The Complete Guide to Landscape Design, Renovation, and Maintenance
by Cass Turnbull

A WOMAN:   A PLAN:   AN ORGANIZATION: PLANTAMNESTY!
This book was written as part of a larger project called PlantAmnesty. PlantAmnesty is an organization founded in the summer of 1987, "to end the senseless torture and mutilation of trees and shrubs." Mostly we concentrate on promoting better pruning--but as you see--we address other gardening issues.

The specific task of PA is to end the prevalence of bad pruning in King County in five years, as proof that it can be done anywhere--and done fast. We have over five hundred members, to whom I send a newsletter. Our motto--secare selecte--is Latin for "prune selectively."

All our aspects of work are designed to answer the question, "What would it take to end bad pruning?'

The first goal of the organization is to raise awareness. Most people don't know and furthermore, don't much care, that vast numbers of living trees and shrubs are being stupidly destroyed and uglified. Therefore, we invented a campaign. We use the combination of controversy and humor to get the public's attention. We utilize the mass media--T.V., newspapers, radio--to alert and educate the public to the issues of bad pruning. Hence, the annual ugly yard contest, the slide show of pruning horrors, and articles about topping, poodleballing, stripping, the booth that goes to homeshows and garden shows, and who knows what next. At this stage we are trying to get people to be able to identify bad pruning, and we explain the exact reasons it is considered "bad."

I am totally convinced that without the campaign no significant change in the body of public knowledge (and practice) can occur. At least not in my lifetime. Once we have the public's (and professionals') attention, we want to move immediately to, "So, you made a few mistakes. This is the better way to do it."

This is the second goal of PlantAmnesty: to give the public and professionals all the tools they need to prune and renovate properly. Hence this book, which is not meant to be the last word on pruning but a tool for the average yard owner, to keep them out of trouble. Other projects in this same vein include classes, lectures and lessons on pruning, lots of them. I teach now, and keep track of and encourage other classes. Hopefully, free or low-cost ones will be made available by our parks or by local hardware stores. We have made a video of my class and offer it. PlantAmnesty arborists already have begun to teach proper tall tree pruning to "the toppers."

Among the list of "all the tools" comes the how-to video for the homeowner called "This Old Yard" showing a real three-dimensional make-over of a yard. We are presently seeking funding and corporate sponsorship.

Another tool is the PlantAmnesty referral service of good gardeners. For people who are too busy, too tired, too old, too rich, or who tried-to-learn-to-prune-but-just- can't-get-it, there must be competent gardeners.

Finding a Good Gardener
A good gardener is hard to find. Most people in the maintenance businesses are barely "literate" in their own field. Many are hard-working, well-meaning, kind and good people who just don't know what they're doing. How is the homeowner to tell the difference? There are no state testing or licensing requirements. You could inquire whether or not they are members of professional groups like our WSNLA (Washington State Nurseryman's and Landscaper's Association), or if they've completed a horticultural degree at the local community college. These help, but, I've found, many "qualified" gardeners still don't know how to prune, and, conversely, many people who just learned from experi- ence and from other gardeners are quite good. Large landscape companies tend to lose control of quality and will send a different guy to your yard every month. You will have to look for a personal gardener in the classified ads of small neighborhood newspapers. Most really good personal gardeners are too busy to take on new clients, after about a year or two of owning their own businesses.

The PlantAmnesty referral service looks for people who have both education and experience. Often they are new in town or just starting their own businesses. We give them a test. Examples of pruning questions are, "Which is the worst choice to renew by cutting back hard? (A) forsythia; (B) quince; (C) star magnolia." "Which is easiest to reduce or keep under a window? (A) mock orange; (B) rhododendron; (C) choisya. My favorite is, "Under what circumstances will you top a tree?" A good personal gardener will know the botanical name of most shrubs. It's the key to access in-depth knowledge in the field of horticulture.

When you find and interview gardeners, just walk around and talk about your yard with them. Aside from seeing what they know about pruning and plants, you should feel comfortable with them. A good gardener shares the same outlook on your garden--really expert gardeners will learn what your individual preferences are and anticipate them, even if they are not shared preferences. But, as true professionals they will temper what you want with what's good for the garden. They will be able to help you decide on design improvements and introduce you to new, rare and wonderful plants. A professional gardener will actually enjoy the challenge of pruning a thorny shrub, and relieving you of the hard physical work. Look for gardeners in the winter when they aren't rushed with work.

Some people have fears that they will be aced out of their own gardens by hiring a gardener. But many gardeners enjoy doing "background" work, which is a restaurant term that means they will wash the pots and pans and mince the onions while you cook the stew. They will get to know you almost like a friend who's there to help.

People are reluctant to hire a gardener because they feel that keeping up on the yard is something they ought to be able to do themselves. I think this is wasted guilt for people who work for a living or have kids (also work) or are getting on in years. People don't feel obligated to bake their own bread, fix their own cars or teach their own kids history. More and more are now opting for some help with the housework, too. Garden work can be just that--work, and skilled, hard work at that.

People also hate to spend money on the gardens because it's seen as a luxury item (more on "useful" later), unlike spending money on your car which gets you places, or for a restaurant meal which actually provides necessary food. But keeping a beautiful, clean, outdoor space should be as important as keeping your indoor "rooms" in good order.

Garden Consultations
You may not be able to afford a regular gardener, but like people who remodel their own homes, you may want to bring in an "expert" to do major pruning and to consult on what needs to be done. You can save money on a major restoration project by working with them and doing all the hauling, wheelbarrowing and "grunt work" yourself. Other people may only be able to invest in a one- or two-hour consultation. Draw a map of your yard and go over it with your gardener. He will identify your plants, assess the general state of the yard and give you suggestions of where to go from there.

