National Public Gardens Day

Published: Monday, April 28, 2014 12:15 am

Celebrate National Public Gardens Day on May 9

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Birds are singing, flowers are blooming, it can only mean one thing — spring has sprung. May 9, which is National Public Gardens Day, is an ideal time to celebrate the warmer weather and visit a local garden.

“Even if your green thumb means you have a garden right in your own backyard, a visit to a public space can be fun, informative and is a hallmark of the season,” says Casey Sclar, Ph.D., Executive Director of the American Public Gardens Association. “In fact, many gardeners use the trip to get inspired and learn how to practice environmental stewardship at home.”

Here are some great ways to make the most of your trip:

Celebrate Mom

Looking for fun Mother’s Day Activities for the family? National Public Gardens Day takes place annually on Mother’s Day weekend, the unofficial start to spring, and a time when the environment is top of mind.

Celebrated by more than 500 arboreta, botanic gardens, conservatories, entertainment gardens, historical landscapes, museums, and zoos, many sites are extending the National Public Gardens Day celebration throughout Mother’s Day weekend with special events, tours and activities designed specifically for families.

“What backdrop would be more perfect for celebrating mom than a beautiful garden?” says Sclar.

Additionally, many gardens are offering discounts and other special offers to visitors on May 9th. To find a garden near you and learn more about the celebration, visit www.NationalPublicGardensDay.org.

Learn

The staff at a public garden can be a great source of information when it comes to gardening techniques. Don’t be afraid to ask questions.

For example, public gardens use efficient watering practices and have insight on responsible water use and irrigation systems. Learn how to more efficiently irrigate your own garden by consulting with your local public garden.

Additionally, landscaping at public gardens can demonstrate what plants bloom at similar times and what arrangements look great together.

And while you’re there, don’t forget to pick up some reading material on gardening and botany.

Get Supplies

Public gardens often sell plants, flowers and trees during annual festivals, providing top quality native and adaptable additions to your garden. With the sale comes professional experience and advice of the sort that cannot be found in nurseries or hardware stores.

Whether you’re a family looking to spend the day together, a couple on a romantic date or a gardening enthusiast looking for information and inspiration, a visit to a public garden is a low cost way to spend the day outdoors.

Photo Credit: (c) Scott Dressel-Martin

© 2014 Ellwood City Ledger. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Monday, April 28, 2014 12:15 am.

Home And Garden,

Gardening

The loss of that contract, effective May 1, was a slap to Shane Pliska, whose father, Larry, started Planterra in the 1970s and has grown it from a small retail shop into a landscape and events business with $5 million a year in revenue. It has such high-end clients as Somerset Collection in Troy and the Mansion at MGM Grand, an exclusive suite hotel in Las Vegas. The company creates living green walls and elaborate interior gardens as well as throws lavish parties in Planterra’s 11,000-square-foot greenhouse.

“They don’t care about Detroit,” said Pliska, referring to Rentokil. “They don’t care at all. We’re proud of our local airport. It’s a real pride point to do business (there).”

Planterra continues to service the airport’s larger McNamara Terminal through a direct contract with Delta Airlines Inc. The large trees in the terminal are artificial and don’t require maintenance, but Planterra handles Delta’s club lounges and some of the airline’s concessionaires.

Rentokil was incorporated as a British pest control company in the 1920s and expanded into other business services in the 1990s, including interior landscaping. (It originally called that division Rentokil Tropical Plants but later rebranded as Ambius.) In 2006, Rentokil bought Pennsylvania-based J.C. Ehrlich Co. for $141.8 million to “build up its U.S. bug-killing business,” according to Bloomberg News.

That gave the British company a foothold in the U.S., and it soon expanded its interior landscaping business here, too. Ambius has been involved in the renovation of the Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., and the African pavilion of the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.

It was Ambius — doing business under the name of its sister company, J.C. Ehrlich — that bid against Planterra. It scored the three-year contract for $127,053. Planterra bid $167,416.

When the issue came before the Wayne County Airport Authority Board on Thursday, all present board members except for Chairman Alfred Glancy III voted yes; Glancy abstained.

Before the vote, the authority’s lawyers confirmed that Rentokil scored contracts several years ago with Gadhafi. British newspaper accounts suggest those contracts came in exchange for Britain releasing the Lockerbie bomber at Gadhafi’s request.

In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was scheduled to fly from Frankfurt to Detroit with stops in London and New York City. A terrorist bomb destroyed the flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crewmembers.

A Libyan citizen was convicted of carrying out the terrorist act. He spent more than two decades in prison, until, in 2009, the Scottish government set him free, calling it a humanitarian nod to his ill health.

But Gadhafi’s son claimed, in The Telegraph, the release was linked to trade deals the British government had arranged with Libya for British companies. One of those companies was Rentokil, which in 2009 signed a contract with Gadhafi for pest control, including on the leader’s personal ranch, according to the newspaper.

“It makes we wonder, does anyone have a backbone?  Real people died in the Lockerbie bombing,” said Pliska, 33. “Michigan victims were on that flight. Why would the airport authority knowingly grant this contract when they have legitimate local alternatives?”

Because the bid was lower, explained Conway, reiterating that neither Rentokil nor J.C. Ehrlich is flagged by the State Department.

“The contract expired and we put it out to competitive bid,” he said. “We just rebid the retail vendors, for example, and some existing retailers didn’t win the bid because there was another bidder who generated more revenue for the airport authority.”

The airport authority relies on revenue from the airlines and what it generates from retail, parking, car rental and taxi concessions to make its budget.

