Britain in Bloom Entry

The Ol' Tomcat was surfing the web and came across the story from the 'Daily Mail' in the UK: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=446420&in_page_id=1770 It reminded me of some of the times well-meaning non-gardeners have 'helped me out' from time to time. Particularly in the case of municipalities, garden goof-ups happen all the time. In our little town, it is almost impossible to keep perennials in the city beds because the summer helpers always pull them up in the fall... nor do they understand the concept of a self-seeding annual requiring seed heads to self seed.

I have lawn around my raised beds, but I don't spend much time on it... I'm more interested in the clippings for the compost than the carpet of green. No one is allowed to weed my gardens, and no one is allowed to deadhead... I'm a seed collector. Those inclined to pick, weed or deadhead would be horrified if I visited their home, pulled out the vacuum, and started making personal decisions on what was going up the hose and what was not. Am I being unreasonable? I really feel for these ladies who were eagerly awaiting the wildflowers. Many wildflowers are self-seeding annuals, so I doubt they will readily recover, and certainly not in time to set seed and come up next year.

No, you are not being unreasonable. It still hurts to remember the day I came home and discovered that the lawncare service's summer helper had chopped down all my Clematis, thinking that he was doing us a favor by "cleaning out the vines from the bushes". Needless to say, we mowed our own grass after that.

My husband once went on an alder hacking campagne. He used an axe to chop up some surface roots that were sprouting. Unfortunately, he didn't know the difference between an alder root and a peony. As for the meadow-like flower gardens, I think they are wonderful. That would have been such a nice break from the city around it. However, some folks just don't like random planting. They want a pattern, a consistancy that nature has never abided by.

A few years ago, the local Sealife Center planted wild Alaskan plants around the islands in the parking lot. There were stands of wild roses, service berries, wild dwarf Jacob's Ladder, Arctic Aster, Odorless Chamomile, and many others. A couple years ago, a new grounds keeper was hire, and he dug up every living thing, put down ground cover, and planted grass. It was very sad.

Indeed you are not being unreasonable at all! I had some vintage roses in my front yard and someone deadheaded some rose bushes for me many years ago that I was crossing or people walking by would just would just take a flower. It got so bad that I finally had to put a sign up explaining to people that when you dead head and take my flowers you are stealing my seeds! It only partially worked. I finally gave up.

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Unintentional destruction of prized plants and their parts is sad and discouraging, but even more disheartening is vandalism. I grow the plants and stuff the baskets for the business association that hangs them along the main street here in Seward. Every year, people vandalize these baskets by hitting them by leaping into the air and swinging on them until the hangers break. They also put out cigarettes in the big pots of plants that merchants put out in front of their stores. We also have a culprit or two who pick bouquets to give to the bartenders in hopes of getting a free drink or two. They walk along and snap off entire plants or pull them up by the roots. It makes me so mad and so sad at the same time.