I would like to encourage everyone with water-wise landscaping in their yards to enter the Okanagan Xeriscape Association’s 2012 Garden Contest.

The contest is designed to showcase gardens where the principles of xeriscape have been used and appropriate plants selected to demonstrate the versatility of xeriscape gardens.

The main objectives are to recognize those who have made the change to water-conserving landscapes, to increase awareness of innovations in landscaping and water use efficiency, and to encourage others by giving them good ideas for their own gardens.

All properties in the Central Okanagan, with any water-wise/xeriscape landscaping, are eligible.

There are four categories. Three categories are the same as last year and are for residential gardens: Best non-professionally created small garden, best non-professionally created large garden, and best professionally designed and installed residential garden.

A new category, added this year, is best professionally designed and installed commercial landscape.

The best garden in each category will receive an engraved metal garden sculpture custom designed by B-line Design.

For professionally designed gardens, the prize goes to the garden owner with recognition in news articles and on the OXA website of the professionals involved.

All winning gardens will be featured on the OXA website xeriscape showcase as well as in this column.

August 31 is the deadline to enter. Everyone who enters is eligible for a draw prize of a gift certificate from Byland’s Nursery. Entries received by Aug. 15 are eligible for an early bird draw prize of a gift certificate from Sagebrush Nursery (xeriscape and native plants) in Oliver.

For details about the contest and for the entry form, go to www.okanaganxeriscape.org.

The judges will be looking for how the principles of xeriscape have been followed in creating and maintaining the garden such as mulching, appropriate plant selection, grouping of plants by water needs, water-wise or no irrigation, water-wise or no turf grass, and good design practices that create sustainable landscapes.

Last year’s winning gardens are featured on the xeriscape showcase on the OXA website.

If you have any water-wise/xeriscape landscaping on your property, I encourage you to enter to share your experience.

Also please encourage anyone you know who has xeriscaping in their yard to consider entering.

The more local, water-wise gardens that are showcased, the more ideas there will be to inspire others on how to make the change.

I’m excited by some ideas I just read in a great new book I found at Mosaic Books, ‘Beautiful No-Mow Yards: 50 amazing lawn alternatives’ by Evelyn Hadden.

While one chapter is on xeriscaping, much of the book is relevant to water-wise gardening.

There is a good chapter on meadows and one on alternative types of turf grasses and excellent information on how to transition from lawn. Her focus is on drastically reducing maintenance as well as gardening with the climate.

Hadden founded two very informative websites:  www.LessLawn.com and www.lawnreform.org.

» Green Bay Botanical Garden Fair: 9 a.m.-3 p.m. today at Green Bay Botanical Garden, 2600 Larsen Road. More than 100 vendors of plants, landscaping ideas, garden art and accessories. Food, demonstrations, music. $7 adults, $2 ages 5-12, $2 GBBG members 9-11 a.m.

» Summer Container Gardens Tips for Gardening Success: 2:30-4:30 p.m. today at Stein Garden Gifts, 980 Waube Lane, Ashwaubenon. Wisconsin gardening expert Melinda Myers does a free demonstration and takes gardeners’ questions. (920) 339-2200.

» Scented Geraniums: 6-7 p.m. Monday at Ivy Trails Gift Garden, 3200 Main St., Bellevue. Learn how to use in cooking and crafting. Decorate a terra cotta pot and plant a scented geranium to take home. Sample culinary concoctions made with the plants. $18. Registration required: (920) 406-1645.

» Wild Weed Walk Talk for Beginners: 9:30-11 a.m. Saturday at Green Bay Botanical Garden, 2600 Larsen Road. Lynn Green, a nurse practitioner and herbalist, on identifying edible wild weeds. Dress for outdoors and being off trails. $7 GBBG members, $14 nonmembers. Registration required: (920) 490-9457 or www.gbbg.org.

» Concrete Leaf Casting: 2-4:30 p.m. Saturday at Swanstone Gardens, 4696 Swan Road, Scott. Video presentation, leaf casting demo and workshop to cast your own leaf. $45. Reservations required; www.swanstonegardens.com or (920) 866-9367.

