The size and sheen of today’s solar panels are not easy to hide in a landscape. How can we elegantly integrate them onto our land while still generating renewable energy?

Similarly, controlling rainwater runoff by allowing it to soak into the ground requires creating a swale or depression. How can we turn such a low point into a beautiful sustainable garden?

“Sometimes green solutions on our properties can look downright ugly,” said Julie Moir Messervy, an award-winning landscape designer, author and lecturer based in Vermont. “But these days, there are so many ways to create landscapes that combine ecological practices with attractive design.”

Messervy has written six books that explain landscape-design concepts in simple terms for homeowners. Her latest is “Landscaping Ideas that Work.”

“Good design is not only affordable, approachable and attainable, it’s also sustainable,” she said.

Messervy contends that, with focus and know-how, sustainable features such as solar panels, rainwater collection systems, green roofs and beds planted with native plants can be blended into home landscapes in imaginative and aesthetically pleasing ways. On your property, sustainability and style can go hand in hand for those unwilling to sacrifice one for the other.

According to Messervy, a “new homestead” accomplishes both: The house and its adjoining land use time-honored, earth-friendly practices that harmonize with today’s green technologies and materials — all arranged using principles of good design.

“We strive for beauty and meaning as we seek to link good landscape design with sustainable outdoor living,” she said.

To create your own “new homestead,” Messervy recommends beginning with four basic concepts.

Come from the earth. “Start by respecting the earth, by learning from it and responding to it,” Messervy said. “Past generations lived on the land in appropriate ways, providing sustenance not only for themselves and their families, but also for the land.” She contends that new sustainable methods and practices can be grafted onto old ideas of living lightly on the land.

Opt for double duty. “Do two things at once and instantly they become more integrated into your life and property,” Messervy said. For example, a brick retaining wall can be replaced by a sustainable green wall that performs the same function while doubling as an eye-pleasing vertical garden for native plants.

Start with an organizing strategy. “Don’t plunk a vegetable garden, orchard or solar panel just anywhere in your yard,” Messervy said. Instead, see every feature as part of a larger concept — a “big idea” that helps to unify disparate parts of your property. Do you want to create a “grandchild paradise” for instance, or a wildlife sanctuary, or an edible landscape? Determining what your property might become helps you get there.

Demystify landscape design. Education is a valuable tool with DIY landscape projects. Use resources geared to homeowners, such as books, blogs and websites. Especially helpful are apps that enable homeowners to mock up their property and get help designing it. Armed with these tools, “What once might have felt scary can now become play,” Messervy said. “Homeowners can more confidently design their own homestead with a focus on sustainability with style.”

Lynn Jackson Kirk is a public relations writer for Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden.

February 5, 2014;Politico

Vice President Joe Biden pulls few punches. Just ask President Obama, who had to get off his noncommittal public stance on LGBT marriage when Biden sort of forced the issue. This week, in the wake of President Obama’s assigning Biden to chair a task force on job training (and issuing an executive memorandum that did not use the word “union” once), the Vice President gave a speech at the annual meeting of the United Auto Workers that was as pro-union as almost anything that anyone from the Obama administration has ever uttered.

Biden told the UAW assemblage that collective bargaining is the “bedrock of our economy,” that “labor built the middle class,” and that, referring to unions, “You guys are the only guys keeping the barbarians at the gate.” Now, tell us what you really think, Joe!

Citing right-to-work laws that were enacted in Michigan and Indiana in recent years and other governmental initiatives limiting unions’ collective bargaining, Biden ascribed these policy reversals to “a concerted, full-throated, well-organized, well-financed, well-thought-out effort waging war on labor’s house.”

Given that Vice President Biden is now in charge of a task force to generate ideas on job training programs that work for the parts of the economy that are likely to grow jobs, are his strongly pro-union statements at the UAW conference consistent with the task force deliberations? Here is the Bureau of Labor Statistics review of the occupational categories likely to show the largest proportional and absolute employment increases between 2012 and 2022. It would appear that the VP is reminding the unions that they have organizing challenges ahead:

While the president’s speech seemed to imply a focus on job creation in the “knowledge-driven” part of the economy, which tends to be not particularly strongly unionized, the largest areas of job growth during the next decade—personal care aides, home health aides, registered nurses, retail salespersons, food preparation and serving workers, nursing assistants, and secretaries and administrative assistants—are all battleground occupations for organized labor, including for unions such as the UAW that have expanded far beyond their original labor constituencies.

In essence, the challenge depends on one’s impressions of the role of unions. Conservatives and many employers think that unions stand in the way of certain kinds of job and economic growth, while an alternative perspective is that union organizing, collective bargaining, and union membership have been the instruments that thrust much of working-class America into the middle class.

If you recall the emphasis in both the president’s State of the Union and his executive memorandum on job training, there was a strong call for apprenticeships. On the AFL-CIO website, the standard-bearer of organized labor in the U.S. describes job training and apprenticeships as “at the heart of unions’ efforts to ensure that working men and women have a voice in our country’s ever-changing economy” and claims that unions train more than 450,000 workers annually. During the SOTU, Elizabeth Shuler, the Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO tweeted that unions are the second-largest provider of training in the U.S. next to the U.S. military, though the task force doesn’t make that point.

Perhaps Vice President Biden was reminding the unions that despite their absence from the president’s job training memorandum, organized labor has a role to play in the emerging, job-creating occupations of the economy to ensure that those workers get the kinds of workplace protections that they need and deserve. From a 501(c)(3) nonprofit perspective (as opposed to a 501(c)(5) union perspective), the BLS chart might be seen as identifying the top occupations in which nonprofits and unions alike should be focusing their job training and job placement activities—and hopefully with their collective bargaining and workplace rights protected.—Rick Cohen

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Dexter Leader News

Published: Friday, February 07, 2014

By Sean Dalton
sdalton@heritage.com
Twitter: @seankdalton

Coley O’Brian, owner of Dexter’s AW.

