Tropical Gardens Have No Place Here

Please show some social responsibility and discontinue features with tropical gardens (“Island Fever,” Gardens, by Susan Heeger, Nov. 11). Can you imagine if all Southern Californians adopted such a wasteful approach to gardening? I live out in the desert, where many people are trying to create mini-New England gardens with disregard to our rapidly diminishing water resources. I recently moved into a small co-op, and we are ripping out the boxwood hedges and replacing them with cactus. Imagine cactus in the desert! We are all living in a semiarid environment, and unless a “gray water” system is being used, there is no moral defense for wasting precious resources. These tropical gardens are the SUVs of the plant world. Gross!

Brian Blatchley

Palm Desert