This blog is rated for Mature Audiences. Send the little ones out to play.There are people out there who must hate plants and live to see their demise. There's no other explanation I can think of for the hideous photos you are about to see. Perhaps they were startled by a swaying willow tree when they were a child, or told gruesome stories about a mean thorny rose bush that eats little children. Why else would people do things like this to perfectly innocent plants?
I posit a few explanations...
No. 1: People who get paid to garden are actually plant janitors who feel that if they own pruning tools, they are obliged to use them regardless of the aesthetic results.
Fer instance...
(stub cuts, cylinders and blobs, oh my!)
(started life as a birch tree, but something went terribly wrong)
No. 2: Rather than install plants after first considering their ultimate size, then placing them so they can grow unfettered as nature intended, someone thinks it would be fun to indiscriminately plant them into any spot in the garden, only later to be "modified" to fit the space (again ignoring the aesthetic result).
For example...
(Algerian Ivy in its natural habitat)
No. 3: On their planet, this is a form of humor...
(Doctor, can you do something about this lump in my throat?)
No. 4: There wasn't a big enough block of styrofoam to paint green and place at the Jack-In-The-Box drive-thru lane, so they were forced to do this to a real plant. Ah, nature!
(This is bound to bring in more burger fans)
So you see, there's always a perfectly good explanation for the visual blight we are continually subjected to. I hope this clarifies it for some of you. Just doing my part.
I posit a few explanations...
No. 1: People who get paid to garden are actually plant janitors who feel that if they own pruning tools, they are obliged to use them regardless of the aesthetic results.
Fer instance...
(stub cuts, cylinders and blobs, oh my!)...or this...
(started life as a birch tree, but something went terribly wrong)For example...
(Algerian Ivy in its natural habitat)No. 3: On their planet, this is a form of humor...
(Doctor, can you do something about this lump in my throat?)
(This is bound to bring in more burger fans)
16 comments:
Love the humor. Especially for the burger fans.
My GTS is posted. Happy weekend.
Those are awful, but I have to say the stub cuts are my absolute worst!
And you do have to feel sorry for the poor sad birch tree.
In some cases this might be an urge to be different at any price, even if it means to make you uglier, you keep wearing these weird clothes anyway :)
Greetings,
Ewa
That lopped-off branch in the first photo looks like a couple on our street. It makes me think of a bad haircut that I have to see every day. Why, oh, why? It takes so little effort to do it correctly.
This seems to be a Southern California phenomenon. I went to Pasadena for a work trip and my coworkers thought I was a geek for taking nothing but pictures of manicured and "Dr. Seuss'd" trees.
Alas, bad pruning can strike anywhere though. :shiver:
It's just as bad here in Arizona. Desert Spoon trimmed to look like Pineapples, Agave trimmed into little palm tree shapes, Texas Sage in box and circle shapes, Mesquite and Palo Verde trees lion tailed, and the list goes on. While spending all their time with this ridiculous trimming, they don't loosen the wire ties that are choking the trees from staking that should have come up years ago. Boy, you have me going! Happy GTS,
Aiyana
It happens in Texas too... I'm not even going to attempt to explain to what happened to a Hollywood Juniper down the street... It was just sitting there minding it's own business and then suddenly, a senseless and totally unwaranted attack...
Hey, all - looks like this post struck a chord with a few people. I'd say it's good to hear that this is not just a local problem, but what's good about that? Now I want to hear about what McCain and Obama are going to do about it. That might be the crucial issue to win my vote.
You should come up here and take a gander at some of the things people do to innocent trees and shrubs. Rather scary the way some people go about hacking off their plants. It seems to be a common phenomenon.
I love your humor. Just let nature not man do its thing. I rely on her to plant much of my garden although she likes to run rampant sometimes.
jenny
I laughed out loud for the whole darned post, 'specially love the lump in the throat pic. Who knew plant tragedies could be so funny?
Thank you for your post. In a strange way it actually comforted me. (e.g., another person sticking up for plants/trees)
Some of my neighbors seem to think trees are the enemy. Someone cut down a tree with a 3 foot diameter - a beauty of the neighborhood. Then there were chunks of the tree corpse with a sign "free wood". It made me so sad. Other neighbors hat rack trees. Sigh.
My god! I know I'm becoming a snub, but you should please come drive through my neighborhood--besides flagpoles and infaltable decorations, people use rock mulch, white, along the WHOLE edge o the driveway, straight down to the street, line it with pink brick edging, and put about 4 small, sickly looking shrublike things in them which are burning, wilting, pleading for death. I just read an article about plants being smart, and I wonder if someday they just might have a revolt and prune us.
Billy, what's wrong with these people huh??? I was unfortunate enough to see a Plant Hater purchase the house next door and TOTALLY DESTROY a beautiful garden in a matter of days. I can't post a pic here but I'll send it to you thru flickr! You gotta see it!
Roberta
Very bad haircuts!
shirley
Aw c'mon, don't you think these skillfully pruned plants make the gardens look just like Versailles?
My spouse calls these vegetable lumps "tumors."
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