» Whimsical Caterpillar Garden Stake: 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Saturday at Swanstone Gardens, 4696 Swan Road, Scott. Make a stake of wrought iron and stained glass. $45. Reservations required; www.swanstonegardens.com or (920) 866-9367.

» Garden Walk and Hosta Sale: 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m.-3 p.m. June 10 at 4312 County PP, De Pere (Main Street exit off U.S. 41, south on Wisconsin 57/32 for a mile, stay left on PP and go 4 miles). Stroll beds featuring more than 800 named hosta varieties and other perennials. List of hostas for sale will be available. (920) 336-7678.

» Roses: 2012 Herb of the Year: 6-7:30 p.m. June 18 at Ivy Trails Gift Garden, 3200 Main St., Bellevue. Learn which rose varieties work best as an herb, sample roses in jelly and tea and dye a silk scarf using rose petals and other plant materials. $20. Registration required: (920) 406-1645.

» Food Preservation: Jams Jellies: 6:30-8 p.m. June 19 at Agriculture Extension Service Center, 1150 Bellevue St., Green Bay. Judy Knudsen, Brown County family living educator, on combinations of fruits and vegetables to try and methods to use. Sponsored by NEW Master Gardeners and Brown County UW Extension. $7, includes a cookbook and tastings. Registration required: (920) 391-4610.

If I’ve learned anything working in the garden all these years, it’s that you need to know before you sow.

It doesn’t matter if you are laying down a new lawn, putting in a rain garden, tacking up a trellis or planting your first tomato garden.

That’s why the only thing that is filled up more than my composter is my bookshelf, with gardening books.

I’ll soon be adding to the compost “pile,” as the 2012 crop of books is ready to be harvested.

Here’s a sampling of what the yield looks like this year.

E-mail: edel@northjersey.com. For the latest in gardening news, head to Ray’s blog at northjersey.com/compostings or follow him @ twitter.com/njgardening. Got a garden question? Post it in detail at northjersey.com/root.

* “Greenhorns: 50 Dispatches from the New Farmers’ Movement,” edited by Zoe Ida Bradbury, Severine von Tscharner Fleming and Paula Manalo; Storey Publishing, $14.95. A collection of essays written by young farmers. Many of these agri-activists have left behind desk jobs to build self-sustaining farms and advocate for a more ecologically sound and re-localized food system.

* “Gardening Vertically: 24 Ideas for Creating Your Own Green Walls,” by Noemie Vialard; Norton Books, $24.95. It’s time to grow up — literally. Vertical gardening is not limited to growing climbing plants on walls and trellises anymore. Vialard packs her 144-page book with 24 ideas for vertical garden compositions.

* “Herb Gardening from the Ground Up,” by Sal Gilbertie and Larry Sheehan; Ten Speed Press, $16.99. Gilbertie and Sheehan offer up plans for 40 styles of herb gardens, including Tex-Mex, tea, breakfast, cake cookie, colonial and soup garden.

* “How to Grow More Vegetables: And Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains and Other Crops” by John Jeavons; Ten Speed Press, $19.99. Now in its eighth edition, this 242-page paperback is a great reference for food growers, from home gardeners to small-scale commercial producers.

* “Natural Companions: The Garden Lover’s Guide to Plant Combinations,” by Ken Druse; Stewart, Tabori Chang, $40. Druse, a part-time New Jersey resident, presents the perfect plant pairings. Organized by season, topics include color, edible flowers, foliage, fragrance and grasses.

* “Northeast Fruit Vegetable Gardening,” by Charlie Nardozzi; Cool Springs Press, $22.99. From maintaining a garden and storing and preserving to knowing what vegetables, herbs and fruits work best, the author of “Vegetable Gardening for Dummies” and “The Ultimate Gardener” offers answers for us Northeasterners.

 

* “Rain Gardens: Sustainable Landscaping for a Beautiful Yard and a Healthy World,” by Lynn M. Steiner and Robert W. Domm; Voyageur Press, $24.99. Rain gardens are a hot topic these days. Hydrology scientist Domm and horticulturist Steiner provide simple, low-cost ideas and advice to help create a rain garden using native flowers, shrubs and trees.

