SENOIA, Ga. — EMPIRE Turf, The Proven Zoysia Grass, has been selected and installed as the new lawn for Southern Living Magazine’s Idea House 2012. Located about 60 miles south of Atlanta in Senoia, Georgia, this year’s Idea House gave a modern overhaul to an 1830’s farmhouse while maintaining the southern charm that Southern Living readers have come to expect.

“The first thing you notice with a home like this is its curb appeal and that’s where EMPIRE really adds its distinctive touch to the project,” said Tobey Wagner, president of Sod Solutions, the developer of EMPIRE. “EMPIRE Turf is a beautiful grass for Southern landscapes and we are thrilled to see it used for such a unique restoration.”

EMPIRE Turf is a turfgrass that offers improved benefits like rapid recovery and drought toughness to homeowners. EMPIRE thrives in sub-tropical climates like that of South Florida, to more temperate regions found in places like Washington D.C and Pennsylvania. McIntyre Turf Farms donated two truckloads of sod for the project.

“McIntyre Turf is honored to have been chosen to provide EMPIRE Turf to this high profile, important project,” said Chris McIntyre, president of McIntyre Turf. “EMPIRE’s drought tolerance was important to the sustainability effort example in the reuse of the old farmhouse. A grass with a deep rich color, soft texture and rapid recovery were needed for this premium application and we found that EMPIRE fit the bill perfectly.”

Ameriscape Landscaping installed the EMPIRE Turf at the Idea House and are currently maintaining the grass. They have been excited with EMPIRE’s thick root mat and quick response to inputs.

Open to the public Wednesdays through Sundays through late December, the Idea House 2012 is expected to bring in over 40,000 visitors this year. It is currently featured in the August issue of Southern Living Magazine.

About McIntyre Turf
Founded in the 1950’s, McIntyre Farms has been a family business for over half a century. In 1999, McIntyre expanded from growing row crops into the turfgrass business by founding McIntyre Turf. Since its formation, McIntyre Turf has provided grass to high profile golf courses, athletic fields, commercial projects and thousands of family homes. The company has a turfgrass variety for just about every landscape. For more information, visit www.mcintyreturf.com or call 229.365.2525.

About Sod Solutions
Sod Solutions, Inc. is an international turfgrass research, development and marketing company incorporated in the early ’90s. The company’s primary research facility and headquarters is located near Charleston, S.C. Along with EMPIRE Turf, Sod Solutions has released Palmetto® St. Augustine, Celebration® Bermudagrass, Sapphire® St. Augustine, Captiva® St. Augustine, Bella® Bluegrass, Discovery™ Bermudagrass, Santee™ Centipede, Covington™ Centipede, Northbridge™ Bermudagrass, Latitude 36™ Bermudagrass, Regenerating Perennial Ryegrass® , Geo™ Zoysia and HGT – Healthy Grass Technology™. For more information, visit www.sodsolutions.com or call 843.849.1288.

About Southern Living
Published 12 times a year by the Time Inc. Lifestyle Group, Southern Living is the nation’s seventh-largest monthly consumer magazine, reaching 15 million readers each month. Founded in 1966, Southern Living offers today’s busy Southerners achievable ideas for cultivating their own Southern style. Each month in the magazine and on www.southernliving.com, readers find ideas for cooking, gardening, gracious entertaining, decorating, regional travel, and locally made products.

Christina Darkins, 66, lives in Sporle with her daughter Donna Mummery, 47, who has Down’s Syndrome and suffers with heart and lung problems which have caused her to need a pacemaker fitted.

Mrs Darkins said: “Donna has been very ill and caring for her by myself means we have neglected the garden. We just got on with it each day and didn’t realise how bad it was until it became more than a one-person job.

“We haven’t been in our garden for over four years. The brambles were over three foot high, the steps had crumbled and there were no hand rails.”

Ally Burrows, 41, owns gardening company Burrows and Howes, which has been based in Marham for 12 years.

The company has a team of Lady Landscapers, who were sent out to clear the family’s garden after Mrs Darkins called to ask for a quote on clearing the garden and making it safe.

Miss Burrows said: “Christina told me she was on a £500 budget for all the work and I knew the work would cost around £5,000 for the labour and materials.

“I decided I wanted us to do the work for free on the garden but knew we could not afford to provide all the materials.”

Miss Burrows added: “I’ve got all these ideas in my head to give Donna and her mum full access to the whole garden. I want to put in a deck and patio with ramps so Donna doesn’t have to drag her wheelchair across the grass.”

