The county’s Department of Transportation on Dec. 4 announced 56 awards to community groups, businesses, public institutions and other organizations whose landscaping projects enhance commercial or residential common areas, county roadsides and medians and other public locations.

The 26^th annual Keep Montgomery County Beautiful community beautification awards honored:

• municipal street plantings;
• community plantings;
• community landscape projects; 
• outdoor projects at commercial and retail sites; 
• outdoor projects at schools, government buildings, hospitals, and churches;
• sustained maintenance; 
• photographs of Montgomery County landmarks; 
• adopt-a-road participants; and 
• forestry stewardship.

Click here for a complete list of winners from across Montgomery County.

The following are winners from the Rockville area:

PUBLIC INSTITUTIONAL for outdoor projects at schools, government buildings, hospitals, churches or libraries:

Award of Excellence: Aspen Hill Library Gardens, Aspen Hill Garden Club, Aspen Hill.

CITYSCAPE for municipal street plantings in median strips, near traffic ramps and next to sidewalks:

Award of Excellence:  Mattie Stepanek Park Peace Garden, City of Rockville.

Award of Excellence:  Veirs Mill Road Landscape Enhancements, City of Rockville (New).

Award of Distinction:  East Rockville Greenway, City of Rockville.

Award of Excellence:  Park Road and S. Stonestreet Land Enhancements, City of Rockville.

Award of Excellence:  Pump House at Croydon Park, City of Rockville, (Environmental).

Award of Excellence:  The Ponds at Fallsgrove, City of Rockville.

COMMUNITY PROFESSIONAL for community landscaping projects designed and maintained by professional landscape architects or contractors:

Award of Excellence: Grosvenor Park Grosvenor Park Maintenance Trust Association Monument, Lancaster Landscapes, Rockville.

COMMERCIAL/RETAIL for outdoor projects at facilities such as shopping malls, restaurants, retail businesses, gas stations, etc.:

Award of Excellence: National Auto Body, Rockville.

Award of Excellence: Tower Oaks, The Brickman Group, Rockville. 

Award of Merit: Twinbrook Sunoco, Rockville.

Award of Excellence: Lobsang Executive Shell, Rockville, (Environmental).

PUBLIC INSTITUTIONAL for outdoor projects at schools, government buildings, hospitals, churches or libraries:

Award of Excellence: The Jewish Community Center, Ruppert Landscaping, Rockville.

Award of Excellence: Master Gardeners Demonstration Gardens, Derwood Agricultural Farm Park, Derwood.

Award of Excellence: Viers Mill Baptist Church, Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection, Rockville, (Environmental/New).

Award of Excellence: St. James Episcopal Church Vestry Gardens, American Plant Landscape Division, Rockville, (Environmental).

Award of Excellence: Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy, American Plant Landscape, Rockville.

YOUTH for outdoor projects by an individual or group who are younger than 19 years old. Adult supervision is permitted, but the majority of a project must be completed by youth:

Award of Distinction: Rockville High School Conservation Landscape, Rockville High Horticulture and Science Class Students, Rockville.

SUSTAINED MAINTENANCE for previous triple award winners of the Award of Excellence: 

First Year/ Cityscape: Rockville Town Square, Ruppert Landscaping, Rockville

Second Year/ Community Non-Professional: Cambridge Walk II Homeowners Association, Rockville

Second Year/ Community Non-Professional: Rockshire Entranceway, Rockshire Garden Club, Rockville

Photography MONTGOMERY COUNTY YOUTH—for those younger than 19 years of age who wish to compete against others their age. 

First: Helpless Hungry But Still Together, Tatiana Harris, Gaithersburg

Second: The First Sign of Summer, Bethany Pereira, Rockville

Third: Montgomery County Salutes America, Anna Meleney, Rockville

Photography MONTGOMERY COUNTY LANDMARKS—Any photo taken outdoors in Montgomery County of a natural or manmade commonly recognized landmark or scene.

First: Overlook Panorama, Keegan Barber, Rockville

Second: Forgotten Memories, Mamqalika Pereira, Rockville

Third: Seneca Schoolhouse, Linda Joy, Gaithersburg.

Photography MONTGOMERY COUNTY AT WORK—Any photo taken of one or more people at work, contributing to the livability and splendor of the county.

First: Yellow + Blue = Green, Judith MacArthur, Rockville.

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Dick Colf, co-owner of the new Summit Grove lodge, with manager Liz Cerveny.
Dean Baker/Special to The Oregonian

 

The once-dilapidated roadhouse on Timmen Road just south of La Center has taken on a new life and is open for business as Summit Grove, a retreat center in northern Clark County.

The building, which dates to the 1880s, had fallen into ruin over the past decade. Now it’s sparkling fresh, with intricate rockwork and woodwork of native fir, alder and cedar; 20-foot ceilings; polished floors and beams; burled banisters; and carved bars, along with a gleaming state-of-the-art kitchen. It’s got state-of-the-art video, Wi-Fi and sound systems; 5 acres of woods; a covered garden and gazebo; and a 2,300-square-foot banquet hall suitable for 400 guests.

“It’s going to be the talk of the town,” said Kelly Punteney, the area’s longtime park guru, who supervised the landscaping for the remodel. “It was a famous place in the old days, kind of a Republican enclave.”

The new Summit Grove aims to host weddings, reunions, private parties and corporate meetings.

“We had people that wanted to operate it as a bar, and so on, but we didn’t want to do that,” said co-owner Dick Colf. “We’ve had six or seven events so far,” including a couple of weddings, a funeral, gatherings for the Fort Vancouver National Historical Site and for Clark College alumni, and the retirement party of La Center Police Chief Tim Hopkin.

Summit Grove was originally known as Headley’s Camp, a watering hole for guests in carriages. In the early 1920s, William and Mary Marshall purchased the building and its 5-acre site and added eight cabins. By 1927, they had converted the property to a rustic but luxurious hideaway that boasted a kidney-shaped indoor fish pool and fine dining.

Civic leader Margaret Colf Hepola, 95, remembers going to school dances in the building when she was a teen at Woodland High School.

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Headley Auto Camp, better known as Headley’s Camp, was the forerunner of today’s Summit Grove lodge.

Courtesy of Colf Family

 

“I know Shirley Temple was there, and a president,” she said. “I don’t know about the rest” — guests are said to have included celebrities such as Jack Benny, Clark Gable, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy — “but they say all these other people stayed there, and it was a stop on the old Pacific Highway.” There’s even a story that Shirley Temple danced on the bar, but that can’t be confirmed.