Calendar of Home Events

Photo by Edwin Kaar

June 9, 10 a.m., “Deer-Resistant Plantings,” Carriage House Visitor Center, New Jersey State Botanical Garden, 2 Morris Rd., Ringwood. $5 donation requested.

Bambi is charming, but not when he’s eating your favorite plants. Emil Rostello of Jacobsen Landscape Design will suggest planting ideas and tricks to help deer-proof your garden. For example, while deer love to snack on hosta, they will leave your peonies alone. Come and learn more ways to outsmart the four-legged visitors to your property. Jacobsen Landscape Design and Construction, Midland Park, is a full-service landscaping company with over 30 years of experience. For more information, call 973-962-9534 or visit njbg.org.

June 16, 1-3 p.m., “The Ornamental/Edible Garden,” The Frelinghuysen Arboretum, 353 E. Hanover Ave., Morristown. $30

Connecticut-based garden writer and lecturer Karen Bussolini explains how to landscape with edible ornamental plants. She will talk about ornamental gardens that incorporate edible plants as part of the design, as well as edible gardens that are beautifully ornamental. If you have been puzzled as to how to combine these two categories of plants, Bussolini will provide inspiration and information. To register, call 973-326-7603 or visit arboretumfriends.org.

June 16, two “Do It Yourself” clinics, Structural Stone Co., Inc., 323 Route 46 West, Fairfield. 9 a.m., “Working with Belgard Pavers”; 10 a.m.., “Building Belgard Walls.” Free.

A Belgard factory representative will talk about the features of the company’s hardscaping materials; a certified contractor will demonstrate how to create a surface for a walkway, patio or driveway with Belgard pavers, and outdoor steps and walls with Belgard wall systems. Clinic participants also can sample pizzas cooked in a oven built with the same materials. For more information, call 973-227-0500 or visit structuralstone.com.

June 23, 4:30 p.m. “Back on Time,” hands-on class with Chef Dominique Payraudeau at Signature Kitchens, 635 Lafayette Avenue, Hawthorne. $65 per person, class limited to 8 people. BYOB.

In this session of the Chef Series Cooking Classes at Signature Kitchens, Chef Dominique Payraudeau, chef instructor at the French Culinary Institute, will teach participants how to make:

There is an abundance of information and resources available to help you with DIY projects. Without the right information, home improvement often seems like a daunting task. This article will give you the tips you need to find substantial and very helpful home improvement information.

For all except the very smallest home improvement projects, putting together an estimate of all the building materials required before starting work is vital. If you buy in large quantities you may qualify for a discount. Long lead times can be a problem for materials needed for home improvements. Failing to order them ahead of time could make the whole project grind to a halt.

When you are looking for a contractor, ensure you have a signed contract that includes all components to the job. It should also have guarantees on what work will be completed on what timeline, and a payment plan.

Adding a textured finish to your walls with drywall mud can create a new look and disguise any blemishes. This texturing process isn’t difficult. Put drywall mud on the walls with a trowel and then use a sponge, a brush or any item you can think of to add some texture.

If you find that it’s time to remodel your cabinets in your kitchen or bathroom, seriously consider installing wooden cabinets. Wood cabinets are strong, so they can put up with a lot of usage without showing wear. The most popular woods for cabinets are maple, oak and cherry. They all take stains well, giving you the option to change the color later if you wish.

You should always get a professional house inspection before you buy a house. Home inspectors inspect the home for repairs that are necessary. This professional will give an unbiased objective to aid you in your home buying.

Money spent on the addition of insulation to your house can help you spend less money down the road. Older houses often suffer from insufficient insulation. The addition of more insulation in areas of the home like the crawl space or attic could cut your utility bills drastically.

Look for “how-to” videos to get a preview of the project you want to undertake, and search based on specific model numbers. It may be surprising how many people had similar problems to yours and then recorded their solutions to help others. Uploaded videos make a great way for you to take advantage of the real-world experiences of people who’ve been exactly where you are.

