I Know Why Old Men Plant Trees

In Peregrine Perch, the grass is always greener-because the algorithms say so.

Wendell Jones used to enforce the rules, ticketing neighbors for the wrong flowers, the wrong grass height, even the wrong shade of green. Then, halfway up Yosemite's El Capitan, he spots a stubborn manzanita shrub growing where it "shouldn't," and something inside him changes.

Now he's quietly planting outlawed coneflowers in the park-small acts of defiance that ripple through the community. Soon, a growing underg...