What can be done about this Phalanx of landscape drones? I may need to do what a good Germinatirx should – dress up like the Borg Queen and assimilate them. That’ll show them.

Or I could just dress up like the Borg Queen anyway- she was HOT!

A very funny observation, and very funny pictures!
How about that shroom…and the “Borg” boxes are simply fantastically wrong! “Resistance is Futile”…apparently!

I think the crews executing this crime against the natural order are genetically related to the same creed of landscapers that every year whack back poor crepe myrtles to within an inch of their lives, (just for something to do). The same gene is inherent in the people who insist on blowing leaves from one place to another with the dreaded leaf blowers…aarrggh just stop it, immediately!

ESP.

Michelle D.! My favorite deviant! Congrats on seeing these shapes as whimsical – it shows that you are much more highly evolved than I am. All I see is the auto/default. If they were actually doing what you said, being ambitious – clouds, moons, tetrahedrons, -even Easter baskets – I’d be thinking, ‘well … cool!’ But … and I KNOW you’ve also come up against the blank stare of a maintenance worker when you ask them to stop shearing shrubs … it’s that lack of thought that gets me. It’s true, they are copying what they think is classical, or correct – but when someone (me, you …) comes along and suggests that there is anther way – why not TRY it?
I must say, I have, in my 14 years of design work, managed to change the shearing habits of 2 men. THAT may be my biggest gift to gardening, because they maintain dozens of gardens between them. Gardens that now have shaggier shrubbery!
Thanks for stopping by, Michelle!

Hi Nicole – thanks for commenting! You KNOW! I do give alot of credence to the whole ‘identifying with the colonial oppressor’ thing – afterall, the history of gardening has been very much about European imperialists imposing their classical, geometric order on the sexy chaos of the tropics and other exotic lands. And hundreds of years of that kind of thinking is very hard to undo. So here’s to eternal vigilance, lest our gardens look like a line-up of SpongeBob Squarepants!

I’ve got to check and see what you and Megan got plant shopping this weekend!

Hey there Megan – I agree! I wonder – do they REALLY think these shapes look good? I have asked a few of the many maintenance workers I’ve had to train as part of my residential design work (setting up clients with gardeners is crucial) why they do this automatically to every shrub, and the answer is always ‘because the client wants things neat’. I think that is crap. People want things beautiful, and they want a measure of control … most people don’t want plants blocking access to paths, patios, gates, etc. These over zealous cutters are trying to make things easier for themselves – they don’t want to think about anything, they want to go on auto-pilot. Also, those strict shapes mean it is easier to get in between the plants to clean up fallen leaves and other debris (which they are all too eager to do, not wanting to do anything like accidentally feed the soil). It is SO SO very hard to get these guys to understand that nature is okay. Hmmm…

Hi Mary Beth! You know, I have alot of empathy – Much of the Northern part of the Yucatan, where I am working, is tropical deciduous forest. The trees are very close together and they lose their canopies in the dry season – everything looks weedy and out of control. So I kind of get the impulse to assert control when you can – but they CAN’T think this looks good! I just can’t believe that! I think it might be a colonial impulse – copying these shapes that they’ve seen in pictures of strict English gardens, rather than allowing a shrub to take it’s form, and then pruning to enhance and lightly shape it.
But like we’ve all said, this happens EVERYWHERE … it happened right here in my garden before I left for Mexico (I haven’t even been able to post about it, it hurts too much!), so it isn’t just that the eyes of people used to tropical plants can’t understand the essence of perennial and evergreen shrubbery. It’s the not wanting to think about it. It’s taking the easy way out.
IT HAS TO STOP! Right? Like you said – we can’t compete with nature’s design … let’s work WITH it!