A great way to make your kitchen more functional is to reorganize the pantry. Remove any items that are out-dated or no longer often used like expired canned goods and old spices. Wipe the shelves clean and then install
r paper. Then, put like items together in the same area or shelf. Something as simple as this means you spend less time looking for things you need, and all your ingredients and cooking supplies are available quickly.

A good way you can fix the appearance of your house, is to plant flowers that are bright in color. Select ones that are season appropriate. You should also trim the hedges and bushes and keep the lawn looking nice. Simple lawn care and landscaping instantly make your house look better.

A new goat of glaze can work wonders for bathrooms. This will make your bathroom look new again. While replacing bathroom fixtures and floors is costly, bathrooms could be glazed for a very cheap price. Glazing your bathroom is a terrific way to increase the value of your home without spending a lot of money.

When you are painting your home, try to get no-VOC paints. They don’t have harmful chemicals and are environmentally friendly. They work just as well as conventional paints and cost just a little more.

Home improvement projects are essential to homeowners, and it is important to understand what each job consists of. That makes the job go smoothly so you can complete it. Using these tips is a great start.

water damage, water damage, water damage

Posted in the Animals category.

By Jack Shamash
01 June 2012

The RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show provides an arena for new and established designers to win work, says Jack Shamash.

CLEARWATER — So U.S. 19 is yours. You can do with it what you want.

What would you add, redesign, remove? (If, you know, “other drivers” is not an option.)

That’s the question the city put to commuters about one of its most notorious roadways, now undergoing a $200 million makeover.

Officials want to spruce up the sprawling muck of strip malls that runs along the highway, and are paying a consultant $130,000 for help with some big ideas.

But some of the more interesting — and perhaps improbable — ideas have come from the commuters themselves, through a city-organized “virtual town hall” at myus19plan.com.

Many are mundane — wider lanes, fewer stoplights — while others tend toward the fanciful or futuristic.

One person suggested building a mountain bike park with earthen nature trails near the highway. Another suggested installing “piezoelectric sensors” that convert road vibrations into electricity.

Officials shared some early ideas at an open house this week and will present them to the City Council on Monday.

Their ideas have tended toward a more general transformation, like focusing investment on big U.S. 19 crossroads like Countryside and Gulf-to-Bay boulevards and Sunset Point, Belleair and Curlew roads.

Commuters’ ideas, however, are all over the map. People suggested everything from “opening the valve” with better-synchronized stoplights and changing “goofy laws on signage” that make it hard to find where you’re going, to uprooting one specific “Stonehenge of power poles” near Seville Drive.

The road itself, some suggested, could use a carpool lane, and the underpasses could be prettied up with lights and landscaping. Some just wanted the city to tear down the dead shopping plazas and gas stations that gunk up the roadsides.

Several ideas focused on mass transit, with suggestions to add bus lanes for loading and unloading passengers, or expanding the range of the waterfront Jolley Trolley. One person suggested building an elevated monorail system, like the one at Walt Disney World, in the median with tram stops every half-mile.

Pedestrians were part of the action, too, with ideas for road-crossing overpasses and more tree canopies for sidewalk shade. One respondent recommended installing “moving sidewalks,” so you wouldn’t need your car when going shopping next door.

One suggestion was “more people-places of inviting sidewalks, gateways, art, plazas, parks, portals and markets.” Another, a “free cement skatepark” close to Westfield Countryside Mall.

There’s no promise any of the 75 or so ideas posted by drivers since March will become part of the city’s plan. Some have a better chance than others.

One driver had a different idea about how to improve the highway.

“Driver’s licenses,” she said, “are too easily renewed.”

Contact Drew Harwell at (727) 445-4170 or dharwell@tampabay.com. Send letters to the editor at tampabay.com/letters.

Logo: City of Kearney

 

Posted: Thursday, May 31, 2012 3:03 pm
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Updated: 1:05 pm, Thu May 31, 2012.

Kearney facelift awaits DED grant news

By MIKE KONZ
Hub Managing Editor

Kearney Hub

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KEARNEY — City officials soon will learn whether a state grant will allow for some new streetlights and landscaping improvements in downtown Kearney.

The $350,000 Downtown Revitalization Grant the city has requested from the Nebraska Department of Economic Development also would allow for one or more downtown parking lots to be plumbed for water and wired for electricity.