The team has gratefully received donations of patio and decking materials already, but is still in need of a swinging chair and plants.

She added: “Donna really has her heart set on her swinging chair and that’s the main thing we want for them to they can enjoy their garden again.

“I’d love to spend more on the project and really do up the garden for the family but there’s only so much we can do.”

Mrs Darkins said: “To see the garden clear was just so wonderful. It was all surreal, all I wanted was access to the top of the garden and that would have been more than enough but to want to do the whole thing up for us for free was so incredibly kind.

“I’m over the moon, it’s just such a caring thing to do that I can’t even find the words to do it justice.

“This is just the effect Donna has on people, she’s the nicest person on this earth and she gets under people’s skin.”

She added: “I couldn’t say no when they offered to do this for Donna, I would never deprive her of anything and she has her heart set on sitting on her swing chair in the garden.

“All I want is to see her happy face peering down at me from the seat.

“Caring for Donna has taught me that it really is the simplest things in life that give you the greatest pleasure.”

The Lady Landscapers are planning to start the remodel this weekend. They have materials to provide a patio and ramps for Donna to get around, but they are still looking for plants and items to decorate the garden.

If you have any items you wish to donate, please contact Ally Burrows on 07906 73220.

This article is the sixth in our series “Kitsap at Work: Tracking the return of the job market.”

Earlier articles in the series include:

May 2011, Launching the Series: Reinventing careers

September 2011, Dirty Jobs: It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it

November 2011, Food Service Workers: The soul in food service

December 2011, Holiday Workers: Holiday retail rush helps job seekers fill the gaps

May 2012, Bean Counters: Number crunches’ work magnified in a post-recession world

Photo by Steve Zugschwerdt

Pedro Hernandez started a landscape business in Belfair after working on commercial farms in California and Florida. Originally from Guatemala, Hernandez came to the United States 17 years ago. (STEVE ZUGSCHWERDT / SPECIAL TO THE KITSAP SUN)

Photo by Steve Zugschwerdt

Jose (left) and Pedro Hernandez use simple tools to keep their landscape business in business. Pedro sees room to expand the services he provides, which would mean purchasing more equipment. (STEVE ZUGSCHWERDT / SPECIAL TO THE KITSAP SUN)

Joaquin “Pedro” Miguel, 37, his 54-year-old father and 15-year-old son spent three hours last week taming an aggressive laurel hedge that had grown more than 15 feet tall, overshadowing the front lawn of a Poulsbo customer’s home.

Behind them the pile of branches grew as the sun burned off a morning cloud cover. That afternoon, they tackled an invasion of blackberry vines in the backyard.

Miguel, a longtime Belfair resident originally from Guatemala, grew up picking brush and doing other manual labor. He later had a good job doing hydraulic repair in Pierce County. But the commute got old, the gas, expensive. So in 2011, he opened JJ Landscaping and now works mostly in Kitsap County.

Pedro Hernandez, also from Belfair and Guatemalan, operates Hernandez Landscaping with his son Jose, 18. Hernandez, who established his yardwork business six years ago, likes being his own boss and working with plants. In a recent project, he tidied up the yard of a vacant home for sale in Belfair. He will maintain the lawn and garden beds until a new owner moves in.

“It’s fun for me, and I like doing all of it. I like pruning. I like planting seeds. I like cutting,” Hernandez said, through an interpreter. “It’s better for me. I earn more money if I work for myself instead of a company … Landscaping is really doing well for me.”

Miguel and Hernandez are among a growing number of Latinos who have started their own landscaping and lawn care businesses.

“The growth of U.S. Hispanic ownership in our industry has been ongoing for some time but really reached impressive proportions in the last few years,” said Manuel Castaneda, director of the National Hispanic Landscape Alliance, a pro-business lobbying group.

While Latinos make up 8.6 percent of business owners in all industries nationwide, they make up 16 percent of owners in the landscape industry.

According to the NHLA, the importance of landscaping to Latinos — and the Latino workforce to the landscaping industry — can’t be understated.

People identified as Hispanic in the 2010 U.S. Census make up 16.7 percent of the population. Yet Latinos represent 35 percent of the workforce in landscape and lawn care, a multibillion dollar industry that employed 1.6 million nationwide in 2009, the most recent numbers available, according to a study published by the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Businesses that provide supplies and services to landscape companies add another nearly one million jobs, 29 percent of which are held by Latinos.

