 April 2021

Site Visits (London): Forest Road & Blackhorse Road,Visitied by Sheetal Muralidhara, June & July, 2021 Walthamstow Wetlands,Visitied by Sheetal Muralidhara, June & July, 2021 Natural History Museum,Visitied by Sheetal Muralidhara, 8 June 2021 Dalston Curve Garden (designed by JL Gibbons) 20 June 2021 69

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