In North Texas, backyards and front yards alike typically feature native plants, flowers and trees, most pragmatically because of the area’s unpredictable climate. From Lakewood to Preston Hollow, you’ll see a variety of landscape styles, including succulents that showcase a minimalist vibe and ornately filled flower beds and green spaces.

We identified some of the city’s most beautiful homes to show you examples of gorgeous landscape design.

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You may feel you’ve stepped into a natural preserve when visiting 4906 Park Ln. The home, nestled on 4.95 acres, offers a verdant oasis — trees, grasses, manicured shrubs, pops of colorful flowers, steel gazebos and stonework. There’s even a curved stone bridge to help navigate the property’s water features.

Old Man Winter is blowing another winter storm our way, but mother nature is taking over the Bayfront Convention Center.

The annual Home And Garden Expo gets underway Thursday with outdoor gardening and landscaping displays and dozens of home remodeling ideas.

This year, there are more venders than ever before.
160 different venders have set up shop at this years expo.

The Home Garden Expo runs Thursday and Friday from 2pm through 8pm.
Saturday from 10am through 8pm and Sunday from 11am through 5pm.

Admission is $7.00 for adults, children 10 and under are free and so is the parking.

Once a staple of Lincoln industry, the Cushman Motor Works factory has sat mostly vacant for the past decade.

But when the University of Nebraska-Lincoln started tearing down the derelict factory this week, preservationists started to feel like another part of the city’s history is being lost and forgotten.

Cushman Motor Works, incorporated after cousins Everett and Clinton Cushman capitalized on the need for mechanized farm implements in Nebraska, has stood at 21st and X streets since 1913.

For the next 90 years, the factory and foundry manufactured scooters, golf carts, farm equipment, turf-care equipment and other service vehicles. Textron acquired the company in 2002 and announced plans to move the plant from its home overlooking Antelope Valley to Augusta, Ga.

Textron sold 17.8 acres of the Cushman property to UNL for $4.9 million in 2003, and Speedway Motors bought the remainder north of a set of railroad tracks bisecting the property.

UNL Chancellor Harvey Perlman said then the building could become research lab space, but those plans never came to fruition, and revitalization plans connected to Antelope Valley restoration washed through the area without touching the plant.

Part of the Cushman factory was dedicated to the university’s Online High School until about a year ago, when the school moved to a spot near 20th and Holdrege streets, UNL spokesman Steve Smith said.

The rest of the plant fell into “massive deterioration,” he said, becoming an added liability to UNL. Copper wiring valued at more than $4,800 was stolen from the empty factory in February.

“If the building were to somehow be repurposed it would be massively daunting,” Smith said.

UNL requested bids to demolish the building and its additions in September and awarded the job to Dore and Associates Contracting of Bay City, Mich., in October for $614,400, plus about $243,000 in asbestos abatement and administrative costs.

Dore and Associates is salvaging as much of the building as possible, according to the bid request for proposals.

That stipulation on the demolition bid gave Speedway Motors an opportunity to save part of the original facade and add it to the Museum of American Speed in Lincoln.

Mike Tavlin, chief financial officer for Speedway Properties, said it bought the main entryway to be displayed at the privately owned museum near about half a dozen Cushman scooters.

“We worked out an arrangement with folks doing the demo to buy some stuff as it’s being demolished,” he said. “The plan is to install that portion of the entrance with the marquee name above it inside our museum to complement our display of Cushman scooters.”

Building preservationist Matt Steinhausen said any effort to preserve the early art deco design from the 1913-14 facade is in “the 13th hour,” and Lincolnites should look to preserve a part of their manufacturing heritage.

“I do not think it’s reasonable or even feasible to save the entire factory facility,” he said. “But I think this has been done under the table without a lot of public input. It appears nothing like a historical survey or a feasibility study to save the original building façade was ordered.”

On Monday, Steinhausen asked UNL to share any such surveys, not knowing the deconstruction was slated to begin Tuesday. He said he was told no information is available.

Smith said plans to tear down Cushman were far along, and community input was sought during meetings throughout 2012 and 2013 as part of discussion of UNL’s Master Plan — the governing document outlining the next 15 to 20 years of facility and landscaping projects.

The plan, approved by the NU Board of Regents in September, doesn’t give any real indication about the future of the Cushman site. While a few potential buildings are present in the plan, Smith said there are no plans for the site.

Steinhausen said that with no plans available for review, ideas from the community wouldn’t go very far.

“When there is no plan for the site, how do you solicit future input?” he asked.

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The Nipawin Town Council held their bi-weekly meeting on Mar 10, during which several items were covered.

A delegation for the Nipawin Homecoming Comittee presented some of the ideas that have come out of their meetings. They would like to start a “Homecoming Park” in the area where the clock was set up in 2009. They are planning on asking the people of the town to put plaques around the base of the clock with their family name and when they arrived in the town. There was also talk of a statue. The declaration of the park was sent to the Recreation Board for further discussion.

Lisa Sholter was appointed to the Parks and Recreation Board for a two year term.

