VIDALIA — Vidalia has a “screaming opportunity” if those who want it to grow will listen.

That was the message Laurence Leyens with the Orion Planning Group brought to a gathering of Vidalia business and civic leaders. Leyens was one of two consultants who were in Vidalia to follow-up on a similar planning session the city hosted in the fall.

Natchez has more than 25 houses on the market right now, Leyens said, while 25 houses have been sold in Vidalia in the last 12 months.

“These houses are selling at $123 a square foot,” Leyens said. “Y’all are paying massive dollars for 50-year-old inventory, and y’all seem to be satisfied for it.

“We need to be building yuppieville. I can take $123 a square foot and build you a to-specification house in Madison that is going to be worth $500,000 when we’re done.”

While people used to follow jobs to choose where they lived, they now choose where they want to live and work in a global economy, Leyens said.

Vidalia needs to find out why people are buying houses there and continue to develop that resource, he said.

When those present told Leyens the Vidalia school system was a draw locally, he said that wasn’t surprising.

“My son’s future is not for sale,” he said. “I am not going to move into a bad economy because it is cheaper to live there when my son’s future is at stake.”

The problem Vidalia faces, Leyens’ partner Bob Barber said, is that it is a “built out” town with no property to develop inside the city limits.

“Obviously there is vacant land just outside the city limits — we know that — but inside there is very little vacant land left,” Barber said.

Leyens likewise said the city does not have a central area that gives it a feeling of place.

“Where is Vidalia?” he said. “Right now, I drive through and it’s all highway.”

The area has plenty of potential to develop as the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale oil and gas play demands more and more from the regional transportation hubs like US. 61 and U.S. 84, Leyens said, but the city also needs to develop some kind of standards to ensure its quality development.

“Developers can come in here and build something only meant to last 10 years, and at the end of 10 years, it’s junk and they’re gone, and you’ve got junk,” he said.

Instead, leaders can adopt codes to ensure a higher standard of quality.

“I go to a lot of small cities like this, and they have this depression-era or 1970s-era mentality of, ‘Thank God we have a grocery store, even if it is a metal building.’” Leyens said.

“If you started adopting standards and expectations that are higher, you are influencing the value of that property and the property adjacent to it. You can say, ‘We want it to have a brick facade, we want it sort of set back and we want some trees in the parking lot, and suddenly it’s a different environment that raises the value not only of that property, but the property next to it.”

The city likewise should standardize its codes so the already developed properties are less disparate in appearance.

“Right now, you have people who have put up a nice front, but they don’t have the landscaping to go with it,” Leyens said. “If you don’t have the standards, all you have is a building with a funny front right next to a metal building.”

Barber worked with the group to discuss further ideas about possible code and zoning changes the city could effect.

“We did some work a couple of years ago, but we are working to develop a new city master plan,” Mayor Hyram Copeland said. “The last master plan was made in the 1970s, and we really need to bring that forward in order to move in the future.”

Copeland said City of Vidalia officials would continue to work on the new master plan in the coming months.

The colder it gets in winter, the bigger the peonies bloom.

A good dose of chill seems to enhance the size of these old-fashioned spring flowers. December’s deep freeze paid off in gigantic, fluffy peonies.

Enjoy that beauty while you can. A spike in Sacramento temperatures in late April doomed Valley-grown peonies to a short but gorgeous moment in the sun. But at higher elevations, they’re just now reaching their peak of bloom.

Starting Friday, Dragonfly Peony Farm near the Sierra foothills town of Wilseyville opens its gates to visitors for its annual Open Garden. The event continues Fridays and weekends until June 1.

Peony farmer Julia Moore has more than 1,000 peonies at Dragonfly, a mostly online nursery about two hours from Sacramento. At nearly 2,800 feet elevation, the farm feels spring’s warmth a tad later than the Valley. But by mid-May, the large, graceful flowers cover the bushes in bushels of blooms.

“People can spend hours here, just wandering around, taking photos – and they do,” Moore said during a prior visit.

Peonies are one of those flowers that refuses to bloom in such places as Los Angeles or Santa Barbara, but thrives in Northern California.

“You need some winter chill to make them bloom,” Moore said. “But if you can grow apples, you can grow peonies. They’re super-easy.”

For foothill gardeners, peonies have another bonus: Deer won’t eat them. Gophers don’t like them, either.

They also are relatively drought-tolerant. Once established, these perennials need little care; just a little bone meal before bloom time. One plant can last 30 to 100 years.

Also long lasting in the vase, peonies make excellent cut flowers. But the show lasts longer when they’re still on the bush. And they smell as good as they look.

Said Moore, “At the peak of bloom, the scent is just heavenly.”

More Greener Gardens

After the success of last month’s Elk Grove Greener Gardens tour, now it’s Roseville’s turn.

Next Saturday, the city of Roseville’s Utility Exploration Center teams with EcoLandscape California for a day full of water-saving ideas. A DIY expo will feature lots of hands-on advice on how to convert sprinklers to more-efficient irrigation, troubleshoot leaks and the easiest ways to take out a lawn.

