WESTFIELD — The National Guard Armory in Westfield, will host The Home Landscape Show. For three days the Hall will be filled with a large gathering of home improvement and decorating professionals showcasing the latest in products and services for both the interior and exterior of your home. All surrounded by gorgeous Landscape and Garden Displays. Speak directly with the professionals who can help make your projects a reality.

Not moving, how about improving and you enjoy the benefits. Explore aisles and aisles of Home Improvement ideas and get the expert advice you need. Would you like an addition or second level added? This is place to get all your answers.

The Show will feature beautiful Kitchen and Bath displays, Marble, Granite, Windows, Doors, Roofing, Siding. Stucco, Security, Sunrooms, Flooring, Interior Decorating, Faux Painting, Home Entertainment and Custom Closets to name a few.

Energy conservation will include, home energy monitoring, hi-efficiency energy barriers, heating, cooling, insulation, windows, solar power, geo-thermal and other alternatives. There’s also home ventilation, air filtration and passive solar.

Exterior displays will include the latest in awnings, siding, custom decks, pavers designs, patios, outdoor kitchens, fire pits, recreational and outdoor entertainment areas.

The Landscaping Displays, from the area’s leading designers and architects, will include many types of Custom Paving Stones, Decorative Retaining Walls. Interlocking Masonry, Fountains, Ponds, Water Features, Accent Lighting and much more.

Show dates are Friday, March 30. 4 to 8 p.m.; Saturday March 31, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sunday, April 1, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The National Guard Armory is at 500 Rahway Ave. in Westfield.

Learn about how to landscape with ground covers and find the best ground cover plants for Southlake TX at Calloway’s Nursery Garden Centers and at all 17 Calloway’s locations throughout the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex.  Buy the best ground cover for shade and sun and learn more about how to select and plant drought resistant and fast spreading ground cover plants at Calloway’s in Southlake Dallas and Fort Worth Texas.  At Calloway’s Garden Centers, take advantage of the free gardening clinics and you’ll learn how to landscape with plants for Texas landscape conditions and which creeping and flowering groundcover plants to use in landscaping design ideas for ground cover color and texture in your Southlake TX garden.  It’s one stop shopping for the Southlake gardener to learn about how to pick out  plants for Dallas Fort Worth Texas garden landscaping at one of the seventeen convenient Calloway’s Nurseries and garden centers www.calloways.com in the Dallas and Fort Worth area.

Enhance Your Landscape with Texas Groundcovers

by Melyssa Prince

Texas gardening can be challenging with the varying temperatures, sun and shade requirements. However, there are some fast and easy solutions that can help. As the name indicates, groundcovers cover the ground and grow at rapid speed. They are a unique gardening solution that adds character to Texas lawns and help provide protection in areas where grass is difficult to grow due to an abundance of shade. There are many groundcovers available in Texas. Groundcovers offer a variety of benefits  link: http://www.calloways.com/garden-resources

•    Groundcovers do well in sun, shade and some in both sun and shade.

•    Groundcovers can take a considerable amount of foot traffic.

•    They offer soil protection, weed prevention and structural beauty to the landscape.

•    A small group of groundcovers are fragrant, providing a pleasant scent when stepped upon.

Many popular groundcovers are considered perennials, meaning they will return each year. Investing in groundcovers today can provide a return to your Southlake landscape for years to come. Most Texas landscapes have a place for groundcovers, and they can often reduce the lawn area to save on watering and mowing. Groundcovers are perfect for areas where you want to:

    Reduce part of the lawn.

    Dress up a fairly plain area.

    Create a unique look.

    Add color or texture.

    Soften walkways, steps or driveways.

    Create a traffic barrier or hedge.

    Provide transition between the lawn and taller plants.

If you’re thinking about planting groundcovers and need some guidance, contact your local Texas garden center  . Calloway’s Nursery has 17 locations in Dallas/Fort Worth with more Texas Certified Nursery Professionals than any other garden center in the state. The Texas garden center also offers weekly free gardening clinics to the gardening community.

Southlake Nursery

www.calloways.com/southlake

291 E. Southlake Blvd. near White Chapel Blvd.

817-416-0736

 

Ned Price, who is running for a seat on the Planning Board, says a member’s main role is to be impartial.

“The idea that the Planning Board itself should be the engine for economic development is somewhat flawed,” Price said.

His opponent in the April 3 town election, Stephanie Mercandetti, says the Planning Board could be more business-friendly.

She has ideas that she says would make it easier for developers and companies to build or expand in Framingham.

“They’re looking at how long it’s going to take me from when I walk in the door,” she said.

The two are running write-in campaigns for the Planning Board seat Carol Spack is giving up after three terms.

Board member Tom Mahoney is running unopposed for re-election.

Mercandetti, 36, who works as Walpole’s economic development and grants officer, says her love for planning sets her apart from Price.

“I’m passionate about planning,” she told Daily News editors recently while discussing her bid to join the board. “There’s more than just the review of proposals.”

Price, 75, a retired math professor, said in a separate meeting he has a different interest.

“Land use issues are my shtick, I guess you’d call it,” he said.

Price said he can bring a “nerdy, mathematical” perspective to the Planning Board.

He has served for more than 20 years on Town Meeting’s Standing Committee on Planning and Zoning and the Real Property Committee.

Acknowledging the Planning Board’s reputation of holding up projects over issues such as landscaping and insisting on certain changes, Price vowed not to prolong hearings.

“I would argue that I’m not a quibbler,” he said. “I’m certainly not going to be an obstructionist.”

Asked about the perception that the Planning Board is too hostile and nitpicky, he suggested other areas to look.