Plentiful entry-level jobs in landscaping that don’t require special skills or English fluency have attracted Latinos, most of them immigrants who are used to working in fields or forests.

“It’s something they can learn quickly,” said Maria Reyna, a day work coordinator for Casa Latina in Seattle, a nonprofit worker advocacy group that arranges day labor for Latinos and places 75-80 percent of its clients in landscape jobs.

More than half the Latinos working in landscaping are in California, Texas and Florida, but Washington was listed by the NHLA as being among states where the Latino landscaping workforce “is twice or more the national average of U.S. Hispanic workers in all industries combined.”

Eastern Washington’s agriculture is a draw for many. Others, like Miguel and Hernandez, migrated to the Olympic Peninsula as brush pickers for the area’s thriving floral greens industry.

Multiple factors contribute to what the NHLA calls a “sharp rise” in the number of Latino-owned landscape businesses. Construction, another industry in which Latinos are heavily represented, shed jobs during and after the recession, so workers have turned elsewhere for employment.

Concurrently, Latinos who gained a foothold in landscaping a decade or more ago are now able to invest in equipment to start or grow their own companies.

Despite the economic downturn, demand for landscaping is still there among aging homeowners, busy working couples and banks that own foreclosed homes, Ralph Egues, NHLA executive director, said. Washington’s Department of Revenue reports there are 487 landscape and lawn care companies in Kitsap County, and 57 in Belfair. Gathering information on the race of owners is not part of the DOR’s registration process, said spokesman Mike Gowrylow.

Miguel was not surprised to hear that other Latinos are taking opportunities in landscaping to the next level. For his family, business ownership offers flexibility and a better quality of life.

“It’s good,” he said. “Financially it’s better than working for others.”

PATH TO BUSINESS OWNERSHIP

Washington State may be a decade or so behind states like California, where the Latino immigrant population has had more time to pursue upward mobility. But stories of the trajectory toward business ownership have many common themes.

Alfonso Castillo Jr. of Sylmar, Calif., owns a thriving branch of his father’s landscape company, which was started 30 years ago. Castillo, 38, worked for his dad as a kid, then graduated from Cal Poly Pomona with a degree in horticulture and irrigation science. He now does high-end swimming pool installation and maintenance that includes elaborate landscaping.

In Mexico, his father and uncles were farmers.

“Back there, they planted crops to sustain the field; now they’re making a business of it,” Castillo said.

Like Castillo’s family, Hernandez got his start in agriculture. In Guatemala, he worked for large fruit and coffee companies. The pay was dismal, and the country was entrenched in a decades long civil war.

“When I left Guatemala, there was a lot of danger,” said Hernandez 52, through Ruth Loihle of Culturally Speaking Interpretation Services.

Hernandez came to the United States in the early 1980s and moved between California, where he found work as a landscaper, and Florida, where he worked in agriculture. He was granted asylum because of the war and now has permanent resident status, as does his son Jose, a 2011 North Mason High School graduate. Jose works alongside his dad and serves as his interpreter.

Hernandez had a short-term job in Washington when Jose was a baby. He liked the cooler climate, similar to that of Huehuetenango, the state where he grew up in the western highlands of Guatemala. So Hernandez and his wife Juana moved to Belfair and have been there for 17 years.

Pedro and Juana picked salal and other greens for a living. But as other Latinos moved to Mason County, it became harder to make good money picking brush. Hernandez supplemented by doing odd jobs, and that work evolved into a full-time business.LITTLE COMPANY, BIG IDEAS

Jose is fine with manual labor, but the part of the business that interests him is helping his dad with billing and marketing through fliers and ads in the classified section. New this year: Hernandez Landscaping T-shirts, whose logo Jose helped design.

Jose has been thinking about college, maybe a business major, “so I can prepare ourselves for something bigger.”

Pedro, too, has “many ideas.”

“My dream of course is to get more business, and we would have to hire more people, because I couldn’t do it by myself,” he said.

More business would allow Hernandez to buy equipment for bigger, more lucrative jobs. He knows there are small-business loans, but he doesn’t want to take on debt.

He’s also considered the possibility of Jose going to college and perhaps choosing a different career.

“I’m learning his job right now, too,” Hernandez said. “Every day I try to learn and see how he does things on the Internet. I try to learn English so I can be more successful.

“If my son goes his own way, I’d need to learn his part of the business. But if he wanted to stay, he could become the supervisor, and I could be the idea man.”