In November 1980, a fire nearly destroyed the building, and it sat idle for a few years. In 1988 George Miller purchased the building. He lived in it and partially restored it, but then it sat idle again — until Colf Hepola and her sons, Dick and Bob Colf, purchased it three years ago.

Colf Hepola was born in 1917 on the family homestead on the North Fork of the Lewis River, and she saw the damming of the river create Lake Merwin, whose waters covered her family home in 1931. “I still remember the water rising over the locust trees,” she said.

Since then, she said, “I am always trying to save old things.” At her urging, the family was behind the reconstruction of the Cedar Creek Grist Mill that once produced flour, cornmeal and apple cider on the North Fork of the Lewis River; the old medical building that now houses the La Center Community Library; and the Hulda Klager Lilac Gardens in Woodland. The Colfs are also restoring the historic Fanning House in La Center as a guesthouse.

When it came to Summit Grove, “my intention was to fix the roof,” Colf Hepola said.

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The restored Summit Grove lodge has so far hosted weddings, a funeral, an alumni gathering and a police chief’s retirement party.

Dean Baker/Special to The Oregonian

 

The family ended up pouring what Dick Colf would only call “significant money” into the upgrade.

“Margaret has always loved to restore old things,” said Liz Cerveny, the property’s volunteer manager and a former La Center mayor. “This was close to her heart. She saw this was falling into a state of disrepair and she just wanted to get her hands on it and bring it back to life. I am sure she pushed the boys to take it on.”

Now, restored with antique gas pumps, the revived Summit Grove lodge sits among newly constructed waterfalls and towering rock gardens, trees and foliage. The landscaping even includes nurse logs hauled from the nearby forest to add to the naturalistic setting.

The sign in front is posted on a cedar log harvested from the Colf family farm just below Merwin Dam, Dick Colf said.

“It looks real good out there,” he said, giving the log a pat. “Cedar lasts a long time.”

While moving into a condo can mean less time spent on landscaping maintenance, residents who are interested in gardening can still turn their condo balconies into a vegetation oasis. With just a little work and effort, resourceful residents can use their balconies to grow vibrant gardens.

John Scheifel of Fort Lauderdale always had a garden in his backyard, so when he moved into a condo, he didn’t plan to stop gardening. While his space is limited, Scheifel said he’s still able get his hands in the soil in his condo garden, which consists of an herb garden and various plants, palms and ferns.

“It’s so easy. Once you get your system up, you’ve got it made,” he said. “If [condo residents] knew how to do it, I think more people would.”

With more than 20 years of condo gardening experience on his balcony, Scheifel said his condo association only advises him to make sure no water drips down to the unit below. To prevent that, he recommends using square saucers to catch any excess water.

Attorney Lisa Magill of Becker  Poliakoff P.A., which specializes in condo and community association law, said excess water spilling down on neighbors below and too much weight on the balcony are just some of the reasons why a board of directors may want to regulate what owners place on their patios or balconies.

“The association typically bears responsibility for the structural maintenance and repair of the balconies,” she said.

Scheifel said that when residents start a balcony garden, it’s important that they use big pots so that plants don’t dry out quickly. He also uses a water-drip system that has tubes from a main line regulating how much water the plants can receive. His condo balcony faces north but still gets enough sun to have a thriving garden.

“I always loved playing in the dirt and I’m still able to do that,” he said.

Another challenge for condo residents wanting a garden on their balcony can be the weather. Open balconies can get windy, but Chuck Nicholls, president of the Equality Park Garden Club, said plexiglass can be used to reduce wind.

Condos located by the beach and Intracoastal Waterway can also be subjected to saltwater elements, which can be harmful to plants. Nicholls recommended focusing on native plants because they’ve grown accustomed to the environment and can withstand the wind and salt.

For residents looking for gardening advice, Nicholls’ garden club offers free consultation services and hosts meetings at 7:30 p.m. on the third Wednesday of every month at the Pride Center, 2040 N. Dixie Highway in Wilton Manors. Memberships are $20, and meetings feature a variety of gardening experts who offer tips on various botanical gardening methods.

“Most of the speakers we have, there’s something you can learn that you can adapt to your balcony,” Nicholls said. “The purpose is to educate people on what gardening they can do. There are some great things you can do on your balcony.”

For more information about the garden club, call 954-561-3535.

• Nancy Lanza, 52, was planning to uproot her life and move with her son when he decided on a college in either Seattle or the Carolinas
• Ms Lanza had ‘total authority’ over son’s upbringing following 2009 divorce from boy’s father Peter
• She was killed by her son Adam Lanza as she lay in her bedroom in her pajamas on Friday morning
• Ex-husband will likely take care of Nancy’s funeral
• The bodies of she and Adam Lanza will not be released for another week

By
Daniel Bates In Newtown, Connecticut , Louise Boyle and Hayley Peterson

PUBLISHED:

00:00 EST, 15 December 2012

|

UPDATED:

10:57 EST, 18 December 2012

The mother of the Sandy Hook gunman who was shot four times in the face at close range by her son, suffered from multiple sclerosis, it was revealed today.

Nancy Lanza, 52, had dedicated her life to looking after her autistic son Adam, who, after killing his mother, took her car and three of her guns to Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday and shot dead 20 children and six adults. He then turned the gun on himself.

Her sister-in-law Marsha revealed today that Nancy had health problems as well as her son and would often go to new York for treatment for her MS.

Scroll down for video

Murdered: Nancy Lanza, 52, was shot in the face by her ‘deeply disturbed’ son Adam while she lay in bed at her Connecticut home

She moved to Newtown with her husband
Peter in 1998. He would commute to the city for his job as vice
president of General Electric.

The couple divorced in 2009 after
their marriage ‘irretrievably broke down’. Peter made $445,000 a year
and agreed to pay $240,000 a year in alimony and child support,
according to court records.

As the once-peaceful New England town
continues today to bury the victims of Friday’s massacre, it was revealed the bodies of
Nancy and Adam Lanza are not being released by the medical examiner for
another week.

Marsha Lanza told the Washington Post her brother-in-law Peter will likely organize the funeral.

‘She was my friend,’ she said. ‘I said to my husband, “Who’s
going to bury Nancy?” He said, “Knowing my brother, he’ll take care of
it, because that’s the right thing to do”.’

Nancy’s family – her mother and three
adult siblings – have gathered at the family’s 1740s farmhouse in
Kingston where the 52-year-old had a charmed upbringing.

When she married her high school
sweetheart in 1981, the couple built a house next door to the home where they lived until they moved to Newtown.

