The people of New York have a strange relationship to plants. We are perhaps somewhat alienated from nature, but nothing could’ve prepared me for the cabbages. When I first saw the cabbages I was angry.

They were growing in a tree box on the sidewalk in Midtown a place not a suitable most plants, especially a cabbage, and clearly someone had spent like a Sultan. These were big healthy transplants.
1/

Oh these were gorgeous purple, cabbages, already big and leafy: if they had been just placed in *my* roof garden, they would’ve formed the most lovely heads nurtured by vermiculture.

But no! these cabbages would languish in midtown Manhattan, get pissed upon by dogs and be inedible. It was infuriating.

2/

BUT: that’s when I took a closer look, because the cabbages were even stranger than I had thus far suspected.

can you guess?

that’s right they were FAKE.

plastic cabbages!!

I don’t know if that makes me MORE or less angry. 3/3

@futurebird One thing I remember from my first (and only) visit to Toronto -- in early December, many years ago -- was the decorative cabbages planted in small plots outside people's homes. I had no idea that they were a thing.

Brassicas, eh? Weirder and much more annoying than beans...

@darkling @futurebird Decorative brassicas are a NY tradition in much of Asia.

@Bumblefish @darkling

I'm not impressed if you buy them that big at the nursery. Which is what I thought they did. Until I started feeling depressed about the sorry state of my own cabbage efforts... how could they beat me with such healthy broad fractal edged green leaves and so little sunlight... and so many... additives?

Cheating. That is how.

@futurebird

It's just... sad. Every square centimeter of photosynthetic green is valuable in a city. Someday they will understand, I hope. But not before the collapse.

@angelastella

There are less glamorous things that will grow in such places.

@futurebird this might be the only place where watching an ATLA fight scene would not tarnish my conscience

@futurebird @angelastella boosting this because i love how out of context it vaguely sounds like a threat