The water and power would come in handy for events such as Cruise Nite or Destination Downtown, said Assistant City Manager Suzanne Brodine.

“Cruise Nite or Destination Downtown would be great events where vendors could utilize those spaces,” Brodine said.

Lots targeted for power and plumbing are at Cunningham’s Journal, the Museum of Nebraska Art and city hall’s north lot at Avenue A and 23rd Street.

If the city receives the $350,000 grant, it would be the next step following downtown revitalization planning conducted with a $30,000 DED grant. Outside planners envisioned a park on 24th Street between First and Central Avenues and a long list of improvements to give downtown Kearney a major facelift.

Some of the ideas were bicycle routes and way-finding signs.

Many of the consultants’ suggestions constituted public-private partnerships in which government money would assist private developers with improvements such as upper story windows and small plazas.

In all, the entire package of ideas would cost more than $13 million and require more than 10 years to complete, Brodine said, so city hall is looking at whittling off what it can for $350,000.

Part of the $350,000 would pay for new energy-efficient streetlights on Central Avenue from 22nd Street north to 25th Street. Some nearby side streets also would get new lights.

“It’s an energy-efficient lighting which is a boon to the city, but the level of lighting downtown would improve,” Brodine said.

Changing the configuration of in-ground planters would allow more space on sidewalks for activities such as outdoor dining.

Steve Charleston of DED’s Downtown Revitalization Division said Kearney officials will receive an award notification from DED in June that specifies how much money Kearney will receive.

Brodine said she expects the improvements would be completed in 2013.

In May, DED awarded downtown revitalization grants to Elwood, Columbus, Fremont and Tecumseh.

email to:

mike.konz@kearneyhub.com

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Thursday, May 31, 2012 3:03 pm.

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Arts districts, usually found on the periphery of a city center, are intended to create a critical mass of art galleries, dance clubs, theaters, art cinemas, music venues, and public squares for performances. More often, such places attract restaurants, cafes, and retail shops.

More and more however, cities are thinking about such art and cultural districts as one way to insure the city attracts, nurtures and retains the creative workforce it needs to succeed in the new economy.

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) launched a grant program called “Our Town” to encourage new thinking about the role of art and economic development. Toward that end, they funded over 50 sites in cities across the US, many who said they had unique ideas for art and cultural districts. One such effort was in Boston. Starting with a $50,000 grant in 2010, an exciting effort is taking shape called The Boston Innovation District.

Located in the south Boston waterfront, the District has The Institute of Contemporary Art’s flagship Museum, a Children’s Museum, numerous contributions of Public Art, a bank, advertising agency, and a law firm and importantly, the kind of entrepreneurs and artists proper that fuel the new economy.

In the last two years, the District has boasted, “new life science and technology companies have been moving in at the rate of one every week.” As the Boston Globe reported, “100 companies and 3,000 jobs have come in, bringing a laptop-toting crowd to an area long known for its gritty working seaport and artist studios.”

Boston’s mayor, Thomas M. Menino, recently announced a $5 million plan for an Innovation Center in the Innovation District, “a 9,000-square-foot public gathering and meeting space to be constructed by autumn in what’s now a parking lot wedged between Seaport Boulevard and Northern Avenue, near the new Institute of Contemporary Art” according to New England Cable News.

Another such art district is in downtown San Diego. With no NEA grant but with funding from private investors, I.D.E.A. for Innovation, Design, Education and Art has recently begun building an arts district that will stretch over 35 city blocks in East Village. This plan, like the one in Boston, is more than just art, more than just another real estate development too. It represents another powerful model for cities struggling to get on the global information highway.

I.D.E.A also has housing units and offices catering, obviously, to people who live and work in the area but open to anyone who wants the amenities of an arts district and a highly sustainable, livable community. In fact, as the developers believe, it will be Mecca for “scientists, students, engineers, artists, designers and architects, whose economic function and personal passion are to create new ideas, new technology, and new creative content.”