Killer: Adam Lanza shot his mother in her bed before gunning down 20 children and six staff at Sandy Hook elementary school on Friday

Mother: Fifty-two-year-old Nancy Lanza, pictured, was preparing for the collapse of the world economy by stockpiling food, water and guns in the large home she shared with her son

Adam Lanza, 20, had lived his whole
life at the $1.4million home in Newtown where he killed his mother while
she lay in bed in her pajamas.

Nancy Lanza was described
as a ‘gun enthusiast’ who taught her son Adam, who had autism-related
Asperger’s Syndrome, how to shoot.

The
four weapons, including a Glock 10-mm handgun, a Sig Sauer 9-mm handgun
and a Bushmaster AR-15 assault rifle, used in the mass shooting at the
elementary school all belonged to Nancy Lanza.

Friends of the mother-of-two told the Today show on Monday that she was not a ‘survivalist’ despite earlier reports that she had been stockpiling food because she thought the world economy was on the verge of collapse.

John
Bergquist said: ‘Shooting was one of her hobbies. It wasn’t her main
hobby. She loved the arts, culture. She loved the finer things in life.
She loved to go to Red Sox games, and that’s the Nancy I knew.’

Another friend Ellen Adriani said Nancy was devoted to her two sons and took care of all Adam’s needs.

Her other son, 24-year-old Ryan works for Ernst Young in Manhattan and lives in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Nancy was believed to have been
planning a new life with her 20-year-old son Adam as he made plans to go to
college. She had been thinking about going wherever he decided to study engineering –
Seattle or one of the Carolinas – and live nearby, according to the New York Post.

Russ Hanoman told the Post: ‘They had recently gone to many different colleges looking for the right program for Adam, and the right living situation.’

The divorce papers of Nancy and Peter Lanza today revealed that Mrs Lanza was given the ‘final decision’ when it came to Adam’s best interests.

The couple ended their marriage in 2009 however the legal documents offer no hints of an acrimonious split and make no mention of any lingering mental health or medical issues for their son, then aged 17.

Nancy and Peter Lanza had joint legal custody of Adam but he lived with his mother. Under the terms of the divorce, Lanza’s mother, Nancy Lanza, received $289,800 in alimony this year.

There is no evidence of bitterness in the court file, no exchange of accusations or drawn out custody disputes.

Murdered in her own bed: Adam Lanza brutally shot his mother in the face before taking her car and driving to an elementary school in Newtown to go on a shooting rampage

The couple married in June 1981 in Kingston, New Hampshire. The divorce file said the marriage ‘has broken down irretrievably and there is no possibility of getting back together’.

As part of the divorce, Nancy Lanza was ordered to attend a parenting education program. The provider, Family Centers Inc., certified that she completed the program on June 3 and June 10, 2009.

The document says only that Lanza ‘satisfactorily completed the program’.

Adam Lanza’s father had divorced Nancy because of
‘irreconcilable differences,’ and now lives in Stamford, Connecticut
with his new wife Shelley.

A reporter for the Stamford Advocate broke the news to
him that his son had allegedly shot and killed 26 people, including his
ex-wife.

Shock: Peter Lanza, 52, lives with his new wife Shelley in Stamford, Connecticut. He divorced Adam’s mother in 2009 citing ‘irreconcilable differences’

Adam Lanza shot his mother, Nancy, before driving to Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting 26 people including 20 children

He works as the vice president of taxes for GE Energy Financial
Services, and lives on a sprawling street of
multimillion-dollar homes. The couple apparently married in 2011.

In an interview the killer’s aunt said Nancy Lanza was ‘self-reliant’ and indicated she was a ‘prepper’, or a person who prepares for Doomsday by learning essential survival skills – like how to shoot a gun.

Speaking
from her home near Chicago,  Marsha Lanza, 57, said: ‘She was
stockpiling food. We talked about prepping a lot. She was getting ready
for the economic collapse. I think she had the guns for self-defense because she lived alone.’

She added that Nancy was ‘meticulous’ and would ‘never leave the guns out’. Her friends today reiterated that she was a responsible woman and would have kept the guns under lock and key.

Nancy Lanza had taken Adam to a shooting range and taught him how to use a firearm. She had legally purchased five firearms, all registered in Connecticut, according to police records.

Killer: Adam Lanza is believed to have spent hours playing Call of Duty before carrying out the massacre at Sandy Hook

‘She said she would often go target shooting with her kids,’ Dan Holmes, owner of the landscaping firm Holmes Fine Gardens said.

He recalled that she once showed him a ‘high-end rifle’ that she had purchased.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, it was widely reported that Nancy Lanza was a kindergarten teacher at the elementary school.

But Newtown Superintendent of Schools Janet Robinson said Saturday that she had ‘never met’ Miss Lanza and that she was not in the school database as a staff member.

Some reports alleged that Nancy had
retired from working as an educator many years ago to take care of her
son, Adam, who allegedly had behavioral and personality issues.

Nancy and Adam lived in a well-to-do part of Newtown, a
prosperous community of 27,000 people about 60 miles northeast of New
York City.

A man several houses down, who said he was friends with the couple,
declined to give his name, saying only that they are ‘great people’ and
‘my heart bleeds for them’.

Holmes said he had just last week decorated Nancy Lanza’s yard with Christmas garlands and lights.

She was ‘very nice, very pleasant and always very appreciative of our work,’ Holmes said.

Jim Leff, a musician who knew Nancy through a local bar and music spot that she frequented, called her a ‘lovely person.’

Connecticut shooting

Nancy Lanza’s home in Newtown, Connecticut, was raided after 2 pm on Friday and she was found shot dead from an apparent gunshot wound to the face

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VIDEO: Police statement on behalf of Nancy Lanza’s family…

 

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But he said he never became close friends with her because she was ‘high-strung.’

‘What held me back was my impression that she was a little high-strung,’ Leff wrote on his blog. ‘But now that I’ve been filled in by friends about how difficult her troubled son (the shooter) was making things for her, I understand that it wasn’t that Nancy was overwrought about the trivialities of everyday life, but that she was handling a very difficult situation with uncommon grace.’

Former classmates of Adam Lanza recall him as a shy and extremely intelligent student.

In Newtown High School, he dressed more formally than other students and
carried a black briefcase to his classes, which stuck out to some as
most other students wore backpacks.

Classmate Tim Arnone, 20, who graduated with Lanza in 2010, told Reuters that the boy was ‘driven hard’ to succeed academically by his parents,
particularly his mother. ‘She pushed him really hard to be smarter and
work harder in school,’ Arnone said.

NBC Connecticut also reported that Adam Lanza tried to buy a rifle at a Dick’s Sporting Goods in Danbury, Connecticut, on Tuesday but was rebuffed because the state has a waiting period for gun sales.

