Urban Jungle

Taipei is an impressive city for green spaces and the use of plants to improve life quality. There are numerous small parks around the city that feature well maintained plantings and also many private buildings that do the same.  Water features are also common.  The city places artificial waterfalls to disguise utility boxes and other bland infrastructure.

I have seen the plant wall used around the U.S. and they typically are dried out failures that look good only after freshly planted.   Taipei is full of thriving plant walls that benefit from the ample rain.  Plant walls are common at construction sites to hide the unsightly activities and reduce noise.  Plant walls often have species’ identification guides, so you can educate yourself about what has been planted.  Buildings use plants as signage and numbering.

Taipei has an extensive system of hiking trails in the mountains surrounding the city.  The hillsides are covered with impatiens and azaleas, growing wild.  Hibiscus plants 3 meters high grow along the roadsides in the country.  These are invasive species to Taiwan, though not too many of us complain.

Imagine the weeds of Taiwan are actually the flowering plants found in the U.S. garden centers.