If you have an interest in gardening and serving your community, check out the master gardener classes that are gearing up in Northeast Florida.

Master gardener is a title given to individuals who receive in‑depth horticultural training from county extension agents and, in return, give 75 hours of volunteer service helping their local extension office. The program is under the direction of the University of Florida Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.

Master gardeners join the program for a variety of reasons. Transplants from other climates find that gardening in Florida has special challenges and they want to learn how to duplicate their previous successes. Some grew up on a farm and are returning to their roots. Others simply enjoy digging in the dirt and want to have a nice landscape. Whatever the reason, there is a common bond among gardeners and they are an eager, nurturing group that loves to share information and plants.

The county extension offices in several Northeast Florida counties train master gardeners in late summer and fall. If you are a resident of Duval, Clay, Bradford, Nassau, St. Johns, Putnam or Baker counties, the classes coming up are open to you.

Most master gardener trainings will be held on Wednesdays beginning in late July and ending in October. Training sessions begin at 9:30 a.m. and end at 3:30 p.m. The cost to attend the program varies, so check with your county extension office.

Training will include topics such as basic plant science, plant propagation, entomology (insects), plant pathology (diseases), nematology, vegetable gardening, fruit culture, woody ornamentals, turf management, animal pest control, Florida-Friendly Landscaping, irrigation basics and planting/care of common landscape plants. The master gardener training is the most comprehensive horticultural classes offered in our area.

Master gardeners give their volunteer hours to extension offices in many ways. Many Duval master gardeners help residents by answering telephone calls about gardening and landscaping issues. In addition, they troubleshoot plant problems brought into the office, test soil for pH, conduct plant clinics, teach 4‑H youth about plants, plant and maintain demonstration gardens, teach groups about landscape techniques to protect the environment, work with school garden projects, help clients at the Canning/Nutrition Center, and assist with city beautification projects.

Applications for a limited number of openings are being taken in area county extension offices for upcoming classes. Anyone may apply for the program regardless of race, color, sex, national origin, or disability.

Terry Brite DelValle is a horticulture extension agent with the Duval County Extension Service and the University of Florida/IFAS.

FREE WATERSHED WISE LANDSCAPE PROGRAMS

Ventura County Waterworks: 6767 Spring Road, Moorpark. 9 a.m. to noon Saturday. RSVP: 508-378-3000.

conservation groups

Surfrider Foundation: Learn more about Ocean Friendly Gardens and workshops, 949-492-8170, www.surfrider.org.

G3 Green Gardens Group: 149 S. Barrington Ave., Suite 758, Los Angeles, 310-694.8351, www.greengardensgroup.com, and its Watershed Wise Landscaping Programs, www.watershedwisetraining.com.

When water from sprinklers, a hose or rain flows down the street toward the storm drain, it picks up pollutants: fertilizer, motor oil, brake pad dust, trash, dog poop. This, says the Surfrider Foundation, is the No. 1 cause of ocean pollution.

But the nonprofit organization, dedicated to protecting the world’s oceans, believes it can be stopped.

Several years ago, Surfrider launched an Ocean Friendly Gardens program aimed at promoting water conservation and soil absorption at home, which would prevent pollution from entering the ocean through urban runoff. With so much of the region paved over, TreePeople estimates that for every inch of rain that falls on Los Angeles, 3.8 billion gallons of water pour into the Pacific. That’s close to half of the more than 8.5 billion gallons of water used outdoors by households in the U.S. every day, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

“It’s like a giant pipeline to the ocean,” says Paul Herzog, who coordinates the Ocean Friendly Gardens program. “If we can use that water for our plants, then we won’t have to rely on imported water or ground water and we’ll eliminate pollution from urban runoff. It’s a great two for one.”

Part of the program focuses on hands-on workshops led by Los Angeles-based G3 Green Gardens Group. Do-it-yourselfers learn how to transform a garden into a sustainable, urban wildlife habitat with California native and climate-appropriate plants.

“By planting plants that are from our area, it connects us to where we are instead of just having palm trees and grass everywhere,” Herzog says. “You get the birds and the bees and the butterflies dependent on those native plants. The monarch butterfly’s young depend on milkweed, so that would be a great plant for everyone to have.”

The three-hour class walks participants through every step, including turf removal and soil preparation through sheet mulching (also known as the lasagna method, with its alternate layers of paper and mulch). Installing irrigation and adding dry stream beds and other permeable hardscapes, such as decomposed granite, capture water so it can soak into the ground, providing hydration for plants and replenishing the aquifers.