Good gardeners tend to be underpaid. As a class, we suffer from lack of self esteem and feel that profit is a nasty word. We are also in direct competition with cheaper, faster, unskilled workers, many of whom cut costs by avoiding paying taxes. This keeps our rates unnaturally low. You are likely to be shocked by the hourly rate of a good gardener. It's right up there with mechanics, butchers, plumbers and truck drivers. As self-employed workers, we must pay for our equipment, our vacations, our sick leave, our medical and our dental care. We spend our weekends at the dump, or buying tools and supplies. We spend our evenings doing "the books," sharpening the chain saw, or talking to clients.

Weeding, pruning and hauling as fast as you can every day is hard physical work. Being a gardener is a lot like having the flu all the time. Your body aches and your brain goes dead at the end of the day. And if you should damage your body, strain your hands or break a foot, you are out of work, with no accident insurance. So, if you hire a horticulturist be prepared to pay professional--not cheap labor--wages. You are paying as much for what they know as what they do.

The Goal
The last goal of PlantAmnesty is basically inspirational. We want to get people to see and appreciate the "nature" that's possible in their own backyards. We also want to engender a profound respect for nature as represented by the photosynthesizers--especially trees.

Inspirational soon turns to philosophical. PlantAmnesty is constantly being drawn into the greater "ecological" issues such as the cutting of old growth here at home and the elimination of rain forests everywhere. I am convinced that it is the exact same disrespect for nature that allows a homeowner to cut an 80-year-old oak in half to "preserve his view" of the water, as allows the logger to demand that half the old growth forest of 500 to 1000-year-old trees and with it the spotted owls be eliminated to keep him employed at the same job for another five years.

I feel that at the root of it is the fairly common belief that things have value only as they are useful to mankind. Some things have this useful value only as things-that-we-enjoy, like music or art or gardens and wilderness. People also commonly generalize things-that- are-expedient, convenient and useful (especially as it concerns their livelihood) into things that they think are essential for survival. Exxon's preserving of profit margin soon gets confused with preserving jobs and human life itself.

A good example of this Man (same as what I want) versus Nature syndrome occurred fairly early in PlantAmnesty's history. I reported a story in the newsletter wherein a tree pruner on a crew was told to cut down a particularly nice old elm--so that an old couple could have a view. The tree pruner refused and argued that the tree had been alive long before its "owners" and would live long after them and had, therefore, the superior right to stay. A PlantAmnesty member wrote to me to make sure that I knew that a human's life is, because God says so, more valuable than a tree's. Somehow the tree's right to survive seemed (suddenly somehow) to be in opposition to--not "the view" but the lives of the people. This type of survival-generalizing is seen everywhere. Like on the bumper stickers that say, "Loggers--an endangered species." Spotted owls are an endangered species if we cut down the old growth forest, and North West old growth forests are an endangered eco-system. (But trees, in the tree farms we call national forests, are plentiful.) If we refuse to log the old growth forest, no loggers will DIE, nor will the logging industry. It will just be inconvenienced and some loggers, not all loggers, will have to be trained for a new line of work.

Ecologists and Plant Activists often defend nature by trying to upgrade it from "useful because we like it" to "useful because we need it to survive." They warn that if we don't stop cutting down the trees and polluting the environment we will do ourselves in. They try to point out that in the disappearing plant species we may be losing (human) life-saving compounds. They talk of the greenhouse effect and increased cancer risks. This may all be too true, and yet I think it misses the mark.

What nature-lovers instinctively know and others fail to recognize is that nature (not its individual species, but entire eco-systems and bio-systems) has an intrinsic value not related to its usefulness to man. Individuals in natural systems have the right to exist in numbers large enough to preserve the health and the integrity of each system. This is why the extinction of the spotted owl is not disturbing just for the loss of that particular species, but because it indicates the elimination of an entire eco-system--breaking habitats into ever smaller and smaller pieces until what is left is a collection of preserved wild animals but no real wilderness--fields of replanted trees, but no real forests.

What environmentalists know--just as certainly as my man knew that a human life is more valuable than a tree's--is that it's wrong to woefully endanger nature. Wrong, not because people won't be able to "enjoy" it, but just plain selfish, stupid, and wrong.

The concept that nature has rights and that it commands our respect, is immediately threatening to people who then generalize it into the humans versus nature dichotomy, assuming that our own rights to survive in good numbers have now been eliminated. It becomes an issue of dominance and survival once again. The issue is not humans over nature or nature over humans--it's humans, one species among many, in nature. A little self-sacrifice for the good of the whole planet and future generations is what is called for. As with pruning out branches of a tree, we need to learn to take what we need from the rest of nature, wisely taking some, leaving some, always looking carefully at the bigger picture, preserving the health and beauty of the system, and taking selectively.

No doubt it's all been said before. Perhaps someday we will act with respect. Until then......
Secare selecte.

Please feel free to contact the author with comments, suggestions, or to learn more about PlantAmnesty:

Cass Turnbull
906 N.W. 87th Street
Seattle, WA 98117

When we plant here, let us think that we plant forever. Let it not be fore present delight or present use alone. Let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for. And let us think that a time is to come when these trees will be held sacred because our hyands have planted them, and men will say as they look upon the wonder and the the substance of the, 'See this our fathers did for us.'
	Inscription on plaque commemorating a grove of trees in Auckland, New Zealand.

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