The Safeway vestibule that is no longer accessed accumulates human filth. An armed security guard walks the perimeter, moving people: two men dissectings a bike, sleepy people slumped in a car, and a tweaker performing a monologue - Shakespeare in the parking lot.
The planting strips are bare. Plants that once filled a corporate landscape plan have since died because no one has been paying attention. The green scheme is just an ornament to drive profits without integration into the community. It’s a one-off project that can be ignored. I don’t see a gardening crew on retainer.
The strips are dumping areas for SDOT construction signs, dog pee, packaging and wrappers blown by cars, and discarded memoirs of unwell minds.
And yet, I see this bare patch -in contrast to cement and asphalt- as ugly when it should be the other way around. I’ve taken the well-manicured position instead of nature’s fighting against the death blanket of cement and asphalt. So let ugly dirt be and let nature have its course without human intervention - a succession of weeds.