CynthiaMGillis

While I agree with your esthetic I am troubled by the tone of your column. It is mocking and insulting and hurtful -- and ultimately useless. And it's certainly not the best way to persuade someone to improve. I'm sure I've made some mistakes in my career as a landscape designer -- in fact I know I have. But your way of communicating those mistakes is unpleasant. You could have shown the plants in their natural form in a more naturalistic setting. Or recommended a book on pruning. Or suggested alternate plants that would give a similar effect without outgrowing their spaces. Any of those things would have been useful to the unfortunate people you insulted.

I happen to be passionate about good pruning and extremely good at it. I've been called on jobs where there were shrubs that had been chain-sawed into submission as these were. And instead of insulting the owners or their 'gardeners' I taught them what they did not know; showed them the naked interiors of their rectilinear shrubs. And they now have more beautiful gardens and better informed gardeners.