“If you have these little ‘sponges’ everywhere, you’re so much more likely to not only prevent runoff and pollution, but you don’t need a big solution anywhere,” Herzog says. “It’s difficult to clean up water at the end of a storm drain — it’s high volume, it’s moving fast and you need a lot of room or you need some expensive technological device.”

But to have small solutions all over the region?

“It creates multiple benefits,” he says. “You get plants and healthy soil, you get habitat and food for native wildlife. If you plant a tree, you get shade for your car or house. These are things you don’t get by putting a filter at the end of a pipe.”

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Plants are popping out of the ground these days thanks to the warm temperatures and lots of rain. It’s time to get ahead of weeds before they overwhelm perennials and all those annuals you are about to plant.

Maple seedlings are in abundance this year and should be removed promptly. They grow amazingly fast into 6-foot trees. Chickweed has been blooming merrily and crabgrass is about to germinate in all the bare spots in lawns and garden beds.

Hand-weeding is much preferable to toxic poisons and this means you need good weeding tools. My favorite three-pronged weeder has gone missing and I must replace it at the garden center. The substitute I’ve been using just isn’t satisfactory. Many gardeners love the sharp-edged triangular Ho-Mi Korean weeder, which can be quite lethal so watch out when using it. A dandelion digger is great for garden beds as well as for lawns. A friend gave me a long-handled knife-like tool for use in between paving stones, bricks and cobblestones. You still have to get down on the ground to remove the weeds but the knife slices through the roots quickly. Vegetable gardeners can rely on a variety of hoes but they are seldom helpful in a perennial flower garden where plants are close together in haphazard patterns.

Mulch is the ultimate defense against weeds. It also holds moisture in the soil, a boon during dry spells. Wood chips around trees and shrubs are a great idea. Just be sure never to create “volcanoes,” those cone-shaped piles around tree trunks. Keep the mulch several inches from the trunk to avoid harboring diseases and insect pests. Mulch makes gardens look neat but the downside in perennial beds is that desirable self-sown flower seeds won’t germinate. You have to decide whether to reduce weeding and help retain moisture or provide a hospitable environment for forget-me-nots and little bulbs. Vegetable gardeners don’t face that dilemma. Straw — not hay, which has too many weed seeds — or grass clippings are great for vegetable gardens. That is assuming you never use pesticides on your lawn.

Get all those plants you bought at local nonprofit plant sales into the ground as quickly as possible and start a weeding routine for all your gardens. Gardening season has finally arrived and we need to keep ahead of Mother Nature.

NATIVE BEE POLLINATORS: Learn about essential native bees who pollinate food and ornamental plants on a walk at the Hitchcock Center in Amherst tomorrow, from 10 a.m. to noon. Joan Milam, a research associate at UMass, will lead the walk. Suggested donation, $5. Register by calling 256-6006.

BOREAL FOREST WALK: Aimee Gelinas will lead a spring ephemeral boreal plant and tree walk at Tamarack Hollow in Windsor tomorrow, from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., under the auspices of Arcadia Wildlife Sanctuary. Fee is $16. Call 584-3009 to register.

NATIVE WOODLAND PLANTS: Learn about native medicinal plants on an herb walk on Skinner Mountain Tuesday, 6-7 p.m. Herbalist Brittany Wood Nickerson will lead the walk. Meet at the main entrance to Skinner State Park off Route 47. Suggested donation, $10.

PLANT EXCHANGE: The Belchertown plant exchange is Tuesday, at 6 p.m., at 253 Warren Wright Road in Belchertown. Elaine Williamson organizes this twice-monthly exchange. Bring perennial divisions, seedlings, seeds and a box to take home your treasures. Fee is $2.

WILDFLOWERS: Uncommon ferns, yellow lady’s slippers and pitcher plants will be among the wildflowers expected to be seen on a hike at High Ledges in Shelburne on Wednesday, from 9 a.m. to noon. Botanists Janet Bissell and Connie Parks will lead the walk for Arcadia Wildlife Sanctuary. Bring a hand lens and field guide if possible and be prepared for ticks. Fee is $8. Register at Arcadia, 584-3009.