Traumatized students were seen being led out of the school crying and holding hands

Quoting
a ‘family insider,’ the New York Daily News reported that Adam was a
‘deeply disturbed kid’ who ‘certainly had major issues’ and was ‘subject
to outbursts.’

A former classmate said Adam has been ‘a weird kid since we were five years old.’ Tim Dalton wrote on Twitter: ‘As horrible as this was, I can’t say I am surprised…. Burn in hell, Adam.’

Catherine Urso, who was attending a
vigil on Friday evening in Newtown said her college-age son knew the killer
and remembered him for his alternative style.

‘He just said he was very thin, very remote and was one of the goths,’ she said.

Adam
Lanza belonged to a technology club at Newtown High School that held
‘LAN parties’ – short for local area network – in which students would
gather at a member’s home, hook up their computers into a small network
and play games. Gloria Milas, whose son Joshua was in the club with Lanza, hosted one of the parties once.

She
recalled a school meeting in 2008 organized by the gunman’s mother to
try to save the job of the club’s adviser. At the meeting, Milas said,
Adam Lanza’s brother Ryan said a few words in support of the adviser,
who he said had taken his brother under his wing.

‘My brother has always been a nerd,’ Ryan Lanza said then, according to Milas. ‘He still wears a pocket protector.’

Joshua
Milas, who graduated from Newtown High School in 2009, said Adam Lanza
was generally a happy person but that he hadn’t seen him in a few years.

‘We would hang out, and he was a good
kid. He was smart,’ Joshua Milas told the AP. ‘He was probably one of
the smartest kids I know. He was probably a genius.’

He
graduated high school in 2010, but was not pictured in the school
yearbook. Rather, a block reading ‘camera shy’ is the entire imprint he
left.

A neighbor in
Newtown, Rhonda Cullens, said she knew Nancy Lanza from monthly
get-togethers the neighborhood women had a few years back for games of
bunco, a dice game.

‘She was
a very nice lady,’ Ms Cullens said. ‘She was just like all the
rest of us in the neighborhood, just a regular person.’

Ms
Cullens recalled that Mrs Lanza liked to garden and to make her house
look nice for the holidays. Lanza joked, though, that no one noticed
because the house was out of view, up a hill, she said.

Sandeep
Kapur, who lives two doors down from the Lanza family in Newtown, said
he did not know them and was unaware of any disturbances at the Lanza
house in the three years that he and his family have been in the
neighborhood.

He described
the area as a subdivision of well-tended, 15-year-old homes on lots of
an acre or more, where many people work at companies like General
Electric, Pepsi and IBM. Some are doctors, and his next-door neighbor is
a bank CEO, said Kapur, a project manager at an information technology
firm.

‘The neighborhood’s
great. We have young kids, and they have lots of friends,’ he said. ‘If
you drive past this neighborhood, it gives you a really warm feeling.’

The
shooting is the latest in a series of high-profile gun crimes in
American schools and colleges, that is especially shocking given the
age of the students involved.

Mayor Bloomberg said Friday that immediate action must be taken over gun laws in the U.S.

He
said: ‘We heard after Columbine that it was too soon to talk about gun
laws. We heard it after Virginia Tech. After Tucson and Aurora and Oak
Creek. And now we are hearing it again.

‘For
every day we wait, 34 more people are murdered with guns. Today, many
of them were five-year olds. President Obama rightly sent his heartfelt
condolences to the families in Newtown.

‘But
the country needs him to send a bill to Congress to fix this problem.
Calling for ‘meaningful action’ is not enough. We need immediate
action.’

SECURITY MEASURES CAN’T PREVENT ANOTHER U.S. SCHOOL SHOOTING

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American public schools use a variety of security measures
to protect students and staff.

Almost 94 per cent of U.S. elementary schools lock their
doors during the school day to restrict access to campuses.

Some 84 per cent of high schools, 73 per cent of middle
schools, and 51 per cent of elementary schools use security cameras to monitor
their schools, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

Increasing numbers of security guards are in place at U.S.
public schools as a result of gun crime with metal detectors also in use across
the country.

Yet despite security measures school shootings in America
are still common place.

On February 10 2012 a 14-year-old from New Hampshire called
Hunter Mack shot himself in the face at Walpole Elementary School cafeteria.

Two weeks later student T.J. Lane, 17, allegedly opened fire
at Chardon High School, Ohio, killing two and injuring three.

Seven were killed and 10 injured at a shooting at Oikos
University, in Oakland, California on 2 April. One L. Goh, 43, a Korean
national surrendered to police.

Police arrested 15-year-old Robert Gladden and charged him
as an adult after a student opened fire on the first day of school, at Perry
Hall High School, Baltimore, in August. The 15-year-old allegedly opened fire
before being rushed by teachers.

Teachers again stopped a shooter on September 7 when a
14-year-old was tackled to the floor after shooting at the ceiling at Normal
Community High School, Illinois.

On September 26 eight grader Cade Poulos killed himself at
Stillwater Junior High School in Oklahoma.

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HE HAS worked on some of the finest gardens in Australia and the UK, so it%u2019s hard to believe Michael McCoy once found plants boring.

For a green thumb, Michael McCoy certainly has a golden touch.

The garden designer has a client list that has included the likes of former Prime Minister Paul Keating, tycoon Lindsay Fox and critic Leo Schofield.

He has worked in some of the great gardens, from Rippon Lea and Como in Melbourne, to England’s renowned plant garden Great Dixter, while learning from the best in the business.

These days, based out of his Woodend home in central Victoria, the 48-year-old has just released his second guide,

The Gardenist, which comes on the heels of a three-decade career that can only be described as charmed. “I feel outrageously blessed – beyond all merit or deserving,’’ says Michael, a father of three.

So what is the McCoy magic that attracts top clients and has given him the Midas touch?

What is The Gardenist’s design secret for ornamental gardens? Oddly enough, given his popularity, his philosophy is not an easy one to capture.

In many ways Michael approaches a garden as a painter would a canvas. “It’s almost the reverse of sculpture. Where a sculptor starts with a block and chips away, a gardener starts with an empty space and adds stolidity. You create a living breathing sculpture,” Michael says.

“Plants perform two major roles – decorative and spatial and it’s the spatial that makes a garden feel good. It’s what captures and holds us.”

Michael is critical of the modern gardener who sees their backyard purely as a problem requiring a solution and that the only path to successful landscaping is through a set of “black and white rules and regulations”.

Instead, he says, gardening should be non-prescriptive and the best way to be successful and confident is to learn the fundamentals.

“I understand that a carrot is a biennial, which lives for two seasons and flowers in its second year,” he says.