Price pointed to the town’s split property tax rate, “which I think is too split, actually.” He said he wants to put less of a burden on businesses.

He also said that the economy is hindering developers, downtown revitalization is a priority. Price said he wants to see more over-55 housing and cluster zoning that allows developers to build denser projects if they conserve some of the lot as open space.

Mercandetti said she’d like zoning overlay districts that give property owners the option to do something different from what’s allowed in the underlying district.

She recalled serving on the town’s mixed use bylaw committee years ago.

Mercandetti, who once was state Sen. David Magnani’s local affairs director, said she wants to see better communication between boards involved with permitting.

“I want to encourage timely and efficient development,” she said. “I want to encourage collaboration.”

Town boards could hold concurrent or joint public hearings, Mercandetti said.

“It’s certainly happening elsewhere,” she said. “Why not in Framingham?”

Like Price, Mercandetti said she wouldn’t object to details such as paint colors, and would focus instead on what is under her jurisdiction.

“Does it comply with the zoning bylaw or does it not?” she said.Both candidates said they were mailing out stickers with their names on them to voters.

(Danielle Ameden can be reached at 508-626-4416 or dameden@wickedlocal.com. Follow her on Twitter @DanielleAmeden.)

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CALIMESA, Calif., Oct 27, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) —
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        LandscapingNetwork.com 
        Thad Orr, 855-624-5110 
        thad@landscapingnetwork.com
        

Copyright Business Wire 2011

The layout of the new Sauk Prairie Memorial Hospital almost is
complete, and the hospital’s leaders hope to break ground on the
new building in spring 2012.

Ken Carlson, the hospital’s vice president of planning and business
development, joined an architect from the design firm Kahler-Slater
to present some of the preliminary site plans to the village of
Prairie du Sac plan commission Nov. 7.

“We came up with the idea of presenting a concept plan in part to
allow you all to give feedback, input and ask questions,” Carlson
said.

The village of Prairie du Sac will play a larger role in moving the
hospital through the approval process than the village of Sauk City
and town of Prairie du Sac, said Mark Roffer, a planner for the
village assisting the municipalities with the hospital
project.

According to a layout showed by Carlson, the hospital building will
be located on a parcel of land southeast of the Sauk Prairie
Airport between County Road PF and Sauk Prairie Road.

The layout showed an access road to the hospital from PF and one
from Highway 12, although Carlson said the Highway 12 entrance will
require approval from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation,
which the hospital is working to get.

Most of the land of the nearly 120 acres likely would remain
undeveloped, at least for the foreseeable future, Carlson
said.

Prairie du Sac Village Administrator Alan Wildman said the
remainder of the land likely would be zoned for other institutional
uses like hospital buildings and schools.

Carlson said as far as landscaping, the hospital has discussed
keeping it as natural as possible so there won’t be a row of trees
all the same height, and the hospital will try to limit the use of
short grass that would require mowing.

Carlson showed a possible layout for the hospital building itself
with the ER and unloading and loading zones at the southern end of
the building, and its overnight beds at the north end where they
overlooked natural areas.

Throughout the building were enclosed gardens, and the layout
garnered praise from members of the plan commission.

Jon Sandeman said it was smart to isolate the noisier parts of the
hospital and to integrate natural areas throughout the
building.

“I love the way it’s organized,” Sandeman said. “It’s
fantastic.”

Carlson said the hospital is designing the schematics for the new
hospital and that phase will be completed in December.

“There’s a lot of neat features we’re putting in,” Carlson said. He
said the hospital is considering a meditation room and outdoor
seating for the cafeteria.

He didn’t present how the building’s exterior would look, but he
assured the plan commission that “it’s very Sauk Prairie
oriented.”

In addition to the hospital building, Carlson said there would be a
medical office building that could be three stories tall and 60,000
square feet depending on how many physicians show interest in
renting office space there.

Carlson said phase two of the building would involve adding a
wellness center to the hospital.

By Willie Howard

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

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PALM SPRINGS – — PALM SPRINGS — The ideas of five fifth-graders will be used to design a new park at the south end of the village.

The student park designs were submitted as part of a contest the village organized in October to engage youths in the workings of city government during Florida City Government Week.

The students’ ideas for the park site include basketball courts, benches, playground equipment, a dog park, a jogging trail, pavilions, fishing docks and landscaping.

Each of the five park-design finalists — Kate Pinder and Vanessa Medrano from C.O. Taylor/Kirklane Elementary and Isabel Garcia, Colton Martinez and Tommy Dague from the St. Luke School — will be given checks for $25 and certificates of achievement by the village council Thursday night.

Some of the students submitted detailed analyses of the cost of each feature in the park — and ideas for fund-raisers to cover the cost.

They also answered questions about who will use the park and what should be done to make it inviting to the public.

“People who are polite and caring should be the people using the park,” wrote Kate from Kirklane Elementary.

Colton from St. Luke School downloaded a photo of the Blue Ridge Mountaineer swing set he wanted to include in the park along with an itemized park budget totaling $11,127.

Tommy of St. Luke School included basketball courts, a small parking lot, fishing docks and a pavilion in his design. His park budget: $185,000.

Bill Golson, the village’s leisure services director, is expected to integrate the students’ ideas into a conceptual design for presentation to the village council later this year. The village’s capital budget will likely pay for the park facilities, though the village also is pursuing grant money.

“They were very creative and very thorough in their designs,” Golson said. “It was an eye-opening experience.”

The village council agreed to buy the lot for the park at 3702 Davis Road in August.

Village Manager Karl Umberger said the schedule for building the park has not been set. He said it’s possible the park could be developed and ready to use by next fall.