GARDENING WITH MUSHROOMS: Fungi Ally will hold a workshop on growing mushrooms on May 24, 1-4 p.m., at Hacker Farm, 141 Franklin St., Belchertown. Fee, $30. Participants will take home a log inoculated with mushroom spores. Register at http://fungially.com/workshops/ or call Willie Crosby contact at 978-844-1811 or fungially@gmail.com.

PLANT SALES: Here is a list of plant sales scheduled in the next month. Visit as many as you can!

∎ May 17: Easthampton: Pascommuck Conservation Trust, 8 a.m. to noon, Big E’s Foodland parking lot. Perennials, ornamental grasses, shrubs, garden stepping stones, bird houses and a raffle of wicker rocking chair with gardening items. All proceeds benefit the trust, which is dedicated to land preservation and trail building; Easthampton Garden Club, 8 a.m. to noon, Emily Williston Library, 9 Park St., 527-1031. Holyoke: Wistariahurst Museum, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., at the museum, 238 Cabot St., 322-5660. Pelham: Pelham Library, 9 a.m. to noon, the library at the corner of Amherst and South Valley roads. Perennials, annual seedlings and vegetable starts. Benefits library programs. Shelburne Falls: Bridge of Flowers, 9 a.m. to noon, Trinity Church Baptist at the corner of Water and Main streets. Proceeds fund Bridge of Flowers maintenance. South Hadley: Council on Aging, 9 a.m. to noon, South Hadley Senior Center, 45 Dayton St. Soil testing and garden advice available from master gardeners; Mount Holyoke College Talbott Arboretum, 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Benefits purchases for the greenhouse and campus grounds. (Sale also on May 24.) Southampton: Southampton Woman’s Club Anita Smith Memorial Plant Sale, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., Conant Park. Locally grown plants at reasonable prices. Sunderland: Sunderland Public Library, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Graves Memorial Library at the corner of School and North Main streets. Plant donations accepted there on Friday.

∎ May 24: Amherst: 4-H plant sale, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., Amherst Farmers Supply, 320 S. Pleasant St. Hanging plants, patio pots, vegetable plants, flowering plants, herbs and perennials. Leverett: Leverett Historical Society’s Plant and Garden Book Sale, 9 a.m. to noon, Leverett Town Hall. To donate plants or books or to help, contact Dawn Marvin Ward at 367-9562 or Julie at 367-2656. South Hadley: Mount Holyoke College Talbott Arboretum, 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Benefits purchases for the greenhouse and campus grounds.

∎ May 31: Amherst: Grace Episcopal Church, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., on the Town Common. Plants, including house plants, garden tools, decorative pots and books. Proceeds finance landscaping at the church. To donate plants call the church office at 256-6754.

Take a self-paced tour of seven of Webster Groves’ enchanting private gardens and its brand new sculpture park at the Secret Gardens of Webster Groves Tour on Sunday, June 1, noon to 4 p.m.

Tickets are $15 in advance and can be purchased at Rolling Ridge Nursery, Mac Hardware, Webster Groves Bookshop and Straub’s Webster Groves location. Tickets are $20 the day of the tour and can be purchased at the Webster Groves Sculpture Garden at Kirkham and Gore avenues.

For more information or to purchase advance tickets online, visit www.wghsparentsclub.org or call Lynda Brady at 740-2590.

Woody and Winding, 477 Hawthorne: The au naturel feel of this fairy tale woodland-style garden with plenty of color is enchanting.

Color Me Pretty, 429 Sherwood: This white stucco home on a well-­known bend of Lockwood gets a flush of color from annuals, perennials and an expansive azalea garden dating to the 1950s.

advertisementA Touch of New, A Touch of Old, 164 Plant: Updated landscaping mixes with architectural treasures from an era past on the grounds of this 1889 home.

It’s a Secret, 55 Marshall Place: This home truly does have a secret garden -– the owner’s personal Zen garden. Shh, not to disturb the reclining Buddha. The gardens were designed to be four-season gardens.

Lawn Free, 215 E. Swon: These organic gardeners appreciate food in an intimate way – right outside their front door. They replaced their front lawn with raised beds and hardy plants including a Hawthorne tree, indigenous grasses, roses and hardwood peonies.

Perennially Happy, 21 W. Cedar: This garden features perennials for a variety of conditions and caters to the resident honeybees. It attracts birds, butterflies and the many insects that promote a healthy, happy ecosystem.

