Do you know about - Whack-O-Matic
Arborvitae! Again, for I know. Ready to share new things that are useful. You and your friends.
Morning coffee with the internet has come to be a tradition of mine in new years. The internet holds a much greater range of data than the newspaper, as well as less depressing things to read at the beginning of the day. No one should have to wake up with murder and mayhem in their face. A more pleasant mindset is found in waking to check the weather, sass to a note from a friend, or reading about an engaging new plant. This morning I went to look for additional data on a particularly nifty new plant on one of my vendor's sites. Not finding that I clicked on someone else link that caught my attention in their organery Writers section.
What I said. It is not outcome that the real about Arborvitae. You see this article for information about anyone need to know is Arborvitae.How is Whack-O-Matic
"Meatballs, Soapboxes and Tuna Cans", to be precise.
To a man who has never been employed within the landscape industry, that phrase would bring to mind food. To insiders it would have a far dissimilar meaning. Of course where I worked it was baseballs and cubes. So this morning's coffee was sipped between chuckles.
The author (head of sales) I would investment to say is younger than 50. Those over 50 feel that these balls, cubes, footballs or tuna cans are a staple that is required in the landscape. For the life of me I have never understood why we must have them.
What is so needful about using a shrub far to large for its placement and whacking off it's limbs to shape it into an unnatural form? Off with its head! It should wear a size 42 long jacket, but we will force it to fit comfortably into a 10 short.
It is engaging to note that also helpless poodles have also fallen victim to this manner of unnatural shaping and they are not plants. A month ago I witnessed a house cat shorn in this manner.
Mr. Woods, who wrote the afore mentioned article, has industrialized the opinion that it is an possible human instinct. That we humans have so puny that we as a matter of fact have perfect operate over that our psyche has tuned in to the helpless shrubs in our yard. While I giggled often while reading his words, it struck me that he has a good point. Why else would we so cruelly inhibit the wild attractiveness of a shrub? In my early years I had no intuit to argue with my father, the professional landscaper as to why we must do this. Quite the contrary, originally I assisted him in his whacking while trying to mimic his methods.
It wasn't until I started to fabricate plantings and began to see plants for their own personel attractiveness that I began to quiz, this barbaric practice. It has come to be a long standing discussion between us over the years. He refuses to budge from his Pro Juniper stance, insisting we naturally Must have the prickly old things. Yews and Burning Bushes have their place and are quite lovely if not located where they can be slowly shaped not beaten in submission twice a season.
During my contracting days, I would arrive at a clients home for a meeting about a landscape facelift to find the sad remains of Burning Bushes, Yews and Junipers that had resided along the walk or foundation for decades. All of them left much to be desired in the looks group after the last harsh whacking.
Common sense told me that following decades of cruel treatment, the poor things have given up growing hair. Why should they continue to grow it if for the past 25 years every attempt was quickly lopped off? How much squelching of creativity can a being undergo before throwing in the towel? In voicing this opinion to victorious lawyers and surgeons , I must admit I was rewarded with raised eyebrows. Why do we insist on planting a shrub that will grow eight foot tall and 12 foot wide in a 30 inch wide space and insist it does not exceed those confines? I am in agreement with Mr. Woods, it is one area to have perfect operate over in our lives.
So there I stand with this super victorious professional, a man of high learning, who wants to know how we can coax this spent row of 5 foot tall trunks and stems along his walk into growing more hair in the bottoms. He thinks that fertilizer cures all of man's cruelty. (Remember that you must see things through the eye of the plant?) How am I to by comparison this to this person! My professional self industrialized a cunning approach. "A landscape has a life expectancy of about 20 years. Yours seems to be about 5 years overdue for replanting." If this was not enough to convince the customer, I would go on to ask how long the wallpaper in their kitchen had hung there. Explaining that redecorating outdoors was just as needful to range in life than it was to keep up to date with their interior décor. But they wanted back what they had before it turned into bare branches! The issue of inevitable operate may very well be the answer.
Now I am not against hedges. I am not anti-evergreen. Pruning, thinning and shaping is of specific necessity to full and lovely shrubs and even some trees. Even every other aspect of life we look for the right thing to achieve the task, but when it comes to the plants we place in our yards we seem to fall short in the search for the proper element. proper planning should be the first consideration and whacking could come to be roughly obsolete. It is good to know that plant breeders are busily developing new Arborvitaes and Yews that will stay in a nice puny meatball shape without whacking. News that will lessen the maintenance you must forfeit your weekend to perform, alleviate the need to butcher the bushes and make all the hedge trimmer associates hold their breath over next year's third quarter earnings.
As for the aspect of proper planning vs. Constant replacement, if the space is 30 inches wide, then it would be best to reconsider installing only those shrubs that will never exceed 4 foot in width. Remember, a puny shaping is good and a harsh whacking is lowering the life expectancy of the elements in your landscape. proper planning is one of the best tools in creating a low maintenance planting.
Whack-O-Matic
Tammy Clayton
Copyright © 2005 Tammy Clayton
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