There was discussion of the need to spray for mosquitoes during the summer of this year as it looks like it’s going to be wet. However, health issues were brought up, both for people with respitory issues and for animals. It was referred to the Recreation Board.

The Town renewed the Road Maintenance Agreement with the RM of Nipawin for 3rd Street North for a three year period.

The wages for summer employees was raised three per cent in accordance with union contract. This was already budgeted.

The amendment process was started for the Dog Bylaw to allow for kenneling animals in doggy daycares and grooming facilities. However, the animals will not be staying overnight in the facilities.

Money that was unused in the budget was allocated into various reserves, including one for the landscaping of the doctor duplexes and for the Evergreen.

Lewis Robin and Chris Hudyma are going to be going to a series of meetings with ministers over the next few days, regarding Highway 55, regional planning and some annual conferences.

The Mayor and Hudyma met with Minister June Draude about the housing issues in Nipawin. They spoke on the group homes as well. 

The Lewis Ginter conservatory for exotic plants

by James A. Bacon

When a group of Richmond botanists, horticulturalists and interested citizens founded the Lewis-Ginter Botanical Garden in 1981, their vision was to plant formal, European-style gardens to rival the finest in the country. They succeeded in that goal beyond their expectations. Lewis Ginter is consistently rated as one of the Top 10 gardens in the United States. Of its 350,000 visitors in 2013, an estimated 20% to 30% came from outside the metropolitan region, making it the No. 2 visitor’s destination, after the Richmond International Raceway, in Henrico County.

President Frank Robinson, who joined the staff in 1992 and is planning to retire next year, could be forgiven for resting easy with that accomplishment. But he’s not. Society has changed over the past three decades, he says, and the organization has evolved along with it. The thrust of Lewis Ginter’s current $9 million fund-raising campaign is not to build more formal landscaping worthy of coffee-table books, rather it represents a return to nature — or, more accurately, a reconciliation of urban development with nature.

The Streams of Stewardship initiative, for which the garden is seeking $9 million in contributions, challenges expectations of what landscape design should be. Conventional Virginia tastes are heavily influenced by a heritage of gardens designed for French kings and English aristocrats from a very different era. But the challenges of 21st century America call for something new. The introduction of foreign ornamental plants and the voracious consumption of land by 20th- and 21st-century suburbs stresses Virginia’s natural environment, sterilizing the habitat for wildlife and polluting streams and rivers with fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. A new landscaping aesthetic can reverse some of the damage.

Lewis Ginter’s intention is to transform the 30 acres not dedicated to formal gardens on the 80-acre site with two goals in mind: to show how landscaping can clean creeks and streams polluted by urban run-off and to re-establish indigenous plants that support local wildlife. Plans call for replacing acres of formal grass lawn and large mulched beds with ornamental grasses and shrubs. A native plant garden will be established along a restored stream, and a woodland garden will provide natural filtration for excess nitrogen, phosphates and other algae-feeding nutrients flowing from a neighboring subdivision, a nearby golf course and Lewis-Ginter’s own property.

As Executive Director Shane Tippett puts it, Lewis Ginter wants to demonstrate that it is possible to meet a triple bottom line of creating beautiful places, restoring the environment, and doing so economically.

It’s not enough to show that such things can be done: The garden also wants to drive aesthetic and cultural change in the Richmond region, educating its 350,000 annual visitors, connecting with local landscapers and horticulturalists and reaching out to developers and home builders. In sum, the botanical gardens want to be a resource for the community.

Frank Robinson standing in the kind of tall grass that will replace acres of turf lawns.

The organization has largely fulfilled its core mission, says Robinson. “We knew we had to create very fine gardens to draw people here. And we had to generate earned income to support the enterprise.” And that it has done. The gardens are magnificent, and people are drawn year-round by a series of events: beautiful tulips in the springs, light displays at night, bonfires, jazz concerts, hot chocolate and the like. “Ultimately, it’s about the aesthetics. We had to do that to build the brand, the audience. We wouldn’t have been so successful if we’d started with a field of native grasses.”

The garden leadership began moving toward the new vision a decade ago, starting with a $1 million investment in a system that collected rainwater from building roofs and funneled it into two lakes on the property. Except for one year of severe drought, the property no longer needs county water. Avoiding the consumption of more than 7 million gallons a year saves Lewis Ginter hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in water bills and frees up county water capacity for someone else. The investment paid for itself in three or four years.

The 2007-2008 recession put the “Streams of Stewardship” fund-raising on hold but Richmond’s philanthropic community has revived to the point where Lewis Ginter is getting new commitments. Rather than waiting for the full $9 million to start, Robinson says, the garden is phasing in pieces of the plan as money comes available.

Meanwhile, the garden is taking an increasing leadership role in the community. It has invited  Lynden Miller, a nationally recognized garden designer, to Richmond, and Doug Tallamy, author of “Bringing Nature Home,” author of a treatise on how home gardeners can restore indigenous species. Its Beautiful RVA program brings together tree lovers, gardeners and landscapers to share ideas and build enthusiasm for creating quality public places.