LEARNING THE LANGUAGE

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to success for Latino immigrants in landscaping, or any type of work for that matter, is language.

Pedro Miguel grew up speaking Q’anjob’al (Kanjobal), a Guatemalan language. Spanish is his second language; English his third. Both languages he learned on the job, and his fluency is an asset to the family business.

In California, many landscaping companies specify when they have bilingual crew members, said John Hernandez (no relation to Pedro) of the Association of Latino Landscape Professionals, a Los Angeles-area organization aimed at giving its members information and resources they need to operate their businesses “legally and ethically” as well as productively. ALLPRO, as it’s called, teaches business classes primarily in English to push its members toward fluency.

“Being bilingual is highly preferred,” Hernandez said. “I think it’s just a matter of practicality. ‘Will this person understand what I’m trying to say?'”

Casa Latina teaches English among its class offerings and stresses the importance of fluency, Reyna said.

Locally, the nonprofit Kitsap Immigrant Assistance Center in East Bremerton offers ESL classes, assistance and referrals to clients of all nationalities.

PRIDE IN WORK AND FAMILY

Family unity and pride in one’s work are values underpinning Latino immigrants’ success in the American workplace, the NHLA’s Castaneda said.

“Many of the workers come from communities in Latin America where they work really hard, often in excruciating conditions, but regardless of their effort, they have little or no opportunity for advancement,” Castaneda said. “They recognize that while the work in the United States can be just as challenging, it comes with an opportunity for growth and the ability to provide for their families.”

Pedro Miguel and his family are a case in point.

When Miguel was 7, a man in his village was killed, presumably a casualty of the ongoing civil conflict. His father, Miguel Esteban, headed north to California in 1986 seeking work and a better life for his family. Esteban later was granted asylum, like Pedro Hernandez. He worked in construction and within a couple of years, brought his wife Maria, Pedro and some of his children to the U.S. The elder children in the family of eight stayed in Guatemala.

The Estebans moved to Belfair in 1990. At first, Miguel and his dad made little money picking brush because of to lack of skill, but eventually they were able to support the family and later buy a home.

In 2003, Miguel apprenticed with a hydraulic service company. He married, started a family of his own and bought his own home. Life was good for a Guatemalan country boy with a third-grade education.

“I liked the work. I was a hard worker,” he said.

Miguel was laid off in 2008 but soon found work for another company. He and his father, who remains fit and strong, saw their opportunity to open JJ Landscaping, and in 2011, they made the break to self-employment.

ALLPRO’s John Hernandez, speaking on Latinos’ relative dominance of the industry, said, “Latinos for the most part are very hard workers, and they don’t mind doing the work that other people won’t do. … Very, very rarely will you ever see a Latino begging on a corner. If they’re on a corner, they’re selling you oranges; they’re selling you cherries, but you won’t find them with a cup in their hand asking for money.”

Landscaping is hard work, no doubt, Pedro Miguel says. But he thinks people who complain about lack of work “don’t take advantage of their opportunities.”

“It’s a free land if you just respect it,” he said. “If you follow the law, the U.S. is the best land to start your business. As long as you work, you have money.”

With prime planting season coming up, three garden tours in Southern Arizona next weekend offer plenty of ideas.

Watergardening Possibilities

Aquatic plants are the focus of this annual self-guided tour by the Tucson Watergardeners.

“It shows and demonstrates what you can do in the desert environment,” says organization president JoAn Stolley.

Even a small pond can have a couple of dozen plant species, each with a specific design job.

Underwater plants provide oxygen to the water, Stolley explains. Anchored floaters include water lilies. Water lettuce is an example of a free floater.

Plants on the pond edge whose “little feet are in water all the time,” says Stolley, include cattail, giant taro and yerba mansa.

On the tour are large, professionally landscaped ponds; small, preformed ponds; bog areas and converted stock tanks. Homeowners will be on hand to answer questions.

Other activities include a Saturday morning appearance of animals from Forever Wild Animal Rehabilitation Center.

Bisbee Bloomers

Non-native bed gardens, water-saving landscapes and water-harvesting systems make up the stops on Saturday’s 11th annual garden tour by the Bisbee Bloomers. Several homes have distinctive microclimates, says group president Kay Lynn Cummins.

One unusual tour stop is Carol Taylor’s home. She puts seeds and plants directly into moistened and slightly composted straw bales.

