Foliage Follow Up: Law, Or Conspiracy?

 A recent desert trip prompts the following question:  is it state law, or merely a state-wide conspiracy, that requires every Leucophyllum in Arizona to be buzzed into an unnatural shape? 
Is the natural shape of a Leucophyllum so grotesque that it needs to be altered?   They look like this when you don't trim them:
  'Splain.  Are these to sit on or something?
 Someone with hedge trimmers thought a ground cover plant should be sort of square.
Walrus mustache with Echinocactus eyeballs.
Why not cut these into cubes, too?  Did you run out of time?  Or is it only Leucophyllums you mutilate?
 Oh.  I see:  you are not very good at cubes.
 I'm waiting for an answer here, folks.  Law, or conspiracy?
 Enjoy additional foliage, no doubt better maintained, via Foliage Follow Up at Digging.   And if you insist on shearing your Leucophyllums into sad, sad shapes, I'm going to hunt you down, take photographs of what you have done, and make fun of you, as punishment for your crimes.

Comments

  1. Your post made my day. Too funny.

    I promise I will never shear my leucophyllums into cubes or anything else.

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  2. Oh jeez, this kind of stuff drives me insane. I have 3 bon-bon Coprosmas just outside my office . Flowers are rarely seen.

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    1. A license is required to drive; hedge trimmers should require same.

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  3. Every shrub at my college is regularly sheared into pseudo-geometric shapes. The Italian Cypresses required an hydraulic lift to give them Gumby tops. Not flat tops, mind you, Gumby tops. The other day I walked past a slope covered with blooming hibiscus shrubs. By the end of the week they were nice green wine glasses and all the blossoms festooned the hard, bare earth beneath. Who could commit such crimes? I think they would hang a person for that in England.

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    1. Gumby top Cypresses? Gumby top Cypresses? Gumby top?!? Good grief.

      What would they do in the UK? See: www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8XeDvKqI4E

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  4. Enjoyed a good laugh on this one. You and the Arizona Plant Lady would have a lot of fun with this subject.
    http://www.azplantlady.com/2009/11/most-shrubs-arent-meant-to-be-cupcakes.html

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    1. I saw that one, yes, it's a good one...so true!

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  5. the last one looks like an unfortunate baking experiment. Sorry the oven is iffy.

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  6. OMG, it's my front yard :~( Kidding -- I live in SoCal. But it COULD be my front yard: crushed rock, check... big, aging plants cut into... what is that last shape, anyway? Some kind of galaxy... Neil deGrasse Tyson would know, probably. Landlord sent the previous (and bad, IMHO) gardening crew down the road, and the new crew is neat and efficient, but as cubist as the other. There are many things I love about renting here, but the front yard... well, it's low-care, and very, very tidy.

    Oh, and I vote for state law. Everybody knows there are no conspiracy theorists in Arizona.

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    1. Maybe a little too tidy? Our HOA gardeners carefully raked up and blew off the HOA strip after I put down mulch there, because "mulch looks dirty". Sigh.

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  7. Garden writer Billy Goodnick has a collection of these photos under the heading "Crimes Against Horticulture". IMO this custom of hockey-puck trimming is perpetuated by the likes of Stihl and other power tool companies interested in selling product. Anyone with a truck, a gas-powered hedger and mow & blow tools now calls themselves a Landscaper. Billy calls, them rightly so, "yard janitors". The only way to combat this is public ridicule. I'm serious.

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    1. Yes I have attended a talk by Mr. Goodnick. He's a great speaker!

      Ridicule is faster and easier, and funnier (I plead guilty), but education in the long run is better, no?

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  8. Mulch looks dirty(?)(Who are these people?)
    Re: To the bizarre treatment of Texas sage and many other innocent plants pruned near to death, add Crepe murder to the list.
    I don't know how to respond other than to say the manic need to control nature in every aspect runs rampant in this country and seems to indicate some deep level of fear. Fear of untidiness? Fear of nature?
    Go forth, Hoover Boo, and call em like you see em!!

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    1. Mostly a matter of time pressure from el jefe--I think raking up mulch shows that Something Has Been Done, and buzzing things into balls shows I Have Been Here And Done Work. But ouch ouch ouch, the poor plants looks so bad!

      It's hard to be a landscape maintainer, and they are always pushed to do things very fast...it's not good for the person or the plant, but those are the economics of the situation. So sad though, such a beautiful plant, no need to do that. Crepe Murder, yes, those are just as sad. Even more sad because you can leave a Crepe Myrtle unpruned, it doesn't need it at all.

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  9. It's a Dry Heat was similarly struck, and has a shot of what could be: an unpruned Leucadendron in full flower. https://dryheatblog.wordpress.com/2015/09/28/shrub-shaping/

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    Replies
    1. Yes I read that post. But I couldn't believe how bad it was until I saw all those buzz cuts in person. They were everywhere, everywhere, everywhere!

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