“If you understand the fundamentals of biennials you can then apply it to all biennials, rather than having a long list of rules to apply to carrots.” Michael’s ideas are lofty concepts for a guy who admits his career emerged from very humble beginnings.

Until he was in his late teens, he found plants boring. But when his father became sick, and later died, the 17-year-old Michael turned his focus to the therapy of propagation, spending hours slicing and planting.

“I was intensely curious about the idea that you could break a piece off and then it would become self-sustaining.”

He studied science at Melbourne University, majoring in biology, and ever since graduation his career has been on the ascent.

Michael completed his gardening apprenticeship at Melbourne’s historic Rippon Lea and Como, followed immediately by eight years in a live-in position for Lindsay Fox at his Toorak and Mt Macedon properties.

The Fox family were so enamoured of their young gardener, they even paid Michael a wage for three months in 1991 while he lived and worked at Great Dixter.

He finished working for the Foxs in 1996, at which time he started his own design business – Michael McCoy Fine Gardens – and moved with his wife, Karen, and children to a Woodend home.

Since then he has been an author, radio presenter on ABC, columnist and designed ornamental gardens for Paul Keating (whom he describes as “one of the most cripplingly shy men” he’s met) and Leo Schofield.

Ornamental gardens make up about 90 per cent of his work, despite having fallen out of favour in the wake of slow food and edible gardens.

““Ornamental gardens are now seen as an irresponsible indulgence. The skills I have worked hard to attain are currently not valued as much, but it won’t continue. People are re-engaging with gardens and vegetable gardens are just the first step.”

After 30 years in the business, he estimates his knowledge of the plant kingdom at his own death to be roughly 10 per cent. Heaven help the rest of us then.

“You can have a garden that has no pests and follows all the rules, but is boring, or you can have the most fantastically exciting garden full of problems. I prefer the latter.”

Getting started in raised bed gardening is easy and offers a great many benefits to the gardener.

Raised bed gardening is an easy way to add more efficiency and beauty to your garden areas with little more than some good old-fashioned elbow grease and a little lumber. There are a number of reasons to incorporate them into your yard, if you haven’t already. Here are some of my favorites:

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Create a pleasing design in your yard by installing raised bed gardens that function as architectural elements, delineating zones within an overall landscape plan. They can serve as focal points, direct traffic flow, or define outdoor “rooms” for eating, relaxing or entertaining.

• Easily condition your growing soil through the addition of compost and other amendments so you are not limited to what may be poor quality soil in a given location.

• Set boundaries for plants that might otherwise take over with elevated garden bed edges. Our friends have a chocolate mint bush that has taken over vast swaths of their garden, so when we took some cuttings for our yard, we made sure to plant them in a raised bed where they won’t get out of control.

• Provide structure to which you can attach trellises, hoop houses and row covers, allowing you to attain a larger yield and extend the growing season.

• Work with comfort in beds that have been built to whatever height works for you. This is particularly useful for people with limited mobility.

• Eliminate soil compaction, which can reduce crop yields up to 50 percent. Water, air and roots all have difficulty moving through soil compressed by tractors, tillers or human feet, and gardeners can avoid the problem completely by creating elevated beds narrow enough to work from the sides.

• Achieve a higher density of plants. Because you don’t have to allow areas to walk between rows of crops, you can plant vegetables closer together in raised beds than in traditional ground beds, resulting in a larger harvest from a given area of land.

• Drain off excess moisture better than ordinary garden beds. This is another advantage that helps the plant roots to breathe. In areas that have saturated soil, such as Florida and many areas of the South, raised beds may be the only way you can grow many types of plants.

• Create pest barriers against slugs and snails with the bed walls. Weeds also are less likely to pop up in a soil that you’ve blended yourself from compost, manure and other ingredients.

Building raised bed gardens

There are a lot of ways to build raised beds. My favorite is to find a way to work with what I’ve got. In this case, I had a pile of Douglas fir boards that I salvaged when a neighbor removed a fence, and they were still in perfectly good shape. The major challenge of this project was working on the slope where we wanted to situate the beds: This made the process a little trickier, but it came out great in the end. This type of bed is a great way to start making raised beds — just grab some planks and something to serve as a corner post.

• Nancy Lanza, 52, was planning to uproot her life and move with her son when he decided on a college in either Seattle or the Carolinas
• She was killed by her son Adam Lanza as she lay in her bedroom in her pyjamas on Friday morning
• She had five guns registered to her name, two of which her son used for killings which left 20 children and six school staff dead
• Adam’s father, Peter, is divorced from the mother and lives with new wife in Stamford, Connecticut

By
Daniel Bates In Newtown, Connecticut , Louise Boyle and Hayley Peterson

PUBLISHED:

00:00 EST, 15 December 2012

|

UPDATED:

13:06 EST, 17 December 2012

The mother of the Sandy Hook gunman was shot four times in the face at close range by her son with the gun she trained him to use.

Nancy Lanza, 52, was reportedly shot while wearing her pyjamas on Friday morning in a brutal attack that left her unrecognizable.

She had been lying in bed – and could have even been asleep – when her son Adam killed her at their idyllic home in Newtown, Connecticut, authorities said.

Scroll down for video

Murdered: Nancy Lanza, 52, was shot in the face by her ‘deeply disturbed’ son Adam while she lay in bed at her Connecticut home

Lanza, 20, had lived his whole life at the $1.4million home where he killed his mother. He then took her car – having passed his driving test last year – and drove to Sandy Hook Elementary School.

The shooter stalked the hallways before entering classrooms where he murdered 20 children and six adults before taking his own life.

Nancy Lanza was described as a ‘gun enthusiast’ who taught her son Adam, who had autism-related Asperger’s Syndrome, how to shoot.

The four weapons, including a Glock 10-mm handgun, a Sig Sauer 9-mm handgun and a Bushmaster AR-15 assault rifle, used in the mass shooting at the elementary school all belonged to Nancy Lanza.

Friends of the mother-of-two told the Today show on Monday that she was not a ‘survivalist’ despite earlier reports that she had been stockpiling food because she thought the world economy was on the verge of collapse.

John Bergquist said: ‘Shooting was one of her hobbies. It wasn’t her main hobby. She loved the arts, culture. She loved the finer things in life. She loved to go to Red Sox games, and that’s the Nancy I knew.’

Another friend Ellen Adriani said Nancy was devoted to her two sons and took care of all Adam’s needs.

