Organisational foliage

At first glance, the Himalayan Weeping Bamboo to the left of this photo looks to be the healthier of the two and better primed for growth.

If you get up closer to (and 'get to know') these two otherwise identical plants you'll notice a couple of things.

The taller sprouts on the left hand example seem way out of proportion to the overall plant form. Below this is a very dense and very humid congestion of foliage that is infested with insects and snails that are able to get in there and stay relatively hidden, munching away at the plant from the inside out and making quite the mess. This plant also needs almost constant watering; as little as one day without water will see it start rolling its leaves into narrow cones, adopting an appearance that looks almost petulant and sulky.

The plant on the right has a more balanced and distributed spread of shoots. It gets good airflow through the body of the plant, is reasonably bug free and any snails are easily spotted and removed from the soil and around the base. It can go 3-4 days without a water before doing the leaf roll up, making it much more energy efficient and sustainable.

The plant on the left reminds me of some large hierarchical matrix organisations obsessed with 'getting ahead' at any cost. The leadership is narrowly vertical and disproportionately privileged and distanced from the main body of the organisation, which on the surface is 'vibrant' with activity but internally is stressful, confused, overcooked and plagued with unhealthy pest-like influences that are both hard to see unless you're up close to them and not helping the overall long-term prospects of the company.

Left unchecked, growth activity like that can resemble a term we might use (but I can't type here in polite company) to describe something that clusters in a highly disorganised, chaotic, or mismanaged way, to the point where it experiences compounded series of errors or problems and becomes completely dysfunctional or even disastrous.

The difference in function and form between these two plants can be at least partially explained by a consideration of sustainable positioning in broader ecosystems. The left hand example above occupies a more open and 'non-shared' position in the overall garden, getting both more sunlight and more rain (than this varietal has traditionally evolved to need). That helps it to grow much faster, perhaps abnormally so, to the point of having non-optimal overgrowth but also conditioning it to need constant levels of high energy input. It is both less healthy than it appears and devouring more energy that it deserves.

The other one is in a more sheltered position more appropriate to its evolutionary needs where it has learned to cooperate with a range of other plants and maintain sustainable growth based on more limited amounts of sunlight and rainwater.

We're probably all better off with our specimen to the right, with a balanced ecosystem perspective and more distributed leadership growth. An environment conducive to discouraging pests or at least making them easily visible and quickly removable. An organisational setting characterized by transparency, fresh air and room to move about with agency and agility rather than out-and-out competitive progress at any cost.

Something that is healthier overall and eminently more sustainable.

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