Southern Style, 46 Marshall Place: Every bit of space is used to create a large, lush southern-­like garden. “Evelyn,” the variety used by Crabtree and Evelyn, and other climbing roses surround a fanciful backyard folly and Victorian porches.

Form Meets Flowers: This newly completed land wedge at Kirkham and Gore avenue is the crown jewel in the Webster Groves park system. Five pieces of outdoor sculpture exist in unusual harmony with a garden-­like landscape.

FREE WATERSHED WISE LANDSCAPE PROGRAMS

Ventura County Waterworks: 6767 Spring Road, Moorpark. 9 a.m. to noon Saturday. RSVP: 508-378-3000.

conservation groups

Surfrider Foundation: Learn more about Ocean Friendly Gardens and workshops, 949-492-8170, www.surfrider.org.

G3 Green Gardens Group: 149 S. Barrington Ave., Suite 758, Los Angeles, 310-694.8351, www.greengardensgroup.com, and its Watershed Wise Landscaping Programs, www.watershedwisetraining.com.

When water from sprinklers, a hose or rain flows down the street toward the storm drain, it picks up pollutants: fertilizer, motor oil, brake pad dust, trash, dog poop. This, says the Surfrider Foundation, is the No. 1 cause of ocean pollution.

But the nonprofit organization, dedicated to protecting the world’s oceans, believes it can be stopped.

Several years ago, Surfrider launched an Ocean Friendly Gardens program aimed at promoting water conservation and soil absorption at home, which would prevent pollution from entering the ocean through urban runoff. With so much of the region paved over, TreePeople estimates that for every inch of rain that falls on Los Angeles, 3.8 billion gallons of water pour into the Pacific. That’s close to half of the more than 8.5 billion gallons of water used outdoors by households in the U.S. every day, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

“It’s like a giant pipeline to the ocean,” says Paul Herzog, who coordinates the Ocean Friendly Gardens program. “If we can use that water for our plants, then we won’t have to rely on imported water or ground water and we’ll eliminate pollution from urban runoff. It’s a great two for one.”

Part of the program focuses on hands-on workshops led by Los Angeles-based G3 Green Gardens Group. Do-it-yourselfers learn how to transform a garden into a sustainable, urban wildlife habitat with California native and climate-appropriate plants.

“By planting plants that are from our area, it connects us to where we are instead of just having palm trees and grass everywhere,” Herzog says. “You get the birds and the bees and the butterflies dependent on those native plants. The monarch butterfly’s young depend on milkweed, so that would be a great plant for everyone to have.”

The three-hour class walks participants through every step, including turf removal and soil preparation through sheet mulching (also known as the lasagna method, with its alternate layers of paper and mulch). Installing irrigation and adding dry stream beds and other permeable hardscapes, such as decomposed granite, capture water so it can soak into the ground, providing hydration for plants and replenishing the aquifers.

“If you have these little ‘sponges’ everywhere, you’re so much more likely to not only prevent runoff and pollution, but you don’t need a big solution anywhere,” Herzog says. “It’s difficult to clean up water at the end of a storm drain — it’s high volume, it’s moving fast and you need a lot of room or you need some expensive technological device.”

But to have small solutions all over the region?

“It creates multiple benefits,” he says. “You get plants and healthy soil, you get habitat and food for native wildlife. If you plant a tree, you get shade for your car or house. These are things you don’t get by putting a filter at the end of a pipe.”

The chatter was all about plants and gardening. As the crowd mingled during the two-day OCtech Foundation’s Home Garden Symposium, people exchanged growing tips and admired the ribbon winners at the flower show. They tapped into the plethora of knowledge that speakers Amy Dabbs and Andy Cabe came to share. And no one went away empty handed as the Orangeburg Master Gardeners handed out free zinnia plants.

Each year, the lineup of presenters, the flower show and the silent auction are declared “the best they have ever seen” by many attendees. This year, the “friend raiser,” as OCtech College President Dr. Walter Tobin likes to call it, brought the public wonderful opportunities to learn even more about gardening.

Amy Dabbs, Clemson extension agent from Charleston, gave the crowd plenty to think about as she presented tips on how to best go about buying plants for their yards. Dabbs emphasized doing a little planning and research before even heading to the store. Making a list and keeping to it as well as being able to recognize a healthy plant are important if you want your yard and garden to thrive, Dabbs said.

“My personal plant list includes oakleaf hydrangea, Echinacea, creeping plum yew, Hibiscus Texas star — all plants I really like and that do well in my yard,” she said.

