Nandina domestica. Might be 'Compacta'. There are a bunch of named cultivars but most have more dramatically colored new foliage or are dwarf ('Compacta' gets about 5' tall).

is it yours???

do you want to make it better????

it needs to be rejuvenated

ken

That's about as good-looking as Nandina gets.

Now don't malign Nandina - there are some gorgeous cultivars and even the species does a good job 12 months of the year here - the best berries at holiday time, bar none!

Nandina is a nice plant. The problem is, 93 percent of the people growing them do not do the proper maintenance pruning, as ken suggested.
Actually, the best holiday berries are from the CA native Heteromeles arbutifolia. But Nandina domestica ranks near the top, too. ;^)

Love the Heteromeles berries, too, but the Nandina last far longer once cut! Agreed that there are too many sad-looking Nandina out there...along with all of Spirea vanhoutei that are pruned into gumdrops...

Gumdropped Spiraeas? Don't the maintenance workers there know how to shape them into those horrendous individual box-shapes? *gag*

It is such a difficult problem, because the practice is so common. At one of the resorts, the head gardener was instructed to keep the electric hedgers in a locked shed. They were only to be used on the one plant row that needed to be hedged; only two specially-trained workers were allowed to use them, and then the hedgers were to immediately be locked back into the shed. Every slip-up in the system resulted in three years to get the the plants back to how they should look...

Topped trees, and ball/gummed/squared hedged individualized shrubs are a huge peeve of mine. Shows a little bit, doesn't it? lol

I became almost apoplectic walking through a subdivision near here due to the abuse that the Spirea had been subjected to. Admittedly it is a very common shrub but absolutely lovely when those graceful flowing limbs are in bloom. My husband had to drag me out of there because I think he was afraid I would start screaming.

I love the story of the resort!

Sara

It is very, very frustrating to see some of the landscape practices that go on, isn't it? Luckily, my husband was the front line with the workers and Assn. Boards. I put together the project reports and was behind the scenes. I talk straight and don't excel at tact, so is was a good system. I've screamed from my home office, on occasion. lol (And hubby still has a job.)

There's a membership organization that was formed to address this kind of thing. Note the hyperlink to the Shear Madness! page.

Here is a link that might be useful: Plant Amnesty

This post was edited by bboy on Fri, Jun 28, 13 at 22:35

...end the senseless torture and mutilation of trees and shrubs. Yes! I love it! Unfortunately, every county in the country needs a branch of that organization. The toppers ran rampant in San Diego for years, until the media finally latched onto the topic and got the information out that it was a bad practice. It took years, but the topping eventually dwindled. Then all of those underused tree toppers invaded neighboring Orange County. Return to square #1.