For years a growing trend in front yards has been to do away with most of the soil and just leave a few plants as focal points. It appears tidy, means a lot less work for the gardener, and looks terrible. I guess the house owners in the above picture thought so too so they started dotting plant pots around to make it a bit greener.

This garden architecture has come under severe criticism in the last few years not just for aesthetic reasons but because it is an ecological disaster for insects and other small creatures. As a results some communities have started to fine these “gardens of death” as they have come to be called, others have started incentive schemes to encourage people to revert their yards into green oases amongst grey streets and buildings.

This home owner in our neighbourhood is obviously not amongst the converted yet. He has taken the concept a step further and dotted his pebble desert not with plants but with rocks and metal ornaments. So much so that I looked around for a sign, thinking that maybe they were selling them. Some are actually not ugly taken by themselves, and could be a feature in a green garden but in this abundance they are just ugly as hell.

One Word Sunday: Ugly.