Dabbs shared her personal experience of landscaping the yard around her newly-built home and finding ways to solve problems by selecting the right plants for each situation. She also cautioned against impulse buying, which often results in poor plant choices.

Her presentation was followed by “Dueling Designers” Vonnie Bozard and Lynn Garrick, who potted up two shade-loving planters, demonstrating two very different design ideas.

Wednesday’s events began with a sumptuous buffet and viewing of silent auction items. Bids were placed on a wide variety of donated plants and garden-related items. OCtech Sustainable Agriculture students were on hand to sell vegetable and bedding plants grown in the campus greenhouses.

Andy Cabe, director of the gardens at Riverbanks Zoo and Gardens, awed the crowd with a presentation on “The Top Fifty Plants for Southern Gardens.” As pictures of the chosen plants were shown on the wall screen, Cabe touched on the outstanding features that make each plant special and worthy of including in the home garden.

“For me, the selection changes over time, but what you see here today are things that grow well here and that we rely on at the botanical gardens,” he said. “You can depend on them.”

Cabe also shared his Top 10 List of plants the botanical gardens will feature annually that are the “cream-of-the-crop choices that can work well in any garden and will add beauty and interest to any landscape.” The list can be viewed on line at

http://www.riverbanks.org/botanical-garden/top-10-pick-list.shtml.

“Everybody owes it to themselves to splurge every now and then and make a ridiculous (plant) purchase — buy something expensive,” Cabe told those attending. “You deserve it for all the hard work you put into your garden.”

Jim Elliott of the Avian Conservation Center finished out the afternoon program with a Birds of Prey flight demonstration. Three different trained birds from the center flew over the indoor audience on command. Elliott’s presentation included information on how birds are rehabilitated at the Charleston facility and the importance of all birds in the ecosystem.

* Contact the writer: 138 Nature’s Trail, Bamberg, SC 29003.

As much as we love gardens, we’re having a hard time wrapping our brains around the decision to allow a Disneyesque garden/tourist attraction — complete with greenery, mazes, a tunnel, an artificial lake and other water features — at a resort planned for the eastern entrance to Paso Robles.

The Entrada de Paso Robles resort was approved several years ago with 200 hotel rooms, 80 casitas, a conference center and, originally, a 27-hole golf course. Since the original approval, the property off Highway 46 East changed hands — it’s now owned by Ken Hunter III — and so did the vision for the property. Hunter wants a series of gardens there, rather than a golf course. Now that he’s received the blessing of the city Planning Commission, construction of Discovery Gardens — to be built in the project’s first phase — could begin as early as next year.

On the plus side, Discovery Gardens will require significantly less water than the golf course. According to Paso Robles City Manager Jim App, the gardens will use just 90 acre feet per year, compared to the 500 acre feet that the golf course would have required. When recycled water becomes available, the gardens will be required to tap into that.

Another consideration: There already are a fair number of golf courses in our county – including the Hunter Ranch Golf Course located across the highway from the future resort.

We agree that, especially from the standpoint of water savings, the gardens are a better use of the property than a golf course. But why does this have to be an either/or? Is there no other possible use for the land? Or for that matter, why such a large garden? Why not start with something small — ideally a garden showcasing drought tolerant plants?

We are, after all, in the middle of a drought, and in this water miserly environment, symbolism counts for a lot. Just look at the fuss that was kicked up when the Hearst Castle swimming pool was refilled for a Lady Gaga video. What message will it send, then, when we see manicured green hedges, flowering trees and gurgling fountains rising in the otherwise dry Paso landscape, even if the gardens do use far less water than a golf course?

With some major tweaking, though, this could be transformed into an attraction more compatible with the surrounding area and the hot, dry Paso climate. This is an opportunity to entertain and educate, by showcasing the beauty and variety of native landscaping — including plants, rocks and outdoor sculptures — that use little or no water.

We strongly urge the planners of Discovery Gardens to tone down the fairy-tale aspects of the project and give us something that reflects the reality we face in water-starved California.

Arlington’s Halquist Inpatient Center of Capital Caring, the only non-profit hospice in Northern Virginia, can be an emotionally difficult place to work, visit, and live. The six-person landscaping volunteer committee comes together to ensure that all people affected by the center — patients, employees and its neighbors — have natural gifts that make this phase of life a little more peaceful.