I.D.E.A. is also “green.” Meant to be a 93-acre sustainable, mixed-use development in Downtown San Diego’s East Village neighborhood, it is intended to be an incubator for artists and designers. I.D.E.A touts its “native vegetation, green open space, and permeable pavement filters storm water naturally and prevents contaminated runoff from entering the San Diego Bay. Forward-thinking transit connections include ample bicycle racks and storage throughout the district, innovative bike and car-sharing programs, and access to various bus and light rail connections. A rubber-tired circulator shuttle reduces the number of car trips needed for workers, residents, and visitors.”

The projects plans also include “green roofs,” “community gardens, edible landscaping, and farmers’ markets” and promises to use nothing but “green building materials and technologies that reduce the neighborhood’s carbon footprint while saving long-term energy costs and creating healthy environments for workers and residents.”

I.D.E.A., like the Innovation District, will transform their cities. The Boston Innovation District and I.D.E.A. are “creative clusters” — early indicators that creative and innovative communities committed to nurturing an economy and society based on the importance of art and culture are being born and new architectures — highly walkable, livable, sustainable cities — are taking shape.

It is becoming clear that art and culture are central to ensuring vibrant economic activity of our cities and the foreshadowing of a whole economy based upon creativity and innovation.

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Art teacher Nikki Murphy (standing) and Garfield Middle eighth graders Julie Hurtado (left) and Dakota Grieco (right) go over a design for the new Shirley Avenue gateway project during class last Thursday. Students at the Garfield will present their ideas for the project at a public meeting tonight, May 30, at the Hyman Towers.

A re-design of the Shirley Avenue gateway at the Revere Beach Train Station has featured the unique convergence of professionals and students – and the combination is producing some interesting results.

The Neighborhood Developers (TND) has recently initiated an effort to redesign the gateway to Shirley Avenue at the Station, and they have scheduled a public design meeting for tonight, Weds., May 30th.

Point person Rachel Meketon of TND said that the meeting, which is at 6 p.m. in the Hyman Towers, will feature three designs from professional landscape architects and ideas from students at the Garfield Middle School. The meeting will result in a consensus for what residents would like the “gateway” to look like, Meketon said.

That meeting, though, is only half the story.

For the past month or more, eighth-grade honor students from the Garfield Middle have been learning from the professional designers and slipping their own ideas into the mix.

Art Teacher Nikki Murphy and Technology Teacher Erik Halvorsen have combined their classrooms to create a petri dish for learning about architectural design – something very rare at the 8th grade level.

About 22 students are involved in the effort, and so far they have taken a site visit, learned to use professional design software and made their own 3-D drawings.

“They’ve all formed working groups and designed the spaces and elements like lighting, fountains and landscaping,” said Halvorsen. “They’ve been incredibly focused on this. It helps that it’s a real project, so it gives them intrinsic internal motivation. It’s not just something that is a paper exercise only. They’ll be able to see this process play out and they might even get to see some of their ideas in the final design.”

Murphy said that the students have come full circle in realizing the potential of their community and its “gateway.”

“I think this has been fantastic,” she said. “ I come from an architectural background and have actually taught architecture on the college level. It was great to see our students excited about a project. They know the neighborhood and they’re very opinionated about Shirley Avenue for one reason or another. They started off with some very negative perceptions at first, but they realized after further discussion how much potential that area has being close to the T and to the Beach.”

Last week, they were able to meet with Gretchen Schneider – a professional architect from Boston who is spearheading the project for TND. Schneider visited the class and learned about what they were doing and gave them some tips.

“This is an ideal scenario – not only are local folks involved in the decision making, but some of the youngest community leaders – the Garfield eighth graders – are thoughtfully analyzing the project and offering their own design visions,” said Schneider. “I enjoyed discussing each team’s design ideas with them in the classroom last week; the students have some very interesting proposals. They have some especially wonderful, unique designs for benches, light fixtures, and water fountains.”

Murphy said that the most positive aspect of the project is that the students are learning very practical skills about design and architecture.

“I taught at Wentworth in Boston in 2004 and the college students there were using Google Sketch Up, which is what we were using here,” said Murphy. “I kept telling our students here that the stuff they were doing was the kind of things that kids and students much older than them were learning.”