Killer: Adam Lanza shot his mother in her bed before gunning down 20 children and six staff at Sandy Hook elementary school on Friday

Mother: Fifty-two-year-old Nancy Lanza, pictured, was preparing for the collapse of the world economy by stockpiling food, water and guns in the large home she shared with her son

Her other son, 24-year-old Ryan works for Ernst Young in Manhattan and lives in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Nancy was believed to have been
planning a new life with her 20-year-old son Adam as he made plans to go to
college. She had been thinking about going wherever he decided to study engineering –
Seattle or one of the Carolinas – and live nearby, according to the New York Post.

Russ Hanoman told the Post: ‘They had recently gone to many different colleges looking for the right program for Adam, and the right living situation.’

Divorce papers of the killer’s parents were also released today. Nancy and Peter Lanza ended their marriage in 2009 however the legal documents offer no hints of an acrimonious split and make no mention of any lingering mental health or medical issues for their son, then aged 17.

Under the terms of the divorce, Lanza’s mother, Nancy Lanza, received $289,800 in alimony this year. There is no evidence of bitterness in the court file, no exchange of accusations or drawn out custody disputes.

Nancy and Peter Lanza had joint legal custody of Adam but he lived with his mother. The parents agreed to consult and discuss major decisions affecting Adam’s best interests.

In instances where the parents couldn’t agree, Nancy Lanza ‘shall make the final decision,’ Judge Stanley Novak wrote on September 24, 2009.

Murdered in her own bed: Adam Lanza brutally shot his mother in the face before taking her car and driving to an elementary school in Newtown to go on a shooting rampage

The couple married in June 1981 in Kingston, New Hampshire. The divorce file said the marriage ‘has broken down irretrievably and there is no possibility of getting back together’.

As part of the divorce, Nancy Lanza was ordered to attend a parenting education program. The provider, Family Centers Inc., certified that she completed the program on June 3 and June 10, 2009.

The document says only that Lanza ‘satisfactorily completed the program’.

Adam Lanza’s father had divorced Nancy because of
‘irreconcilable differences,’ and now lives in Stamford, Connecticut
with his new wife Shelley.

A reporter for the Stamford Advocate broke the news to
him that his son had allegedly shot and killed 26 people, including his
ex-wife.

Shock: Peter Lanza, 52, lives with his new wife Shelley in Stamford, Connecticut. He divorced Adam’s mother in 2009 citing ‘irreconcilable differences’

Adam Lanza shot his mother, Nancy, before driving to Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting 26 people including 20 children

He works as the vice president of taxes for GE Energy Financial
Services, and lives on a sprawling street of
multimillion-dollar homes. The couple apparently married in 2011.

In an interview the killer’s aunt said Nancy Lanza was ‘self-reliant’ and indicated she was a ‘prepper’, or a person who prepares for Doomsday by learning essential survival skills – like how to shoot a gun.

Speaking
from her home near Chicago,  Marsha Lanza, 57, said: ‘She was
stockpiling food. We talked about prepping a lot. She was getting ready
for the economic collapse. I think she had the guns for self-defense because she lived alone.’

She added that Nancy was ‘meticulous’ and would ‘never leave the guns out’. Her friends today reiterated that she was a responsible woman and would have kept the guns under lock and key.

Nancy Lanza had taken Adam to a shooting range and taught him how to use a firearm. She had legally purchased five firearms, all registered in Connecticut, according to police records.

Killer: Adam Lanza may have had a much broader plan when he forced his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday

‘She said she would often go target shooting with her kids,’ Dan Holmes, owner of the landscaping firm Holmes Fine Gardens said.

He recalled that she once showed him a ‘high-end rifle’ that she had purchased.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, it was widely reported that Nancy Lanza was a kindergarten teacher at the elementary school.

But Newtown Superintendent of Schools Janet Robinson said Saturday that she had ‘never met’ Miss Lanza and that she was not in the school database as a staff member.

Some reports alleged that Nancy had
retired from working as an educator many years ago to take care of her
son, Adam, who allegedly had behavioral and personality issues.

Nancy and Adam lived in a well-to-do part of Newtown, a
prosperous community of 27,000 people about 60 miles northeast of New
York City.

A man several houses down, who said he was friends with the couple,
declined to give his name, saying only that they are ‘great people’ and
‘my heart bleeds for them’.

Holmes said he had just last week decorated Nancy Lanza’s yard with Christmas garlands and lights.

She was ‘very nice, very pleasant and always very appreciative of our work,’ Holmes said.

Jim Leff, a musician who knew Nancy through a local bar and music spot that she frequented, called her a ‘lovely person.’

Connecticut shooting

Nancy Lanza’s home in Newtown, Connecticut, was raided after 2 pm on Friday and she was found shot dead from an apparent gunshot wound to the face

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VIDEO: Police statement on behalf of Nancy Lanza’s family…

 

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But he said he never became close friends with her because she was ‘high-strung.’

‘What held me back was my impression that she was a little high-strung,’ Leff wrote on his blog. ‘But now that I’ve been filled in by friends about how difficult her troubled son (the shooter) was making things for her, I understand that it wasn’t that Nancy was overwrought about the trivialities of everyday life, but that she was handling a very difficult situation with uncommon grace.’

Former classmates of Adam Lanza recall him as a shy and extremely intelligent student.

In Newtown High School, he dressed more formally than other students and
carried a black briefcase to his classes, which stuck out to some as
most other students wore backpacks.

Classmate Tim Arnone, 20, who graduated with Lanza in 2010, told Reuters that the boy was ‘driven hard’ to succeed academically by his parents,
particularly his mother. ‘She pushed him really hard to be smarter and
work harder in school,’ Arnone said.

NBC Connecticut also reported that Adam Lanza tried to buy a rifle at a Dick’s Sporting Goods in Danbury, Connecticut, on Tuesday but was rebuffed because the state has a waiting period for gun sales.

Traumatized students were seen being led out of the school crying and holding hands

Quoting
a ‘family insider,’ the New York Daily News reported that Adam was a
‘deeply disturbed kid’ who ‘certainly had major issues’ and was ‘subject
to outbursts.’

A former classmate said Adam has been ‘a weird kid since we were five years old.’ Tim Dalton wrote on Twitter: ‘As horrible as this was, I can’t say I am surprised…. Burn in hell, Adam.’

Catherine Urso, who was attending a
vigil on Friday evening in Newtown said her college-age son knew the killer
and remembered him for his alternative style.

‘He just said he was very thin, very remote and was one of the goths,’ she said.

Adam
Lanza belonged to a technology club at Newtown High School that held
‘LAN parties’ – short for local area network – in which students would
gather at a member’s home, hook up their computers into a small network
and play games. Gloria Milas, whose son Joshua was in the club with Lanza, hosted one of the parties once.