Saturday, May 3, was the landscaping committee’s 30th annual plant sale. The committee, which has maintained the Hospice’s well-manicured and flowered grounds for 30 years, funds its own efforts completely and raised about $3,000 this year at the sale.

“It was a good turnout with a couple hundred people there,” Diane Oermann, head of the Landscaping Committee, said. “We vary from year to year, but there are from 100 to 150 types of plants. There were trees, shrubs, perennials, annuals and herbs.”

Photo Conributed

The sale included native plants, herbs, perennials, annuals, shrubs, trees, bulbs, ground cover, and gardening items. All of the proceeds went to the Capital Hospice Landscape fund, which provides for maintenance of the grounds and gardens at the Capital Caring Halquist Memorial Inpatient Center.

Oermann said the annual plant sale has blossomed into something beautiful over the past three decades. It’s a good thing because the all-volunteer committee funds the landscaping efforts completely.

“In the beginning we did it from no money,” Oermann said. “People dug up things in their yard. At first all we had to sell was liriope and hostas. As the years went on, we wanted to improve the grounds further so we have added many beds.”

The landscaping committee procures the plants for the annual sale from volunteers, suppliers, and even from the hospice gardens.

“One year we had a lady who provided a bunch of vegetable seedlings,” Oermann said. “It changes from time to time. Some of the plants are divisions from the hospice grounds themselves. A lot of things come from landscape volunteers. We cannibalize our own yards. We also have a supplier to provide some of the other things.”

The landscaping is an important element of the Arlington hospice, and patients appreciate the natural aesthetic appeal it provides. One element of the garden in particular plays a major role.

“The landscape is an important part of the hospice itself,” Oermann said. “It is mainly for the patients. There is even a gazebo to accommodate two hospital beds. We have patient weddings there, baptisms and some have requested to pass away in the gazebo.”

While predominantly for patients, the gardens are also a retreat for staff members who need a break from difficult moments.

“It’s a nice place to contemplate, and this staff works under a lot of stress,” Oermann said. “The landscape restores peoples’ spirits.”

Malene Davis, president and CEO of Capital Caring at large, said the landscaping of the Halquist center is an example of the love and support of volunteers in the surrounding Community.

“At Capital Caring, our volunteers are very important to our commitment of providing world class care and service to our patients and their families,” Davis said. “My hat is off to the Arlington community and our team of volunteers for creating a beautiful garden and grounds at our Halquist Inpatient Center. From the day the former Woodlawn Elementary School was gifted as a place to provide the best in care, the armies of compassion in the Arlington community have been paramount to our mission of simply improving care to those with advanced illness.”

The overall community support, Oermann added, has been crucial to the blooming and growing garden.

“The immediate community associate, the Waycroft Woodland Civic Association, has been great, and we get people who help from all over Falls Church, Alexandria, Fairfax County, and throughout Arlington,” Oermann said. “We really appreciate the community’s support.”

The landscape volunteers are Wink Harned, Joe Pimenta, Kathryn Lahn, John Lynn and Bill Marshuetz. They work every Saturday of the year February through December to ensure the beauty of Halquist is suitable for its patients, staff and residential neighbors.

PROVIDENCE — The outpouring of support for Central Falls, the first city in state history to go through federal bankruptcy, has continued to blossom.

On Tuesday, urban studies and design students from the Rhode Island School of Design and Brown University unveiled the “Central Falls Comprehensive Master Plan,” to transform the 1.3-square-mile urban landscape into a picturesque oasis dotted with scores of trees, bikeways and gardens.

The plans are so ambitious it’s hard to imagine that the state’s most densely populated city with 19,400 residents wouldn’t soon become a very different place.

Elizabeth Dean Hermann, a professor of landscape architecture at RISD, said that as many as 100 students from Brown, RISD and Javeriana University in Bogota, Colombia, will flood Central Falls this summer with plans to help turn around the city that emerged from bankruptcy less than two years ago.

An influx of Colombians first settled in the city in the 1960s.

Hermann said she decided on Central Falls after speaking to Mike Ritz, executive director of Leadership Rhode Island, and meeting with Mayor James A. Diossa and Steve Larrick, the city’s planning director.

Diossa, at 28, is the youngest mayor in the state, and Larrick is a recent graduate of Brown.

“It’s a very young government that is learning through doing,” Hermann said.

She said that the youthful city leaders, including two female city councilors who are under 30, appeal to her students who feel comfortable working among other young people with innovative ideas.