During the ongoing drought, Roseville (along with many other cities) has asked residents to cut water use by 20 percent or more. In the Sacramento Valley, landscaping accounts for up to 65 percent of residential water use. That makes outdoor irrigation a likely target for potential savings.

Families can sign up now to take a self-guided tour of Roseville front yards where homeowners made the commitment to ditch the turf and switch to unthirsty landscaping.

In particular, Roseville’s Greener Gardens Tour focuses on participants in the city’s “Cash for Grass” program. These homeowners received rebates for lawn removal. But they also had to agree to replace that grass with new water-wise landscaping.

“By removing some or all of their turf, they’re doing their part to reduce the amount of water they use – and you can, too!” said tour coordinator Cheryl Buckwalter, executive director of EcoLandscape California. “The Roseville Greener Gardens Tour is designed to encourage the use of ‘river-friendly landscaping’ techniques and to demonstrate that you, too, can have a beautiful, water-wise garden.”

This change, and water savings, don’t happen instantaneously. Even drought-tolerant plants need water to get growing and become established. But the transformation from a traditional turf-heavy landscape to a more-sustainable alternative is a process.

“Use this time to plan and then start taking action,” Buckwalter said. “Every step taken today to reduce landscape water use will benefit our future supply of water, protect local waterways, and help us be part of the solution to the environmental challenges we all face.”

For more details or to sign up for the tour, go to www.roseville.ca.us/explore.

And what to plant in that water-wise garden? The UC Davis Arboretum’s teaching nursery hosts its summer clearance sale next Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., featuring its “New Front Yard” series of low-water and beautiful alternatives to traditional turf and landscaping. Also find many of the popular Arboretum All-Stars, more water-wise choices to replace that soon-to-be-brown lawn.

Call The Bee’s Debbie Arrington, (916) 321-1075. Follow her on Twitter @debarrington.

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Until four years ago, Jeremy Sparks enjoyed the turnkey lifestyle that came with condo living in southwest Edmonton. But his passion for cooking and for tinkering on his Harley-Davidson motorbikes had him longing for more entertainment space and for a “man cave� garage.

Sparks enlisted a real estate agent to find him a house, but he has very definite feelings about what he likes. “I looked at other homes, and every home I looked at, I thought, ‘I would do that differently.’ �

Then he heard about a new subdivision being developed just down the road from his workplace in Acheson, an industrial area outside Edmonton’s western city limits and minutes from the city’s ring road, Anthony Henday Drive. He did some investigating and jumped at the chance to purchase the one-acre lot and have a house built to his own preferences.

“It’s country living, without the country,� jokes Sparks of the area that has a high population of shrub-eating deer but is also city-serviced, thus minimizing maintenance issues such as snow removal.

The reverse planning of the home’s design — with the garage and entertaining spaces as priorities — began as sketches made over lunch, on a paper napkin. Those ideas came to life as an award-winning bungalow created by custom home builder Richard Lystang of Rococo Homes. Sparks works as an operations manager for a crane company, so he opted to save costs by taking on the landscaping himself.

Sparks shares the home with his partner, Naomi Wharrick, and describes the two-level, carpet-free, three-bedroom and three-bathroom home as adult living — with no space left unused. Inside and out, the home reflects his masculine taste and Sparks’ desire to create spaces that welcome his friends.

The home’s wide driveway is exposed aggregate with contrasting terracotta-coloured stencilled-concrete trim. The 2,000-square-foot bungalow’s espresso brown exterior is made of highly energy-efficient acrylic stucco.

The front entryway provides an unobstructed view of the spacious gourmet kitchen (one of several meal-prep zones in the home), the formal living room and dining area. The airy feeling isn’t accidental. A large beam runs down the centre of the ceiling, so there is no need for supporting walls or pillars. To distract from the ductwork hiding the mandatory overhead sprinkler system, Sparks added the living room’s elegant coffered ceiling.

While the house proper is rich in amenities built to please guests, it seems only right to start where Sparks did — in that man cave.

It is accessed via a well-stocked, walk-through pantry off the main kitchen, which connects the home to its heated three-car garage.

Three Harleys fill one corner, while Sparks’ man cave takes up one side.

“It’s got a full-sized fridge, a beer keg, a popcorn machine and a 55-inch TV — all the things you need when you’re in the garage … some of my guy friends have never made it into the house,â€� says Sparks. “There is no reason for them to.â€�

Back inside the home, Sparks explains that he likes natural lighting, so window placement was planned with care. Small, old-fashioned-looking windows frame the fireplace’s hemlock mantel in the living room.

The heavy wood complements the natural stone finish and is — surprisingly — a cast-off from Spark’s workplace. The beam was previously used to stabilize a crane. The wide fireplace’s hearth is double-sided, and provides a focal point both inside and out, on the partially covered rear deck, where Adirondack-style chairs and one of the home’s two barbecues are used year-round.