She
recalled a school meeting in 2008 organized by the gunman’s mother to
try to save the job of the club’s adviser. At the meeting, Milas said,
Adam Lanza’s brother Ryan said a few words in support of the adviser,
who he said had taken his brother under his wing.

‘My brother has always been a nerd,’ Ryan Lanza said then, according to Milas. ‘He still wears a pocket protector.’

Joshua
Milas, who graduated from Newtown High School in 2009, said Adam Lanza
was generally a happy person but that he hadn’t seen him in a few years.

‘We would hang out, and he was a good
kid. He was smart,’ Joshua Milas told the AP. ‘He was probably one of
the smartest kids I know. He was probably a genius.’

He
graduated high school in 2010, but was not pictured in the school
yearbook. Rather, a block reading ‘camera shy’ is the entire imprint he
left.

A neighbor in
Newtown, Rhonda Cullens, said she knew Nancy Lanza from monthly
get-togethers the neighborhood women had a few years back for games of
bunco, a dice game.

‘She was
a very nice lady,’ Ms Cullens said. ‘She was just like all the
rest of us in the neighborhood, just a regular person.’

Ms
Cullens recalled that Mrs Lanza liked to garden and to make her house
look nice for the holidays. Lanza joked, though, that no one noticed
because the house was out of view, up a hill, she said.

Sandeep
Kapur, who lives two doors down from the Lanza family in Newtown, said
he did not know them and was unaware of any disturbances at the Lanza
house in the three years that he and his family have been in the
neighborhood.

He described
the area as a subdivision of well-tended, 15-year-old homes on lots of
an acre or more, where many people work at companies like General
Electric, Pepsi and IBM. Some are doctors, and his next-door neighbor is
a bank CEO, said Kapur, a project manager at an information technology
firm.

‘The neighborhood’s
great. We have young kids, and they have lots of friends,’ he said. ‘If
you drive past this neighborhood, it gives you a really warm feeling.’

The
shooting is the latest in a series of high-profile gun crimes in
American schools and colleges, that is especially shocking given the
age of the students involved.

Mayor Bloomberg said Friday that immediate action must be taken over gun laws in the U.S.

He
said: ‘We heard after Columbine that it was too soon to talk about gun
laws. We heard it after Virginia Tech. After Tucson and Aurora and Oak
Creek. And now we are hearing it again.

‘For
every day we wait, 34 more people are murdered with guns. Today, many
of them were five-year olds. President Obama rightly sent his heartfelt
condolences to the families in Newtown.

‘But
the country needs him to send a bill to Congress to fix this problem.
Calling for ‘meaningful action’ is not enough. We need immediate
action.’

SECURITY MEASURES CAN’T PREVENT ANOTHER U.S. SCHOOL SHOOTING

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American public schools use a variety of security measures
to protect students and staff.

Almost 94 per cent of U.S. elementary schools lock their
doors during the school day to restrict access to campuses.

Some 84 per cent of high schools, 73 per cent of middle
schools, and 51 per cent of elementary schools use security cameras to monitor
their schools, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

Increasing numbers of security guards are in place at U.S.
public schools as a result of gun crime with metal detectors also in use across
the country.

Yet despite security measures school shootings in America
are still common place.

On February 10 2012 a 14-year-old from New Hampshire called
Hunter Mack shot himself in the face at Walpole Elementary School cafeteria.

Two weeks later student T.J. Lane, 17, allegedly opened fire
at Chardon High School, Ohio, killing two and injuring three.

Seven were killed and 10 injured at a shooting at Oikos
University, in Oakland, California on 2 April. One L. Goh, 43, a Korean
national surrendered to police.

Police arrested 15-year-old Robert Gladden and charged him
as an adult after a student opened fire on the first day of school, at Perry
Hall High School, Baltimore, in August. The 15-year-old allegedly opened fire
before being rushed by teachers.

Teachers again stopped a shooter on September 7 when a
14-year-old was tackled to the floor after shooting at the ceiling at Normal
Community High School, Illinois.

On September 26 eight grader Cade Poulos killed himself at
Stillwater Junior High School in Oklahoma.

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The launch of Outdoor Design Build Supply reflects a strong government commitment to develop the UAE‘s natural outdoor landscape.

Taking place from 25-27 March 2013 at the Dubai World Trade Centre, the event has been given extra significance by a report from research specialists, Ventures Middle East, which says that $38bn worth of new construction contractor awards are expected in the UAE in 2013.

The exhibition’s organisers, Streamline Marketing Group, estimate that at least 10 per cent of this figure, or $3.8bn, will go towards new landscaping and garden projects in the Emirates.

“All signs point towards a lucrative future in the UAE and wider GCC garden and landscape sector,” said Thea Skelton, Project Manager for Outdoor Design Build Supply, which is presented by Dubai Municipality and supported by Municipality of Abu Dhabi City and Al Ain Municipality.

“The UAE construction sector is making a comeback, with a score of large projects going ahead, and more to be announced in the coming months. These will in turn generate new opportunities for the landscaping sector in the UAE, and as an industry guideline, we expect that about 10% or more of the construction sector investment will be allocated for gardens and landscaping.”

Added Skelton: “We are also seeing a marked growth in investment into green open spaces, especially leisure destinations such as sports stadiums, family attractions and golf courses, and the booming construction outlook along with strong governmental support will continue to drive this forward.”

Outdoor Design Build Supply is the only dedicated event in the Middle East to address the use of outdoor space in construction projects, providing support to developers, landscape architects and designers working to create outdoor spaces including public parks, hotels, private and palace gardens, green areas within urban communities, major residential and commercial projects, sports stadiums, golf courses, hospitals, irrigation and landscaping.

The dedicated event has already attracted big players such as Terraverde, Orient Irrigation, Greenworks LLC, Toscana Landscaping, Fitco Irrigation, and the UK based wood chipper manufacturer Timberwolf, which is looking to tap into the re-emerging landscape sector in the Middle East.

“Timberwolf has laid out an aggressive expansion strategy for the Middle East region,” said Patrice Love, Director of Marketing HR, Timberwolf. “We have created a three-year strategy to grow our export business from 18% to 40%, and Outdoor Design Build Supply will provide us with the platform to source a distributor, with the UAE as a starting point.”

Visitors to the event will include government and urban planning officials, corporate project managers and horticulture experts who will give exhibitors the opportunity to strengthen existing relationships while putting them in front of a targeted market.

Outdoor Design Build Supply is supported by the Emirates Society of Landscape (ESLA), Garedenex, and the UAE Society of Engineers.

