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Do You Suffer from One-of-Each-itis?

Why Not Replace Your Plants With Styrofoam?

Billy Goodnick, contributor

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This is growing next to a church in downtown Santa Barbara. I'm pretty much speechless. Does anyone find this attractive?

Billy Goodnick

At least there's a bit of originality and uniqueness to each plant. How much do the owners pay the gardener every year to do this?

Billy Goodnick

Yew pine (Podocarpus gracilior) will grow to 80' high and 60' wide. Here's an attempt to keep it three feet wide.

Billy Goodnick

This is growing next to a church in downtown Santa Barbara. I'm pretty much speechless. Does anyone find this attractive?

Photo: Billy Goodnick

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“Then why the heck don’t you just rip out all your plants and put in big blocks of green Styrofoam?! And how about I take that 900 horse-power, fume-belching hedge trimmer and give you a custom manicure?”

Pretty macho, huh? Of course, that diatribe has only played inside my head. My mom raised me to be polite. Besides, I don’t like risking my life when confronting plant janitors holding sharp power tools. I am usually content to rant within my moving car, windows rolled up.

This is growing next to a church in downtown Santa Barbara. I'm pretty much speechless. Does anyone find this attractive?

Really, wouldn’t it be a lot simpler and more sustainable to rip out the plants and take the Styrofoam challenge? It’s a win-win-win. Your yard would still qualify for recognition by the Mindless Geometric Shape Preserve, you wouldn’t have to spend time or money in a never-ending battle to make the plants do what you tell them to do, and you’d save a lot of money on water, fertilizer, and bug spray. 

Maybe I’m missing something and you can straighten me out. I’ve been under the impression that people put plants in their yards because they want to bring a little bit of nature into their lives.

I’ve seen nature. There’s some just outside of Santa Barbara and it’s really cool. There are graceful sycamore trees arching over creeks, centuries-old oaks twisted by the elements, masses of befruited elderberry, and mounds of pungent Cleveland sage. I have not, however, seen any flat planes, pointy pyramids, or cute little globes.

I’m not saying that there isn’t a place in the world for formally pruned hedges or tightly clipped boxwood parterres. My designs tend more toward naturalistic uses of plants, but I’ve done my share of formal schemes when a client’s taste or the style of the home dictates.

Forget about the sustainability issues—consider the creaion of green waste and the fossil fuels and air pollution that are part and parcel of the professional’s arsenal. The visual by-product of all this extra work is just plain fugly.

I have a simple solution: Right Plant / Right Place. If you have a four foot wide space under a window that starts four feet above the ground, select a plant that doesn’t get bigger than four feet wide and four feet high. I’ll wait while you smack yourself on the forehead as this epiphany settles in.

And if you do have ambitious plants that are genetically programmed to burst their boundaries, selectively and artistically shape them with a good pair of hand-pruners (not hedge shears--that's where flat planes come from) to preserve their natural character.

Here’s my rogue’s gallery of offenders. You might want to have the children leave the room now—this could be traumatic. And if you hear muffled screams coming from a moving vehicle, it’s just me melting down.

A eugenia hedge (Syzigium paniculatum) was been "restructured" to conform to
front yard zoning codes. Let alone, eugenia becomes a 60 ft. tall tree.

Yew pine (Podocarpus gracilior) will grow to 80' high and 60' wide. Here's an attempt
to keep it three feet wide.

Lantana montevidensis makes a beautiful carpet, given adequate space. Here's what
it looks like ten minutes after the gardener leaves. How many times will this be repeated?

But the big winner is this lovely juniper. Why is someone willing to leave this plant
in their front yard for all the world to see?

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Comments (6)

flowergardengirl writes: Roots are a problem down here. Some landscapers forget/don't know/never learned that roots will dig up everything. Dried up planters don't look so hot either. Or they become trash cans. Some kids these days think that mall flower containers are a place for soda cans and gum wrappers. The smokers use them for ashtrays. It's disgusting and i know there is a better fix if a good designer came in and thought about it for a couple of nanoseconds.

You could still have a planter but make it so tall that only 10 foot tall giants can reach them. Using the wrong plants is worse than having none at all. Posted: 3:28 pm on June 8th

HelenYoest writes: Hey Billy,

Dare I ask you opinion on this?
http://gardensgardens.wordpress.com/2009/03/22/a-visit-to-pearl-fryers-garden/

H. Posted: 11:00 am on June 7th

ShirleyBovshow writes: I hear you Billy Boy!

Sometimes I think that "plant janitors" assault natural plant forms in order to "have something to do" every week when they visit the site.

Case in point- when I vacationed in Hawaii, I admired a garden area near my hotel room.

Nothing wrong with it, needed a little weeding and mulching. A few straggling vines needed to be clipped back.
When I returned from lunch, the "chain gang" was finishing up on their "globe shaping" of an amazing bougainvillea! I was shocked! Why did they even think that the boug needed to be touched?

I really do believe that some of these maintenance crews do not understand plant form, design or what constitutes true maintenance. They have to accept the fact that some weeks when they visit, there will be nothing needed to be done, accept maybe step back and admire the beauty of a garden!
Shirley Bovshow Posted: 11:48 am on June 6th

Iolanthe writes: I certainly agree that poorly executed pruning, as illustrated in your hilarious (and painful) photos, is inexcusable. I also agree that sometimes people have simply chosen the wrong plant for the space and need to face up to it.

BUT I'd be the last person to squelch the gardener's creative impulse, however it expresses itself. Think of Leven's Hall in the UK! Think of the wonderfully undulating yew hedge at Powys Castle in Wales. Think of of Versailles! As for onesey-twosey plant pruning à la Dr. Seuss, well, I kinda like it. It has become part of the landscape vernacular in San Francisco, near where I live, and I enjoy the whimsicality of it. Posted: 11:48 am on June 6th

Stoneware writes: We have our fair share in South Africa of compulsive crazy clippers - but Santa Barbara seems to take the cake - You should start an awards ceremony for heretical hedgetrimming or lamentable landscape decisions... or maybe for awful alliteration - while I'm at it! Posted: 11:36 am on June 6th

InterLeafer writes: Bra-VO Billy, thank you for simultaneously addressing the issues of poor design, unfortunate plant choices and decidedly un-sustainable maintenance practices. I agree that a beautifully shaped hedge in the right place is just fine...but I'd rather see a soft hedgerow of compatible shrubs gently growing into maturity together than anything so tightly clipped that I can't identify its genus OR species...rock on. Posted: 2:32 am on June 6th

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