“It creates instant raised beds,” says Taylor, “and as the straw beds deteriorate, it creates beautiful soil for next year.”

Musicians will perform at several of the gardens.

Fall Xeriscapes

Sierra Vista landscapes that use little water give the Cochise County Master Gardens Association a chance to discuss xeriscape, techniques that conserve water.

The organization’s tour next Sunday includes a yard that has two water features and a small lawn. It demonstrates that xeriscape does not mean stark landscaping.

“Unless it is unusually dry, the owner does not water the landscape except for the lawn,” says Cado Daily, water resources coordinator for Water Wise. That’s a program of the University of Arizona Cochise County Cooperative Extension.

The landscapes range from lush animal-attracting gardens to a yard of rocks, desert-adapted plants and artwork.

If you go

Watergardening Possibilities

• What: Self-guided tour of eight home ponds by the Tucson Watergardeners. Seven will be open Sunday.

• When: 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday and next Sunday.

• Where: Central, northwest and eastside areas on Saturday. Maps are available at tucsonwatergardeners.org or on tour days at Tucson Koi Water Gardens, 3372 N. Dodge Blvd.

• Cost: Free.

• Information: 760-5565.

Bisbee Bloomer’s Garden Tour

• What: Self-guided tour of 10 home gardens.

• When: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday.

• Where: Old Bisbee Historic District, Warren and Saginaw communities.

• Cost: $10. Tickets and maps are available on tour day at the Bisbee Mining Historical Museum, 5 Copper Queen Plaza.

• Information: 1-520-432-3554, 1-866-224-7233, discoverbisbee.com

Water Wise/Master Gardener Fall Xeriscape Tour

• What: Self-guided tour of five home gardens.

• When: 1-4 p.m. next Sunday.

• Where: Highland Park Estates in Sierra Vista. Maps are available on tour day at 3059 Newport Ave.

• Cost: Free.

• Information: 1-520-458-8278, waterwise.arizona.edu

Contact local freelance writer Elena Acoba at acoba@dakotacom.net

Graceful waves of ornamental grasses dotted with bright-colored wildflowers and perhaps anchored with an occasional evergreen is a landscape picture that I’m loving more and more these days.

Even before the drought, native plantings were becoming more common. The Kansas Department of Transportation has gone to planting wildflowers and native grasses along state highways for more interest and less maintenance. Some golf courses and businesses have gone native, with lovely results.

Holy Cross Lutheran Church has turned some of its property at 600 N. Greenwich Road, which includes two ponds and a walking path, into a natural area.

“We had a lot to mow” before, member Ted Helmer told me. Another member, landscape architect Jason Gish, designed it.

The drought is a good reminder of where we live, Gish said. “It is tough here,” he said of growing plants in Wichita. Once you start to lose plants, you see things differently, he said. With native plantings, “here’s a way we can make things easier. … At church, there’s this area we’re not utilizing for any activity, and so far it’s served well for that purpose.”

Perhaps the home landscape is the final frontier for native planting. You don’t have to turn your yard into a prairie to move in that direction.

There are at least a couple of area places to buy plants. One is during the FloraKansas native plant sale next weekend at Dyck Arboretum of the Plains in Hesston. Not only can you buy native plants there, you can get adaptable plants — non-natives that perform similarly — and advice from horticulturists about how and where to use the plants in the landscape.

Another source is Nathaniel Barton, a truck driver and Howard farmer who with his wife has converted a double lot just southwest of downtown Wichita into an outlet for his hobby: growing native plants. His 2-year-old passion has grown so out of bounds — “I bit off more than I can chew. A lot of seeds go a long way” — that he has started selling plants. He’s available by appointment at 316-258-8237.

“I like sharing plants,” Barton said, and his love for them apparently has no bounds. He can’t bear to throw away a seedling, or keep his green thumb out of his friends’ houseplants.

When planting a yard in natives, “you don’t have to pay somebody to mow it,” Barton said. And a prairie planting doesn’t require the water or fertilizer. You do have to pull weeds and do some watering initially, but eventually, when the plants thicken and fill out, they shade out the weeds and require less water.

The FloraKansas plant sale also is in the spring, and that’s when Dyck Arboretum sells more plants. But Scott Vogt, Dyck’s director, said he prefers to plant in the fall, when soil temperatures are warm.

Vogt advises getting plants in the ground by mid- or late September. There’s still a smidge of time to kill unwanted plants with Roundup, wait at least two weeks and more safely three for the residual poison to dissipate, and then put the new plants in by the deadline, he said. The Roundup fades more quickly when the weather is hot and sunny, he said.