Landscaping is not limited to those with the green thumb or professional gardeners. It can be done by anyone even if you have no experience in gardening. A good eye for space and scale, a dash of creativity, and a touch of color are all you need to create a beautiful landscape. There are many ways you can make your yard look attractive and vibrant at any given season. Here are some ideas you can explore for your garden.

Winter Landscaping

Just because everything you see is white and gray doesn’t mean you have to apply the same to your garden. Winter is an almost leaf-less season but if you have ornamental trees with very distinct barks such as birch trees and dogwoods your landscape can still look lively. You can also have berries in your yard. A lot of trees have berries that hold onto its branches even during winter. Holly and Crabapple trees look lovely with berries on it. Evergreens are the best winter landscape shrub you can have. This is because evergreens come in different colors like gold, blue, and many more! Since winter is not really a plant season, it’s a great season to decorate your garden structures such as benches, trellis, garden sculpture, or arbour.

Fall Landscaping

Fall is a colorful season so it’s the best time to take advantage of the various shades and hues that nature has to offer. Japanese maples can brighten any yard. Its pink shoots come out during winter then it turns into orange, green, and yellow before dropping when fall season comes. Lamarcki Serviceberry is pretty fall foliage. Its oval leaves are bronze which turn into red during fall. You can also go for container gardens to spruce up your landscape. Plant coppery autumn ferns, red-twig dogwoods, heavenly bamboo, and amber waves in your pots and just randomly arrange them in your yard. The vibrant colors from these plants are more than enough to create a splendid landscape.

Spring Landscaping

Make your garden look more effervescent with flowers that bloom in spring. Pink roses in your picket fence, coupled with purple salvia and Chartreuse lady’s mantle will spell sophisticated loveliness in your garden. Attractive orange lilies will also add some pop to your garden. When you have purple salvias beside it, the complementary colors will bring out life and energy in your otherwise ordinary yard.  To have a continuous bloom to your spring garden go for Rudbeckia and hydrangea.

Summer Landscaping

Summer is all about outdoors. If you have a bare wall in your yard, you can plant young geraniums to give a splash of summer color in your garden. Simply plant the geraniums in terra-cotta pots then hang them on your yard walls! Coneflower is a great summer bloom. It’s a perennial foliage that comes in orange, white, pink, and yellow. Fill your yard with yellow dahlias and classic zinnias (Magellan Coral in particular) to complete the summer feel in your garden.

Regardless of the season, you can create a lovely and inviting atmosphere in your garden. A simple landscape speaks volumes to the overall ambiance of your home. It doesn’t take much to come up with a great landscape. All you need are the right trees and shrubs at the right season. Remember, nature has its way of arranging itself and being beautiful by just being there.

Author bio:
Lee Otto is a Landscaping enthusiast who owns a Landscaping
business founded in 1999. He started his company with one crew, a
Bobcat and truck and trailer. Over the last 13 years, Lee’s landscaping
has evolved to become one of the Twin Cities premiere Landscape
Design Build firms.

Photo: Lee’s Landscaping

Recently, I saw a cartoon online that made me laugh out loud, because it is so true.

It showed a gardener jumping up and down yelling, “Ten yards of compost? You DO love me!”

And the caption said, “The great thing about shopping for gardeners is you can give us rotten crap and we’ll be happy.”

It’s pretty hard to wrap 10 yards of compost, and even the most ardent gardener wouldn’t want it dumped under the Christmas tree, but if you have a gardener in your life, gift certificates can be one of your best friends.

From plants to topsoil, garden structures to labour, a gift certificate, from a landscaping company or from a sturdy garden helper, pertaining to something for the garden will make the green thumb in your life smile.

Birdwatching and gardening go hand in hand in many households, so you might want to do a gift basket including a feeder or two and several different types of seed, suet cakes and bird pies. A heated bird bath is also an excellent choice, as it is important that birds have an open source of water in the winter months.

The Birds Nature Shop in Mahone Bay has an excellent selection of bird feeders, baths, binoculars, as well as garden items such as wind chimes and water features.

The must-have gardening tool, in my opinion, comes from the imaginative people at Lee Valley Tools, where it is easy to spend your entire Christmas budget on gift ideas.

The Hori-Hori weeding knife is good for many tasks, including dividing perennials, planting bulbs, edging garden beds and, of course, removing unwanted plants from your garden beds. It comes with a carbon steel or stainless steel blade and a protective belt sheath.

The only thing it lacks is a GPS chip for locating it when it gets misplaced. (If some innovative designer invented something to find lost tools, they could retire.)

If you really want to score points with the gardener in your life, a selection of items in a basket, garden trug or bucket makes a terrific choice. Include a good set of gardening gloves from Atlas, Foxgloves, or Ethel. These are three of the top garden glove makers, with a variety of styles for every size of hands.

Add some SeaBoost liquid seaweed fertilizer, which is good for houseplants as well as for your outdoor gardening needs, a good hand protecting cream, like locally made beeswax-based Naturally Nancy’s Protective Cream, and a good sunscreen and sun hat.

Perhaps tuck in a steel or non-BPA plastic water bottle to keep the gardener hydrated during hot weather. Finish your gift basket off with a sampler of different seeds from any of a number of local seed companies, including Halifax Seed, Gardens North, Hope Seeds and Annapolis Seeds.

Enhancing your landscape and garden is an investment in your property, so you might consider having a landscape architect come in to design an addition to your existing plantings or “hardscaping,” which are structures like patios, retaining walls and walkways.

Perhaps your gardener would like a pergola or other timber-frame structure from Wise Owl Joinery Company in Port Williams or a welded metal signpost or sculpture from Avon River Metalworks in Falmouth.

James Chadwick creates wonderful garden art at Metal Petals, a garden art company located in St. Peters, Cape Breton, while Jerry Walsh makes a varied line of garden art, birdhouses, benches and more at Distinctive Garden Accents in Lake of the Woods.

For smaller works of art, check out the desktop and wall-mounted botanical sculptures by John Welling of Botinicals, available at the Blomidon Inn House of Gifts.

If none of these suggestions appeal to you, check out your local nursery or garden centre. Those that are open until the end of December or year-round carry a fascinating selection of garden-themed items, as well as gardening books and journals.

And if you’re really stumped, there’s always the gift certificates, as noted above.

For a gift that keeps on giving, consider making a financial donation to one of the public gardens in the province, including the Harriet Irving Botanical Gardens at Acadia University, the Halifax Public Gardens, the Rock Garden in Truro or the Annapolis Royal Historic Gardens.

These gardens rely on the generosity of donors to keep them growing and blooming for everyone.

Gardening addict Jodi DeLong is getting at least one new knee as a present for next year’s garden season. Talk about your favourite garden gifts at bloominganswers.com.