FLEMINGTON — The 12-acre Tuccamirgan Park is due for a reawakening. That is apparently the shared opinion of the Flemington-Raritan Parks and Recreation Committee and Flemington Borough Council.

Councilman Joey Novick dreams of a borough-enlivening blues festival taking place there someday. But more-modest dreams are scheduled for realization — of kids playing field hockey and flag football there and visitors strolling or jogging along rehabilitated paths that curve through the property.

Sal Randazzese, former director of recreation for the two-municipality agency, is still in charge of Tuccamirgan Park and the Morales Nature Preserve. He came to a work session of Flemington Borough Council on Monday evening to supply an update on the improvements that will be done this summer by Interboro Landscaping of Three Bridges. The work will be funded by the committee, whose basic budget is an 80-20 split between the township and borough. But this park-enhancement money has been saved up from participation fees.

— The committee is spending $13,300 to rehab the athletic field, bringing in 252 cubic yards of screened topsoil, filling holes, and patching and reseeding the turf.

Besides being available for pickup games of touch football, kite flying or other casual use, the field could be used by midget soccer or lacrosse teams. It would also be a venue for non-competitive flag football and field hockey programs that Parks and Rec Director Kim Heirling is developing for students at the nearby Intermediate School. “There’s enough competition out there,” Randazzese said, “A kid wants to compete, they know where to find it. But you get that kid who wants to play football and doesn’t have the height, the weight, the skills, she’s providing for that in a flag-football situation. And the same thing with the field-hockey kid. Sports is so high-pressure now…”

Because a coach can walk the kids to the park from the school, he has no doubt that the after-school football and field hockey will be popular.

— The walking path will be cleared of grass and debris and enhanced with 270 tons of stone dust at a cost of $14,500. The path is 8 feet wide and 3,565 feet long.

— A 250-foot-long vinyl-covered chain-link fence will be installed near the end of the playing field closest to the community pool. It will be positioned just before the field dips down. Randazzese explained later that it would help keep kids in sight, and if and when concerts are held there, it would help with crowd control.

Randazzese said that if the park is ever used as for concerts, St. Magdalen’s Parish agreed in 1982 to allow parking in its lot, which is just across Bonnell Street from the park’s main entrance — just so long as the concert does not coincide with a church event. It was agreed Monday that he should talk to church officials again just to make sure the deal still holds.

At the meeting, the last big event held at Tuccamirgan was remembered fondly. For a week in the fall of 2000, the park hosted the Moving Wall, a mobile replica of the Vietnam Memorial that’s in Washington, D.C. Daily ceremonies were held and thousands of people turned out.

Randazzese said the rec. committee asked him to find out if the borough would be willing to bankroll additional improvements at “Tucc,” such as “dressing up the (Bonnell Street) entrances.” He noted that the pedestrian entrance that’s closer to the school doesn’t even look like a public entrance. “You have to let people know it’s a park and that it’s legally accessible,” he said.

Mayor Erica Edwards said that, not counting the $10,000 the borough is going to use to refurbish and re-establish the old iron fence around the veterans’ monument on Main Street, Flemington has $47,189 in its county open-space fund account, and she believes that park improvements fit the criteria for its use.

Besides improving the entrances, Council President Brian Swingle suggested that perhaps the park could be open at night with paths illuminated by low-power solar lights that wouldn’t annoy neighbors. Councilwoman Dorothy Fine suggested that the park could be beautified enough, with a gazebo added, for use as a wedding venue.

In wrapping up the work session, the mayor asked Randazzese to come up with specific ideas with price estimates on what would be “the next level” of improvements. Later, Randazzese said he would go back to the Parks and Rec Committee and get their specific ideas for improving Tuccamirgan Park.

Tuccamirgan Park occupies the low land behind Bonnell Street houses on one side and Prospect Hill apartment complex on the other. It was named for an Indian chief who had befriended early settlers; his body was buried in a small cemetery on the other side of Bonnell Street.

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Library project

Kyle Bouska, an employee of StewartScape, Inc., is using an impactor to tamp down the rock foundation of the library landscaping project. D

Posted: Thursday, May 29, 2014 11:46 am

Outdoor reading space under construction at Oelwein Library

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OELWEIN — A new outdoor feature is being added at the Oelwein Public Library. Passersby have been witnessing a transformation of the area just west of the building, where local landscaper Jared Stewart of StewartScape, Inc., is developing an outdoor green reading space.

Library Director Susan Macken explained landscaping plans for the area west of the library have been in the works for more than five years, since the former railroad right-of-way was acquired in 2008. Last year library board member Mike Kerns, with approval from the board, contacted area landscaping businesses to get some ideas for the space. Stewart responded and came up with a design that incorporates historic references and artifacts with native plantings for a great outdoor reading/relaxing experience.

The space is outlined with large limestone blocks salvaged from the Chicago Great Western diesel shop demolition, and serve as a point of local historic reference. A large boulder at the front of the project lays claim to the space in another way.

Read more of this story in the Daily Register.

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Thursday, May 29, 2014 11:46 am.

