Earth Armistice: reform public landscape

On this Armistice Day, 2008, we must seriously consider how to establish a peaceful relationship with our planet. Millions of people must recognize their place in the global ecosystem and decide every day what they will do to protect it. Politicians and captains of industry behave as if they think we can survive here without a healthy ecosystem. Presidents, congress members, governors, legislators, mayors, and council members make policies that influence the way we think about our world. Corporate managers at Wal-Mart, General Motors, Exxon, Pulte Homes, Zachry Construction, Halliburton, Citibank, Fannie/ Freddie, and BASF make decisions about products, processes, and marketing that influence the ways that we interact with our environment.

Because of these high-level policies and corporate decisions that set examples followed by most of us, we wage war on nature, oblivious to the bounteous benefits that nature bestows on us if we but refrain from destroying it. We pave over watersheds, prairies, and forests. We replace native flora and fauna with inappropriate exotic species. We carelessly drive species to extinction. We thoughtlessly contaminate the air we breathe and the water we drink. We treat our automobiles with more care than the living organisms that make life possible for us on this planet. Because we don’t reconcile our biological needs with our behavior, we pay a terrible price and the price keeps rising.

Symptoms of danger abound all around us. One need not examine the deplorable effects of climate change, pollution, or unsustainable fishing practices destroying coral reefs, estuaries, or other marine environments. One need not survey the depressingly small numbers of whales, sharks, polar bears, or mountain lions. One need not study a satellite picture of the “Piney Woods” of East Texas, which resembles a moth-eaten blanket. Although, knowing about these things imparts an important perspective. Indeed, one need only visit a few public places in a town near you to see symptoms of the malaise.


We all know about the trash that washes down storm drains and into local creeks, rivers, and lakes. We have all seen oil slicks in our waterways. Some of us might even have wondered how the water treatment plant can possibly extract sewage, oil, gasoline, anti-freeze, power steering fluid, diesel fuel, paint, fertilizer, weed and feed, pesticides, and pharmaceuticals from river water before it arrives at our kitchen sink. Some of these contaminants enter the water supply as a result of the actions of millions of people making millions of unwise decisions or none at all. We all bear some responsibility for the accumulation of poisons in the water supply and the ecosystem at large.


All that said, let’s consider for a moment institutionalized environmental damage. Public school landscaping provides an example of government policy with effects that extend far beyond Austin Independent School District budgets and landscape maintenance contracts. Williams Elementary School in South Austin, Texas hardly stands out as an exception. Acres of scalped turf baking in the sun, punctuated by a few stalwart trees, hardly hold the soil and do little or nothing to ameliorate the urban heat island effect that plagues our city. This sterile landscape provides inadequate sustenance or shelter to birds or practically any other wild life. The lack of biological diversity surrounding our public schools not only deprives neighborhoods of an aesthetic amenity and ecological resource but it also deprives students of incidental opportunities to see a variety of benign and beneficial plants and animals without leaving their neighborhood. To make matters worse, the public pays an enormous sum of money and energy to maintain this barren landscape in the city.


Capitol Complex landscaping reflects the same misguided thinking. Texas Facilities Commission and “State Preservation Board” hire various maintenance contractors to mow lawns, shear hedges, and cut down damaged trees. Some time in the last 20 years the State of Texas decided to “privatize” landscape maintenance instead of employing gardeners directly and incurring the expenses of full-time employees. So they destroyed the beauty and health of the landscape to save a little money – in the short term. The State Library and Archives building shows the impoverished aesthetics that result from contracted grounds crews who “mow, blow, and go.” Evergreen shrubberies and St. Augustine grass grow a little more tired looking every year but otherwise show little sign of seasonal change.

Every season of the year provides a different palette of flora and fauna that the state capitol grounds could feature for the delight and edification of visitors – if the “State Preservation Board” so decided. We just endured a ferocious summer during which untold millions of gallons of water just barely kept the grass, trees, and shrubberies alive but very little if anything blooming. All over Austin, gardeners have discovered heat-tolerant plants that bloom beautifully through our oppressive summers without excessive irrigation. The Facilities Commission and Preservation Board have yet to learn about those species.


Now, Austin finds itself in autumn, which graces us with beautiful foliage colors, cool season flowers, and butterflies – everywhere except State office properties and public school grounds. I don’t make this argument strictly for the sake of obtaining full-time government worker benefits for gardeners – although one could easily make a worthwhile case for it. The case for environmentally sensitive landscaping supports an agenda of sustainability. Professionally trained gardeners, educated about organic maintenance practices, would set examples for millions of tourists – as well as ordinary office workers – who would gain a whole different standard by which to judge landscape traditions. People who see tractors mowing lawns at 20 miles per hour and blowers that sound like aircraft – propelling soil, grit, and mulch into the air – probably consider that acceptable and “normal.” If instead of that they saw gardeners working quietly, growing beautiful flowers, trees, and other plants – using rakes and brooms to corral mulch and debris – just imagine how differently those observers might view landscapes everywhere else.

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