Emily Maenner and Renata Robles, urban studies students at Brown, kicked off the presentation on Tuesday with RISD’s Design Social Innovation Entrepreneur Shop. They talked about seizing on the city’s small size and diverse population that is more than 60 percent Latino. Their proposals included developing the massive Conant/Coats Clark Thread Mill Complex into an enterprise zone, creating an educational core near Central Falls High School and middle school and expanding the landing enterprise zone in the north end of the city along the banks of the Blackstone River.

The north end of Central Falls borders Cumberland.

Two months ago, Roger Williams University hosted a similar program with its students to find ways to get tenants into the Conant/ Coats Clark mill complex.

Maenner and Robles also discussed beautification efforts on Cross, Summer, Cowden and High streets that run between the city’s two primary corridors: Broad and Dexter streets. Those plans include planting scores of trees, widening sidewalks and building marked bike paths on Roosevelt Avenue near the river.

“We want to create and use these spaces,” Maenner said.

The recent announcement that the Osram-Sylvania light manufacturing firm on Broad Street will soon close presented an opportunity for the city. Maenner and Robles said that they would like to see the building house artists’ studios with greenhouses and urban gardens on the property behind the manufacturing plant.

They also said that it could become a meeting place for local merchants to regularly discuss ideas to improve the local economy.

The students also talked about re-opening a movie theater on Broad Street that is now home to a Christian church and moving the Adams Memorial Library to Coggeshall Tower next to City Hall on Broad Street.

Another RISD student, Andersen Wang, had ambitious plans to turn an urban stretch of Illinois Street, where the police and fire complex are located, into lush green parks with trees and teach local residents about the benefits of horticulture. Those benefits include landscaping front yards to make the curbside view more appealing.

On Twitter:
 @billmalinowski

Posted: Tuesday, May 13, 2014 10:41 pm

Don Davis: Gardening’s landscape has changed

Don Davis

newsadvance.com

Much has changed since I began writing this column 35 years ago. Some things are better and other things are worse.

Beautification was on the back burner in 1979. Lynchburg’s Church Street had two trees: a birch and a beech. Main Street had no trees.

No new trees were being planted along city streets. Maintenance crews spent their time cutting down American elm and Norway maple trees planted in the 1930s that were in decline and getting to be hazardous.

Beds of flowers and shrubbery along streets and highways did not exist. They were not even on the drawing board.

Today, Lynchburg has a city horticulturist, urban forester and a support staff well versed in landscaping. None of them were employed here in the old days.

In 1979, gardeners applied pesticides without worrying too much about the environment. There was no such thing as Roundup for homeowner use, but you could buy Chlordane, Kelthane and other members of the DDT family of insecticidal chemicals.

These days commercial lawn care and landscaping companies must be certified and licensed by the state if they apply chemicals to control weeds, insects and plant diseases. Back then they were free to operate without government regulation.

Pests were a problem then just as they are now. However, deer did not cause as much damage to yards because their populations were not as high as they are today

Our homes harbored no stinkbugs and there were no multi-colored Asian lady bugs swarming into houses every autumn. None of our dogwood trees had diseases like discula anthracnose or powdery mildew. Roses never had any rose rosette virus.

Fusarium wilt was the most common killer of tomatoes back in the day, and it is less of a problem today because most gardeners plant disease-resistant hybrid tomatoes. Now, we must deal with devastating bouts of late blight, a disease not seen in tomatoes around here until the 1990s.

Kentucky 31 was the only tall fescue available for planting in your lawn in 1979. Today there are hundreds of improved tall fescues, many of which are recommended by Virginia Tech’s Extension turf grass specialist due to their good performance under Virginia conditions.

Shrubbery and trees sold in pots were less common. Back then, more plants were marketed with their roots wrapped in burlap.

Today gardeners have a wider choice when it comes to buying plants and seeds. There has been an explosion of new and different products, thanks to the efforts of creative retailers.

Gardens were larger in 1979. Only a few of us had any interest in heirloom apples, tomatoes and roses.

Mulching was not a common practice. Today’s gardeners use mulch liberally to conserve water, prevent weeds and as an element in landscape design.

Weather seems to be more extreme now than it once was. Summers are hotter/cooler and dryer/wetter than they used to be, and winters have wavered between balmy and frigid.

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Tuesday, May 13, 2014 10:41 pm.