When Charlotte Schnur retired to the valley from Massachusetts she knew there would be an adjustment period. The summers were a fair trade for the East Coast winters, and the 300-plus days of sunshine seemed like a great added value. But the former art history professor had a hard time adjusting to one thing: desert landscaping.

“I had a true English garden (in Massachusetts),” she said. “My backyard was a showplace. I came here and said ‘Oh my!’ ”

Schnur moved into a home in Henderson’s Sun City Anthem and knew the existing landscaping left much to be desired. We’ve all seen these homes — a yard full of pebbles and a few shrubs randomly planted, all in the name of water conservation.

So Schnur called Mat Baroudi, owner of An English Gardener Landscaping. Baroudi transformed her front yard with jasmine, rosebushes, a trellis and a bevy of wildflowers. It’s now a vibrant space that has even brought a water bill savings and got the neighbors talking too.

“I met half my neighborhood because of Mat,” Schnur said with a laugh. “One of my neighbors hired him too.”

AN ENGLISH TEACHER

Baroudi has been designing local landscapes for the past eight years but has literally been gardening and landscaping since his youth. He grew up on a farm in England, tending to crops, livestock and wildlife.

After years in marketing and sales for a variety of companies, Baroudi finally decided to strike out on his own in 2006. The idea to go into the landscaping business was stirred when — after purchasing a home in the Silverado Ranch area — he hired landscapers for his backyard.

“A company came in, put in grass and a couple trees. … Once I saw that and what was going on around other places, I said ‘We’ve got to do landscaping because we can be so much better than what’s on offer,’ ” he said.

Baroudi dove into his business selling himself as both an artist and educator. He was an informant of sorts on why a tree in a yard was dying while another was thriving or why roots were uprooting a foundation, and plenty of other topics. He’s also tuned and programmed his share of irrigation systems and timers in the past eight years.

“He is a great teacher. Whenever he came out to work on my yard, I stopped what I was doing and went out there because I knew I would learn so much,” Schnur said.

Greening and conserving

A common approach Baroudi takes to adding color to a landscape is bringing together clusters of different plants into an area, like, for example, to the base of a tree. Here he will add colorful low-growing flowers such as daylilies or other wildflowers such as alyssum.

In many cases, the single irrigation line going to an area can easily water several flowers without needing more lines, he says. Those added touches also bring hummingbirds and butterflies.

“You can bring that beauty and still be cognizant of water issues,” he added.

Baroudi’s home has become what he calls his “test kitchen” and “showroom.” He prefers to meet clients in his small backyard to demonstrate how the outdoor space can be so rich and lively. In his yard there’s tons of colorful plants, a sitting area, tortoise habitat, aboveground pool, fountain and fruit trees, all for a monthly water bill of $30.

The yard took first place at the 2013 SNWA Landscape Design Awards. It was the first year Baroudi had entered the contest. Since then, he has been featured on KNPR, a European gardening channel, and will have his yard filmed by PBS in June for a segment of “This Old House.”

“This is our showroom, our proof,” he said. “We are conserving, but we still have all this green, lush landscaping around us. We don’t have to put desert landscaping necessarily (to conserve). … For me this is an artistry as opposed to a landscaping company that shows up and asks ‘what do you want?’ then puts in a cactus here or there and goes home.”

Beyond aesthetics

Baroudi also loves to create a space that invites use. Integrating sitting areas and walkways into shaded areas near plantlife can truly make a useful space for homeowners to entertain friends or relax, Baroudi said.

“To see a backyard or front yard not used and just wasted, that really burns me. That’s part of your property. You should be using it,” he added.

Martin Greenbaum, a Henderson resident, used Baroudi’s company to redesign his front yard. With the front of the home enjoying a good amount of morning and afternoon shade, Baroudi suggested a sitting area made with pavers near the home in addition to adding plenty of green. Greenbaum now finds himself using the space instead of ignoring it as he did in the past.

“He created all these levels. It’s a really natural look and he extended the living area,” he said. “At the end of the day, when the job comes out better than you thought it would, it’s great.”

The future

Baroudi also has spent the past eight years assembling a crew that brings his attention to detail to the job. An admitted perfectionist, the pro is often found working side by side with his team to make sure what is built is exactly as he envisioned.

To help customers better see his artistic view of their property, he is now using fully animated 3-D CAD software that allows the client to better envision the job with the help of video before the first shovel hits the dirt.

Just as Baroudi tests out new ideas and design approaches in his backyard, he’s always on the lookout for new products. He recently signed on with a new fountain provider whose product stands up better to the desert heat, is eyeing an outdoor pizza oven company’s offering, and recently began selling a new 100 percent organic fertilizer product made of fossilized minerals from the ocean floor called Bioyodal.

With Bioyodal, Baroudi’s own fruit trees have already produced up to 10 times what they had in the past and other plants are thriving too.

“Its primary use is for farming and crops, but what we’ve seen locally with plants and trees is amazing,” he said.

Baroudi also hopes to incorporate education into his future, doing seminars and teaching classes on gardening and landscaping to locals. For more information about Baroudi’s company, visit www.englishgardenerlandscaping.com or call 702-496-7326.