Workers planting flowers in the roadside flower beds. Everything that grows here, pretty much, needs to be irrigated. These flowers are planted in between rows of black hoses – but even then, the flowers don’t last long. For some reason, begonias are often what get planted, which is an odd choice, I think, because if memories of my mom’s suburban gardens are any indication, begonias grow best in partial shade.
Ain’t none of that here.
I know more about the flowers being planted than I do about the men doing the planting. Depending on who you ask, the money these men make here far exceeds the money they could make in Sri Lanka, Islamabad, Goa; or they are being wildly exploited and are little more than flower-planting prisoners.
I expect the truth resides somewhere in between.
I recently heard that plants do well next to highways because of the extra carbon dioxide, but of course they do need water. And their raised bed looks pretty skinny, which means it will dry out fast. Nice shot!
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I was going to make the analogy between the begonias wanting shade & water, and the workers wanting the same thing, but I thought that might be a tad heavy-handed. I didn’t know that the width of the plant beds mattered…hmm
At least they plant them in an attempt to make things prettier!
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Well, this city (like most, I guess) does a good job of prettying up the places where the tourists go, or the affluent locals…but then the places where the poor people live? No begonias there…
Seems like a gratuitous waste of water to me. But it sounds like that might be Abu Dhabi’s motto….
public displays of water (fountains, green space, etc) = wealth
it’s like the novel Dune, by Frank Herbert. Water is money here…absolutely. And this city/country is profligate with it – and it’s the scarcest resource they’ve got.