The authority charges airlines to land planes, based on a particular aircraft’s maximum gross landing weight.

Any budget deficit is contractually made up by the airlines that use Metro, and they, in turn, lean on the authority to further trim costs. Conversely, any budget surplus is refunded to the airlines.

Pliska said the bulk of the terminal landscaping contract is actually labor costs, so he suspects Planterra’s bid was higher because he pays higher local wages than J.C. Ehrlich. For maintenance workers, Planterra pays an hourly wage of $11-$17 after training.

Neither J.C. Ehrlich Co. nor Ambius would comment for this story.

“Labor is our biggest expense,” said Pliska. “We invest in our people. We’ve had one horticultural technician with us since 1976. He’s taken care of the GM Tech Center that entire time.”

Losing the contract will not hurt Planterra’s bottom line, however, Pliska said. The terminal represents one of the company’s larger interior landscape-maintenance accounts, but only a small fraction of its annual sales.

“We are fortunate to be diversified,” he said.

The bulk of Planterra’s business is its corporate interior landscaping, but that is followed by its onsite events service, which designs everything from food to décor for weddings and other celebrations in the company’s conservatory. The company has 55 employees.

The glass-encased botanical garden is frequently rented for corporate events, as well.

Finally, it does off-site events and special displays, such as the current Easter-themed plantings for the Somerset Collection.

Amy Haimerl: (313) 446-0416, ahaimerl@crain.com. Twitter: @haimerlad

Tonya Witczak (left) and her daughter Julianna planting with Missy Weiss. (Credit: Katharine Schroeder)

Build a rain garden, help the environment, get a reward.

It’s a simple as that.

The federal Peconic Estuary Program, which was created 20 years ago to improve water quality in the Peconics, will offer rewards of up to $500 to residents in Southold’s Hashamomuck Pond watershed area and the Reeves Bay watershed in Flanders who work to combat groundwater pollution by installing rain gardens, rain barrels or other forms of “conservation landscaping” on their properties. 

This summer, the Peconic Estuary Program plans to install rain garden demonstration projects near Hashamomuck Pond and at one of the buildings at Big Duck Park in Flanders to draw attention to the program.

So, your first question is probably “What’s a rain garden?” And that’s likely followed by “What’s a rain barrel?”

The nonprofit environmental organization Group for the South Fork teamed up with local Girl Scouts Saturday to provide answers at Downs Farm Preserve in Cutchogue, on the grounds of the old Ford Corchaug Indian archeological sites.

“A rain garden is a very specific garden,” said Missy Weiss, an environmental educator for Group for the South Fork and program manager at the preserve. “It’s not something you would plant in your backyard if it’s a flat area,” Ms. Weiss said. “A rain garden would be used if you had a slight slope in your lawn, so that stormwater runoff naturally will flow into the ground and be filtered by a collection of native plants.”

Experts say native plants like these New England asters are preferred for rain gardens. (Credit: Katharine Schroeder)

Stormwater runoff is often cited as a major source of surface and groundwater pollution because it carries pollutants like fuel and animal waste from streets and into the water.

A rain garden serves two purposes, Ms. Weiss said. It waters the plants, of course, but the plants — if you choose the right types — will also filter out contaminants the water might have picked up, so it’s cleaner when it returns to the ground.

On Saturday, members of Girl Scout Troop 1971, Service Unit 60, in Cutchogue helped build a demonstration rain garden at the preserve, with the aim of not only demonstrating what one looks like but educating residents on other ways to protect the Peconic Estuary.

The rain garden the scouts created in Cutchogue is also connected to a rain barrel, which collects water from a roof gutter so it can be used again to water plants. Troop leader Tonya Witczak said she got to know Ms. Weiss when her daughter attended the “storytime” program Downs Farm Preserve runs for the Southold Mothers’ Club.

“We had so much fun and this place is beautiful, so I asked, ‘What else can my girls do?’ ” Ms. Witczak said. “Last year we did a huge planting over at Orient Beach State Park for Earth Day and now we’re doing this. The girls love to plant things, they love to get dirty and work in the dirt. We’ve been trying to do this project for some time now.”

On Saturday, the scouts planted ferns, asters, lowbush blueberries, native grasses, milkweed and other plants that will filter rainwater and return clean water to the ground.

“We try to use native plants, specifically as local as possible, that we know have been documented to have grown here on Long Island,” Ms. Weiss said. “If that’s not possible, we try to use as close a species to that as possible.”

The Group for the East End is monitoring will monitor the PEP rebate program to make sure people are doing it right, Ms. Weiss said.

The rebates will award different amounts for different conservation projects, up to a maximum of $500 per location. The program will operate on a first-come, first-served basis, according to education and outreach coordinator Jennifer Skilbred, and is supported by $50,000 in funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. To qualify for program rewards, rain gardens must be at least 50 square feet and rain barrels must hold at least 50 gallons.

It won’t take more than a day to build a rain garden, Ms. Weiss said, but participants might need to do some research beforehand. For instance, a depth of six to eight inches of available soil is needed to make sure the plants will remain stable, she said.

While rain gardens can help prevent pesticides or fertilizers from being carried into the groundwater, Group for the East End isn’t promoting their use as a justification for continued of pesticides or fertilizers, Ms. Weiss said. They would rather homeowners didn’t use those products on their lawns in the first place.

For more information visit PeconicEstuaryProgram.com or email jskilbred@eastendenvironment.com.

tgannon@timesreview.com