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JUNGLE ON THE ASPHALT Poor but attractive, and wanders From the uncultivated spaces urban To the green projects of avant-garde It blooms the interest for 'weeds' To the sign of a renewed aesthetic sense. It flowers the asphalt of neglected site And makes note overbearingly for the violet of the buddleia Overflowing ears perfumed Outcome on the pavement. For the gigantic leaves the heart of the paulownia For the red of the poppies And the yellow of the columnar verbascum Totem revived of an uninhabited grey urban. Here the nature did alone by force of a magnet Attract butterflies and goldfinches Near a gross artery Dealt in almost surrealistic manner To seduce and inspire from these wonders Born in the places of negligence Today more than ever The gardeners of avant-garde begin to create Green spaces, eco-tenable and little needy of cares To London an anonymous gardener of the night Built small fences around the grasses grown on the pavement To invite the passer-by to notice itself of them And to give these maps the possibility to express itself Without to come trampled. To Manhattan, a group of green volunteers Has given life to a country of adoption Of the plants sprouted for the roads Done not more like plagues But rather, more with dignity. To Paris, the micro-born oasis of green From the seeds you wander Carried from the wind On the mouldings of the palaces Next to the engines of the air conditioners Where the water drops continuously. These like exemplary cases of micro-tenable gardens That do not ask for the supplementary employment of energies.

It amazes on the pavement at home Them 'cried pioneer' That colonized an unused area Of the historic city centre of Milan Protagonists of a degree in architecture and landscape painter Co-examiners of the stretched out Studied an uncultivated handkerchief of land Between avenue Crispi and avenue Pasumio Analysing the pavement. Cried them pioneer Are the first to colonise the uncultivated places Produce soil and open the road to other species And succeeded to identify Quite forty-nine varieties of plants. A ground or a neglected site Expect always of the proceeds of colonisation That express the latent force of the flora First they arrive, the species pioneer For example the poppy Next the cosmopolitan plants install themselves Or 'wanders', native and not That they can live stable in the places Where the human and strong presence And in brief time suffocate the pioneer. Their beauty makes us aware towards the nature Of whom often we do not notice ourselves The past summer, for example The dock of Milan had become a true garden The buddleia invaded it completely with their ears perfumed To spread itself of the species wanders And their convinces of adaptation Have of the incredible one. In the case of the buddleia Better note how cried some butterflies attracts these insects An individual shrub in a position to produce three million small seeds In a season Thanks to this strategy The Chinese species escaped from the gardens And itself spread spontaneously wherever. The verbascum, as much attractive Has a root that is pushed in Squandered in the ground like a drill And allows the plant to revive after every cut. Some of these 'colonisations'

Like the North American edible tubers Today spread wherever on the marginal grounds But also the rapid and phenomenal growth of the ailanthus Introduced from China and soon became The 'unquestioned mister of the suburbs' Whose roots insinuate themselves in the asphalt And in the walls to give life to new maps, that, if cut, sprout. To the opposite one, the attractive American pokeweed Them whose berries were a time used to give colour to the wine Chose to entrust itself to the birds that feed of its fruits And the seeds spread of it wherever. On the adaptations and on the aesthetics of the plant wanderers The show 'Jungle on the Asphalt. Spontaneous Flora' At the Regional Museum of Sciences Natural of Turin 'I wanted to invite the persons to observe these species with other eyes Not to consider them with scorn like weeds' Tells the curator, Daniele Fazio 'We have asked the visitors to send us the photograph' Of plants withdrawn in surrounded Arrived of it hundred with comments of the type: Thought to be the sole to appreciate this vegetation Instead, we are in a lot'. I began to photograph the twenty years Simply curious from their beauty With the time, then, I began to include the varied species Their movements, their ecological value These acquaintance species Could be decided to leave grow them And to flower in the uncultivated areas With inevitable aesthetic benefits and ecological And without spend money for the maintenance Hurray the 'not gardening' to the sign of a tenable green From Victoria, in Australia, an example comes That conjugates extremely well ecology and aesthetics Here the gardener William Martin, theoretician of the 'not gardening' Created the more fine garden of the country, 'Wigandia' Using cried in a position of to be born from seed And to grow from sun thanks to the rainwater Most of the varieties generally cultivated in the gardens Are incompatible with our climate affirms he That supports to inspire itself to the period of the colonialism When the green one, not disponendo of systems of irrigation It had to for force aim on the rains It is necessary to choose perfectly compatible species With the climate of the place

Therefore in a position to naturalize itself My colonies of plants evolve naturally on a neglected ground. Paradoxically, the Guerrilla Gardeners Born at New York in the years 70 To fight the negligence and pollution of the peripheries small towns With unlawful actions of gardening in places public Richard Reynolds describes the intrusive plants as indispensable For the arsenal of the perfect green guerrilla As self-sufficient species in a position To encourage the biodiversity of small town. With little effort itself a garden to cost zero Affirms our genius about, Antonio Perazzi It is left observing the place Often the best project and the not-project Understand how to exploit the born plants spontaneously Adding accents with new choice introductions Between as much essences strong and capable to adapt itself Everything to respect a natural biological cycle of colonisation That allows to save time, money and disappointments. This approach transforms the gardener, or rather, the landscape painter In an intellectual one and an aware artist A lot of my plants come from thought for the sites Like the exceptional buddleia of the dock of Milan cited first One between the more modern European investment bank gardens That I have visited And the Prospect Cottage of Derek Jarman in Kent In a windy and stony place Here Jarman used the plants that from sun were born On its ground More than attractive And supported by pieces of wood and neglected sheet metal From the sea on the beaches In the environs of the house. Of this type of approach Firmly convinced also is the gardener, Susanna Magistretti A free and informal garden Where the plants make what want And replace the blow of genius of the designer And a true place of pleasure An easy garden where does not reign the anguish of the dover do And where does not be necessary not even to rip the grass. How to proceed? Sowing the plants wanders That move themselves from sun on the ground And grow almost carelessly

Between the examples more interesting The red valerian (Centranthus ruber) in flower from May to November And a rich collection of buddleia And also the Erigeron karvinskianus, a daisy that escapes wherever And every angular sunny There are the Japanese anemones They infest that and a wonder The sole work to do and to contain them And the Stachys lanata, that does an excellent service Covers all the earthly one available. From now on, the skilled gardeners And those delight begin to work A bit of more with the head And to do determined except for with the arms.

From the article 'Giungla sull'sasfalto' (Jungle on the Asphalt) by Gaetano Zoccali in Elle magazine, March 2009, p. 243 -246). Translated by online translator, re-transcribed and edited.