Water them for the first couple of weeks, then keep checking on them periodically through the winter and watering if necessary, Vogt said.

“With as dry as it’s been, people are interested in getting rid of their lawn or area that struggled and put a lot of water on, and are looking for perennials and grasses that are more sustainable.” FloraKansas features not only flowers but shrubs, trees, vines and ground covers, and new plants that are not native but that are adaptable, meaning they behave similarly to natives. These include the new dwarf butterfly bushes. On the arboretum’s website, www.dyckarboretum.org, a plant picker can help you select plants; look for it under “Design Ideas and Growing Tips.”

If you’re seeding or reseeding a prairie using native flowers and grasses, Vogt recommends throwing the seed out on the ground in November, December and January, allowing the natural freeze and thaw cycles to cleave the seed to the soil for good germination.

Members will get first crack at the FloraKansas plants, from 1 to 7 p.m. Thursday. They also will get a 10 percent discount. You can join the arboretum that day if you’re not already a member; the cost is $30 for an individual. The sale will be open to the public from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sept. 8, and noon to 4 p.m. Sept. 9.

A couple of wildflower tours also are coming up at the arboretum — at 6 p.m. Sept. 17 and Oct. 15. Vogt will talk about plants in bloom during the tour, as well as how to design flower beds, how to incorporate grasses, planting in sun vs. shade, and anything else that comes up. The cost is $5; call the arboretum at 620-327-8127 to register.

Keeping plants going this past summer at the arboretum has been “extremely difficult,” Vogt said, “but I shudder to think what it would be if I had a bunch of annuals. In the flower beds, we’re only watering once or twice a week. Still, plants are blooming in spite of how terrible it is. … You wouldn’t need to water them, but no one wants to come to a public garden and not see anything blooming.”

JEFF NEWPHER

Residents hear wide range of plans for old Clear Lake golf course

One of the eight subcommittee presenters explains plans for the old Clear Lake Golf Club during a community meeting at St. Bernadette Catholic Church on Thursday (August 30).

Posted: Friday, August 31, 2012 9:30 am
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Updated: 9:41 am, Fri Aug 31, 2012.

Residents hear wide range of plans for old Clear Lake golf course

By JEFF NEWPHER

Houston Community Newspapers

A newcomer to Clear Lake may not even realize that the approximately 180 acres where the Clear Lake Golf Club once was, ever was a golf course.

It’s now owned by the Clear Lake City Water Authority (CLCWA).

The green strips of undeveloped space in the middle of the Clear Lake area are now intended to be used as storm water detention by the CLCWA.

They are asking for community input on how the area can be used to improve quality of life in Clear Lake, while still serving its water collection purpose.

Approximately 100 people attended a community meeting on Thursday night (August 30) to hear the ideas formulated by seven groups.

CLCWA and its landscape archecticts, SWA are considering the reports as “community input.”

Highlights of the Wetlands and Lakes team presentation included a sloping bank with a variety of wetlands fringe options with scored feedback by subcommittee members.

The Landscaping-Trees group reported that 3,000 trees, some 50 years old, would be removed in the SWA plan. They support consideration of more native plants and prairie grass and the creation of a school district-affiliated educational area.

The Hike-Bike group vision included an 8-foot wide walking/running trail which, in limited places, would be connected to a 10-12 foot wide concrete bike path. The group said their research indicates the availability of grants and financial partnerships for their ideas.

A three-acre dog park is desired by another subcommittee. They suggested an optimal location near the old golf course clubhouse.

Community gardens ideas with the potential for leasing or donating space and producing food were also presented. A gardening focus could also serve to “build intergenerational community” and “inspire future gardeners.”

Future athletic fields and a sports complex were studied and reported on by another subcommittee.

The final group was “Outstanding Ideas.” It presented a matrix of ideas and concerns that fit into multiple categories.

Details of the plans will soon be posted at clcgreenplan.org for further consideration.

The community also heard that a non-profit conservancy group, able to raise and spend funds implementing the approved ideas, will be formed.

The timetable for next steps is uncertain.

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Friday, August 31, 2012 9:30 am.

Updated: 9:41 am.

RANCHO CUCAMONGA – As landscape maintenance costs for a large section of the city rise, officials are considering options to either reduce service levels or increase assessment rates for residents.

