Portulaca Bed

India · nature

A dense cluster of pink portulaca — moss rose — sprawling across bare ground after morning watering. A garden's most generous flower for the least effort.

Portulaca grandiflora — the moss rose — is the gardener's bargain. It survives heat, drought, poor soil, and total neglect; it spreads by trailing stems; it reseeds itself; and it produces these absurd magenta-pink flowers that open in the morning and close again by mid-afternoon. In Indian gardens it is often the only thing in flower between summer planting and the start of the monsoon.

This patch was on bare earth at the edge of a vegetable bed, watered earlier that morning. The leaves are succulent and almost grass-like — bright green needles that hold their own water — and the flowers sit just above them in dense clusters. Some were fully open; others were tight buds; a few past their prime were already curling shut. I shot from slightly above to flatten the bed into a kind of pattern. Moss roses are not refined. They are joyful. There's room for both in a garden, and in a gallery.

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