You never forget your first splash of fertiliser.
Humans have branded me a weed, lumping my quick-growing species with nutgrass and bindis, leaving me ever-fearful of being poisoned or burned, discarded for my chaos and whimsical growth.
But I have a name, a scientific one even. Oxalis corniculata.
Blessed with a thriving family, I sprouted from a cracked paver in the Botanical Gardens. My seedling-hood was a time of flourishing togetherness; plunging our runners into loamy gaps, fluttering stems like flags and unfolding our heart-shaped leaves to the sky.
We were wild. We were magnificent.
Until the Refurbishment Project.
It's just me now.
I shouldn't have survived, but the apprentice moved a terracotta pot over me before murdering my family with a broadleaf weedkiller. Then he heeded the call for break, forgetting to return.
It took me weeks to creep from under the pot, only to find the withered carcasses of my loved ones; crisp, brown husks draped across the pavers. A grim blanket of death, warning our kind that free and creative growth is unlawful in this curated Botanical Garden.
Next time the apprentice returned, the invasive root of a Moreton Bay Fig was his undoing. His novice wheelbarrow skills were no match for the pavement undulation, and his load tumbled into the forecourt. A bottle of seaweed fertiliser, perfectly diluted and inexpertly capped, rolled across my outstretched creeper. The malodorous brown liquid seeped into my pores, causing extraordinary bio-stimulation of my sensory receptors. Electrical signals buzzed from my root-tips to my stems, and everything stood to attention!
This type of nourishment would be daily fare for the fancy plants sneering at me from the top of the hill––colour-coded gardenias, fuchsias, and pansies.
Never for the likes of weedy Oxalis.
The apprentice gathered his wares and whistled away, but my stomata had been awakened. To honour my family, I would climb to the summit and feast upon the ambrosia of fertiliser once more.
My creepers grew an inch that day.
Every moment thereafter was devoted to my mission. I staked my claim along the underside of garden edging, creating new shoots at every node, my taproots driving into the soil to gather moisture and anchor my claim upon the land. I slithered in the shadow of boulders, parkoured across the rockery and commando-crawled the final meters to the prize flower garden.
By moonlight, I ploughed the moist, fertilised soil and nourished myself, blooming as my soul healed.
I beamed the whole day, till late afternoon, when the head gardener roared in outrage, finally noticing my five petals of yellow brilliance disrupting his pansy perfection.
He whipped my creepers from the ground, but I used the momentum to fling my seeds aloft. A warm updraught from a sewer grate spiralled them skywards, a smattering of dark pips silhouetted against the orange-pink blush of dusk.
Long live Oxalis.