Options are being considered for the city’s largest landscape district – Landscape Maintenance District, or LMD No. 2.

The district is comprised of properties in an L-shaped area of land bounded by Etiwanda Avenue in the east, the 210 Freeway in the north, the halfway line between Milliken and Haven Avenues in the west, and south above Base Line Road and Church Street in the eastern part of the district.

This fiscal year, a budget shortfall for LMD 2 has been calculated at about $222,000 as spending has outpaced revenue.

As maintenance costs have increased, officials say some sort of service level adjustment or rate increase will be necessary, though residents will be given the chance to weigh in through a survey next spring. Before then, city officials will engage residents of LMD 2 through outreach events this fall.

“We would be able to make the budget work with the same LMD assessment in 1993, but costs are not the same as 1993, so it’s really up to the property owners to decide,” said Deputy City Manager Lori Sassoon said.

“Should we look at improved landscaping or invest in drought tolerant landscaping, or look at reducing our maintenance costs? There’s no way to maintain landscaping (at current rates).”

A meeting

between public officials and residents held recently presented preliminary ideas such as increasing the annual rate by about $38 or decommissioning the care of 1.5 million square feet of grass turf.

Public Works Services Director William Wittkopf said the ideas are not final and plans will be better defined through more feedback from the community.

“The idea of the public engagement process was well-received and a lot of the folks like the idea of being able to have focused and detailed discussion regarding fiscal conditions and what options are available,” Wittkopf said.

Should residents be “supportive of a modest assessment,” then City Council members would consider approval of a mail-in ballot voting process for residents to decide whether rates should be raised.

“There’s no good way to reduce the budget to the way it needs to be reduced,” Sassoon said. “Any way we make that adjustment, there will be an impact on the appearance to the LMD. We’ve made it work for 19 years, but that’s a decision for property owners to make.”

Among LMD 2 residents who has an alternative idea is Jerie Lee of Palo Verde Place. Lee said one option would be to charge higher rates for residents within the district who have observably more landscaping needs than others in the district who don’t.

“Those that have more landscaping to maintain should be paying a higher rate than those of us that have so little,” she said. “I live right off Day Creek Boulevard and Highland Avenue, and all along Day Creek there are very few trees; mostly palm trees and some landscaping … There is very little maintenance.”

She added, “I don’t mind subsidizing the rest of the district, but they should at least pay more attention to Day Creek which has the least amount of care on it. It should look pristine.”

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Reach Neil via email, call him at 909-483-9356, or find him on Twitter @InlandGov.

Uprooting of trees both along the roadway and in the median on a 4.5-mile stretch of Point San Pedro Road in San Rafael kicked off the city’s efforts this week to improve landscaping, funded by a measure approved by residents last year.

“The taxpayers voted to remove the existing landscaping and improve the existing landscape,” said Kevin McGowen, assistant public works director for San Rafael. “The best approach at this point is to take the trees out. We want to amend the soil, so that way the new trees coming in really have the opportunity to survive.”

Cleary Brothers Landscaping of Danville has removed 180 trees either dying or not suited for the soil due to their proximity to salt water, officials said.

The trees will be replaced with a variety of other trees along with shrubs, vines, grass and groundcover.

Property owners in the Point San Pedro area approved a 30-year, $75 annual assessment in June 2011 to improve the median strip, where dead and dying plants were struggling to survive. Cleary Brothers will plant oaks, maples, flowering cherries, London plane trees, Chinese pistache, crape myrtle and forest pansy redbuds in their place.

The assessment of 2,688 single-family homeowners and other properties is raising $212,000 a year, said Nader Mansourian, San Rafael’s public works director.

He said city officials held two neighborhood meetings in February to gather comments on landscape and irrigation designs before

presenting landscape architect and long-time San Rafael resident Phil Abey’s designs to the City Council in March.

“The desire of the neighborhood was to implement these designs as soon as possible, and we came up with this timeline to meet by autumn,” Mansourian said. He said he expected the work, which is being done along the entire length of the project area, rather than in phases, to be finished in early December.

“We looked at options of doing one section at a time, but that would take forever,” he said. “It’s the most efficient way to do it because there are a lot of improvements to be done.”

Some Glenwood-area residents have expressed concern about the process.

“They could’ve done it in sections,” resident Bill Connolly said. “If they did it section by section, at least the trees would be standing until they planted everything. This way it just looks terrible, nothing but torn-up dirt and dust.”