View and purchase photos

DEXTER — Coley O’Brian, owner of Dexter’s AW on Dexter-Chelsea Road and Main Street, said recently that he has plans for further improvements for visitors to one of Dexter village’s most prized local businesses.

Last season, O’Brien altered the building and grounds of his business for both aesthetic and practical reasons.

PHOTOS: Dexter’s AW receives renovations

Those cruising into or out of the village near the viaduct toward the end of last season might have noticed new awnings and, at night, more brilliant lighting illuminating Dexter AW like a beacon.

“I was worried about the orange,” O’Brian said of the building improvements, which included a new wavy awning skirt around the bottom of his building’s roof, which is painted orange along with structural support beams holding that awning up, which were also refurbished.

In addition to the new lighting, O’Brien commissioned L-n-J Landscaping to building a brick patio with picnic table seating and a railed overlook into the downtown and Mill Creek Park.

“The problem we had to address with the awning was that it went straight across at the law point (of the skirt that replaced it), so vehicles like box trucks were constantly hitting it because that low point went all the way across,” O’Brien said.

A family friend had the idea to replace the awning, according to O’Brien. Some rough ideas were submitted to the AW All-American Foods, which has state headquarters in Westland. The corporate franchise architects turned those rough ideas into blueprints and O’Brien was tasked with hiring a company to put those plans into action.

O’Brien said he was at first concerned about going from the highly noticeable and unique teal color that once adorned his building, but he says he pleased with the end result in terms of the color palette as well.

Eventually, more lighting will be added to illuminate the building’s roof above the new skirt. Continued…

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The idea behind the design of the brick patio was to provide almost an extension of the recently completed and award-winning Mill Creek Park, which is just across the street.

“I like to think of it as almost a little extension of the park,” O’Brien said. “We wanted to mimic some of the stonework the village used, and with the extension to Hudson-Mills that just opened, we think it’s a great opportunity for our business.”

He added that there is a possibility of talks opening with the village this year on the possibility of having a sidewalk installed so pedestrians can more easily cross Dexter-Chelsea Road at the nearby intersection.

“That also seems to be a good fit with the theme locally of promoting and supporting pedestrian traffic,” O’Brien said. “Sometimes it’s rough getting over here from the village for people.”

There are also some new events and menu programming coming in 2014, including a monthly feature of a limited-time-only beverage, main meal item and side item beginning when the seasonal business opens its doors again March 1.

Being the parent of a three and a six-year-old, O’Brien said he also has some fun planned for children as well.

“I came up with this idea last season of having kids drives up in little electric cars — like a cruise for kids, where they drive around the parking lot, park and a car hop comes out and serves them and their parents,” O’Brien said.

• 1
• 2
• See Full Story

DEXTER — Coley O’Brian, owner of Dexter’s AW on Dexter-Chelsea Road and Main Street, said recently that he has plans for further improvements for visitors to one of Dexter village’s most prized local businesses.

Last season, O’Brien altered the building and grounds of his business for both aesthetic and practical reasons.

PHOTOS: Dexter’s AW receives renovations

Those cruising into or out of the village near the viaduct toward the end of last season might have noticed new awnings and, at night, more brilliant lighting illuminating Dexter AW like a beacon.

“I was worried about the orange,” O’Brian said of the building improvements, which included a new wavy awning skirt around the bottom of his building’s roof, which is painted orange along with structural support beams holding that awning up, which were also refurbished.

In addition to the new lighting, O’Brien commissioned L-n-J Landscaping to building a brick patio with picnic table seating and a railed overlook into the downtown and Mill Creek Park.

“The problem we had to address with the awning was that it went straight across at the law point (of the skirt that replaced it), so vehicles like box trucks were constantly hitting it because that low point went all the way across,” O’Brien said.

A family friend had the idea to replace the awning, according to O’Brien. Some rough ideas were submitted to the AW All-American Foods, which has state headquarters in Westland. The corporate franchise architects turned those rough ideas into blueprints and O’Brien was tasked with hiring a company to put those plans into action.

O’Brien said he was at first concerned about going from the highly noticeable and unique teal color that once adorned his building, but he says he pleased with the end result in terms of the color palette as well.

Eventually, more lighting will be added to illuminate the building’s roof above the new skirt.

The idea behind the design of the brick patio was to provide almost an extension of the recently completed and award-winning Mill Creek Park, which is just across the street.

“I like to think of it as almost a little extension of the park,” O’Brien said. “We wanted to mimic some of the stonework the village used, and with the extension to Hudson-Mills that just opened, we think it’s a great opportunity for our business.”

He added that there is a possibility of talks opening with the village this year on the possibility of having a sidewalk installed so pedestrians can more easily cross Dexter-Chelsea Road at the nearby intersection.

“That also seems to be a good fit with the theme locally of promoting and supporting pedestrian traffic,” O’Brien said. “Sometimes it’s rough getting over here from the village for people.”

There are also some new events and menu programming coming in 2014, including a monthly feature of a limited-time-only beverage, main meal item and side item beginning when the seasonal business opens its doors again March 1.

Being the parent of a three and a six-year-old, O’Brien said he also has some fun planned for children as well.

“I came up with this idea last season of having kids drives up in little electric cars — like a cruise for kids, where they drive around the parking lot, park and a car hop comes out and serves them and their parents,” O’Brien said.

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