Six Solutions To the Overgrown Yard

New causes are sprouting up all over the place these days. Take the politically incorrect yard: topped trees, sheared hedges, stripped plants, a veritable roll call of horticultural "horrors." According to Cass Turnbull, founder and spokesperson of Plant Amnesty, a Seattle-based organization devoted to ridiculing other people's lawns, there are humane solutions to the problem of excessive fecundity in the front yard. The first 45-minutes of the video are devoted to an extremely redundant tirade on tree-topping and bad pruning. One "tacky" slide after another is trotted out, invariably prefaced with a nasty laugh, as Turnbull points out one the myriad of shrubbery faux pas that we mere mortals commit: mistakes that amuse gods such as Turnbull, who dismisses our efforts at amateur landscaping with a derisive chortle. The second hour picks up considerably, since actual advice--as opposed to endless lambasting--is proffered. Instead of your basic hack and slash, Turnbull suggests "artful" pruning, moving plants when necessary, enlarging plant beds, and other solutions. Unfortunately, these suggestions, like the rest of the tape, are presented as a rambling slide show. Turnbull may know tacky when it comes to yards, but she's obviously not up on tacky in the video world. Some good information buried in a poor format with tiresome and repetitive potshots at anonymous homeowners, Six Solutions to the Overgrown Yard would have benefited from a little judicious pruning itself. An optional purchase. (R. Pitman)