Connolly said he and his wife were also upset that the landscaping work funded and executed by the Glenwood Homeowners Association had been undone.

“The homeowners’ association put in all their money and planted everything, and they tore everything out,” he said.

Mansourian said that a Glenwood representative assured him and the 50 other residents at an early meeting that a uniform design of the road was more important than keeping the original landscaping.

“The whole idea of this meeting was that we wanted to make sure that we were working with residents to deliver a design for the public majority,” Mansourian said. “They’re the ones who started it, and we are here to help.”

Contact Jessica Floum via email at jfloum@marinij.com

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August 28, 2012

Efforts to convert Bishop’s Warren Street into a pedestrian-friendly commercial center have grown in recent months to include ideas for shade trees, seating, parks and even patterned pavement.
These proposed changes and more are bourne of ongoing collaboration between City of Bishop Public Works and a volunteer, citizen focus group.
“This is a great time to weigh in on the group’s ideas,” states a City of Bishop Public Works press release, once again inviting public input on Warren Street Improvement Project plans. Now is the time to provide input, the press release states, so the city can incorporate what “the community wants the city to build.”
The next public focus group meeting is at 5:30 p.m., Tuesday, Sept. 11 in the City Hall conference room, said Director of Public Works Dave Grah. There, the focus group will present drawings and plans and hear public input and feedback.
The volunteer focus group is comprised of citizens, artists, merchants, Chamber of Commerce members, city staff and consultants, said Grah, “people who have been interested and willing to dedicate time to have a say about how the project is shaped.”
“The volunteer group proposes a range of details and enhancements that should help make Warren Street a commercial and a gathering hub for the community,” said Public Works.
Ideas abound, according to Public Works. Pocket, or mini parks, such as the relatively large Talmage Park at the intersection of Main and Academy streets, “could make the character of the street more conducive to street fairs, markets, street performances and holiday events,” as well as day-to-day commerce, said Grah.
Along those same lines, provisions for over-roadway cables and on-light-pole fixtures would allow banners, flags and decorations to beautify and inform, said Grah, as the season, holidays and general festivities come and go year-round. Also on the table for discussion are amenities such as seating areas, awnings and shade trees and restrooms; and aesthetic improvements such as landscaping, lamp post and sidewalk planters, murals and colored, design-stamped concrete and dumpster enclosures.
One idea would brand Bishop’s historical heritage on Warren Street – sidewalk markings celebrating local mining, hydroelectric, mountaineering and packing industry heritage, for example. Honoring some of Owens Valley’s persons of renown would be set in stone with a walk-of-stars concept, along the lines of Hollywood’s sidewalk stars.
On the whole, these improvements would make Warren Street pedestrian-friendly, said Grah, giving the “sense of a street that is more comfortable … Pedestrian-friendly streets are the most economically prosperous ones,” as people are encouraged to move amiably from restaurants to shops and so on, “pausing on benches to drink coffee and talk to friends.”
Strip-map drawings present these ideas in detail on www.ca-bishop.us/PublicWorks/ StreetProjects/Warren/20816Warren ConceptMap.pdf.
Using “Adobe Reader or other software … be sure to zoom in to see more of the details or come into City Hall to see the full-size printout,” said Public Works.
One of the challenging aspects of the Warren Street Improvement Project is the aesthetic improvement of utility poles. “Warren Street is a major (Los Angeles Department of Water and Power) distribution corridor” and project representatives are in discussion with the City of Los Angeles about this aspect of the improvement project, said Grah. Considerations for putting utilities underground were discarded as far too costly – it would nearly double the cost of the entire project.
Currently, the city has $2.4 of the $4 million needed to complete the project as it stands right now, said Grah. The project is being funded by state and federal gas taxes. Although the project is obviously focused on improving Warren Street, funds permitting, side street blocks between Warren and Main streets will also be improved, affecting South, Lagoon, Church, Academy, Pine and Elm streets.
At one point, a one-way street option was considered because it would provide more room for street-side enhancements, explained Grah. However, the idea was nixed. The Bishop Police and the Bishop Volunteer Fire departments, located at West Line and Warren streets, feel that a one-way Warren Street would impede their routine and especially emergency response times.
The Chamber is planning a mixer in October, said Grah, another opportunity for the public to get in on how the Warren Street Improvement Project will affect its city.
For more information, contact City of Bishop Public Works at 377 W. Line St., Bishop, publicworks@ca-bishop.us, or (760) 873-8458.