Freeway Flowers

At first glance, this looks like a photo of a freeway. But what I really wanted to capture was the flowerpots of coleus hanging from the onramp. Taken in May, this photo captures the tiny cuttings before they’ve even filled out the pots. It’s a lot of work to plant so many, and while they will probably fill in and look pretty by the end of summer, it’s still just one onramp for one season – coleus could not survive a Qingdao winter. Part of me wants to be impressed by whoever put out so much effort to beautify one little onramp in a big city. But I can’t help being reminded of the Phoenix freeway pot debacle from the last year that I lived there.

The image at the link to the Phoenix freeway pots makes it hard to understand what the fuss was about. What isn’t clear is that most of the pots were about the same size as planters you might have around your house. I remember wondering if someone had actually snuck out onto the road at night to place them there. These freeway pots filled with coleus in Qingdao left me wondering the same thing.