Back in Eagle Landing Park, thinking about the homeowner's desire for order, color, and definition, I realized that my writing and photography about nature are usually focused on finding patterns, highlighting colors, and arranging details.  When taking pictures, I have a selective eye.  I look for something noteworthy or novel.  I try to keep my horizon level.  I may use techniques like the rule of thirds, leading lines, or framing.  I balance light and dark.  I find edges and accentuate shapes.  These are the same artistic touches that are so detrimental to the environment in the homeowner's yard.  The desire for order and structure makes a landscape of wild natives less desireable in this sense. 

When I am writing about the park, or about anything, I follow rules, usually.  I make a stab at correct grammar, and I try to stick to one topic at a time.  I group my ideas into paragraphs.  I usually have a point I am trying to make.  A native plant garden in someone's back yard might not follow the expected rules for gardens.  One particular example is that, in the typical garden, any leaf that falls is whisked away in order to avoid the perception of carelessness or untidiness.  In nature, fallen leaves are healthy and natural.  Lawns are supposed to be kept trimmed, neat, edged, green, lush, and groomed.  Nature does not stay within boundaries, sprawls wildly, often shows brown leaves and damage, and resists any attempts at grooming. 

A desire for order and structure can be useful and healthy even within ecosystems.  One could add this order and structure through writing and photography, through the selective eye, rather than imposing a physical order on nature that would be stifling and destructive.  Even in doing restoration within ELP, an ordered approach is helpful, attacking vertical ivy first and clearing the healthiest areas of all invasives first.  I can even rearrange elements of the park into patterns temporarily if I put them back.  The pictures below show today's stone in its natural state, with the other stones of the beach, and then highlighted in an artificial way that allows the viewer to see the details of one particular stone.  Neither way is better.  The isolated stone is simply easier to comprehend.  Choosing particular details of the environment fits the habits of our minds.  The stone will go back home some day, and nothing will be lost from nature.  If viewing nature in an artificially ordered manner makes us like it more, then that can be a benefit to the ecosystem. 

It is not enough for me to say that the typical suburban yard looks as if people hate nature.  We need to understand the reasons for this bias against nature.  One reason is that our system of capitalism punishes those who do not display their primary asset, their home, in the standard fashion.  Another reason is the mind's natural tendency to impose order as a way of increasing understanding.  A third reason is cultural bias that has not been questioned.  A fourth reason may be that people do not understand the impact of their gardens on the environment.  People think a garden is friendlier to the environment than a parking lot, which may be true, but not by much.  A fifth reason could be security, as burglars might be more likely to strike at a home with a wild, unkempt yard, although I don't know that this is necessarily true.  All of these reasons why people have a prejudice against nature can be overcome if they are examined.  The main obstacle to a true appreciation of nature is the blind assumption by people that the way things are is the way things ought to be. 

Eagle Landing Park would be in its best possible health if it was restored to all native species, and if every yard adjoining the park was also filled with native species.  Eight parcels of private property surround the park.  The two parcels that share the most linear footage of fence line with the park are very wild looking, although those properties are not necessarily any healthier than the park.  When the majority of homeowners throughout Burien view a wild tangle of native plants as desirable for their own back yards, then I will have done my job and ELP will breathe easier.