“We never wanted to become a monastic community,” says Robinson. “It’s a big city out there. We can impact so many people beyond this property.”

This is the first of a planned series on the Lewis-Ginter Botanical Garden to be published as time permits.

Pond cleanup to cost $500,000

The community is split over whether the Nelson City Council should spend $500,000 fixing the Modellers’ Pond at Tahunanui.

The pond is being choked by out-of-control weeds and smelly algae and the council proposes spending the one-off payment of $500,000 to fix it with an on-going cost of $93,000 a year for maintenance and interest.

A Nelson Mail online poll with 1950 votes shows a sharp divide with 946 in favour of the $500,000 fix and 919 against, while 85 do not know or do not care.

The proposed one-off payment by the council will cover changing the shape of the pond, making it deeper, but with a smaller surface area to keep water temperatures lower and potentially reduce algae growth.

It is expected this will reduce water evaporation so the pond would not have to be topped up as much. Grey mullet could also be introduced to the pond to control the weed and algae

A weir between the pond and the sea would be changed to make sure the fish were not swept out at high tides and extra landscaping to make the area more attractive would be included.

The alternative is to fill in the pond for $260,000.

While councillors have to keep an open mind on all options until a final decision is made councillor Matt Lawrey said he has spoken to many people opposing the proposal.

“I recently went down to the pond on a Sunday afternoon and approached seven groups of people who were there enjoying the trains and asked them for their thoughts on the issue. None of them thought $500,000 plus $93,000 a year thereafter was a good idea and many had ideas about other things they would like to see in the area,” he said.

He said there were questions about the whether the measures proposed would actually reduce the weed and algae problems, which seemed to be an issue since the inception of the recreational area.

“For that price I am wary,” Mr Lawrey said.

He said he understood the people of Tahunanui might feel they were losing something if the pond was to be filled in, but it could also be an opportunity to bring something new to the area.

Deputy mayor Paul Matheson said he wanted a “reasonable solution.”

“Quite frankly, the amount of money allocated at the moment seems extremely high to me and I think we just have an open mind on every option possible to retain the pond and its recreational value. Not just for Tahunanui, but for Nelson city,” he said.

He said Tahunanui and the Modellers’ Pond area contributed millions of dollars to the city’s tourism.

Nelson Society of Modellers president Alan Malaquin said the club was working with the council to try fix problems and had recently fixed a windmill next to the pond to find a “sustainable” way to keep the pond topped up with fresh water.

Mr Malaquin was “absolutely” opposed to the idea of filling in the pond as he said it was one of the few safe calm water facilities in the city for families to use and was important to the modellers’ community.

He also said the pond was part of the city’s stormwater system, which reduced flooding in the Tahunanui area so it “deserved to have some maintenance on it”. The club had once been responsible for looking after the pond using chemicals to treat the weed issue in early years, but was stopped because of resource consent.

“The council needs to support groups like the Modellers and local Tahunanui community to find a solution,” he said.

Tahunanui business association chairman Mike Thomas said a majority of the association’s members still believed in the future of the pond and the contributions it brought to the community at the moment, but were open to other suggestions as they arose.

The pond has a long history in the city. Most accounts put the pond being built in the 1930s.

Nelson resident Claris Rackley said she can remember her father building the pond about 80 years ago as part of an effort to employ men after the depression.

However, she did not know if spending so much money on the historical pond was worth it.

“It seems a shame, but if it is as bad as people say is it worth it? There is much more that could be done with that money I suppose,” she said.

Mr Lawrey encouraged people to voice their views on the proposal when the council’s draft annual plan goes out for the public consultation on March 28.

– © Fairfax NZ News

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Comments

Barb Trimble

Posted: Monday, March 10, 2014 11:45 am

I Have a Thought: Barb and Ray go to the Sun Prairie Library

By Barb Trimble | Hometown News General Manager

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Over the weekend Ray and I made a trip to the library. I had to get some landscaping books to satisfy my cabin fever which is now getting out of control. I am sketching out ideas for the yard and Ray is sighing heavily each time I show him my ideas.

When we were at the Rotary Pancake Breakfast I learned of a new place to get plants and my fellow Rotarian Sue Halembeck was kind enough to tell Ray we were going to take a trip to get plants as soon as the weather was permissible.

Ray quickly sought me out to tell me he knew my scheme. I just acted innocent (well, as much as I can) and said it was Sue’s idea and smiled.

The breakfast was a huge success and thanks to all the Rotarians, volunteers and the Jazz Band for making this such a wonderful event! Our leader this year was Laurie Krueger who gave much of her time to the event even though she opened a brand new Forever Yours Jewelry store in Prairie Lakes.

With April right around the corner, Ray and I are happily planning on attending the wedding for our adopted granddaughter, Destiny. We met Destiny the very first time we ate at Buck Honey’s. Ever since that time, almost two years now, we have had a wonderful friendship and we told her she was our adopted granddaughter. We don’t have any girl grandchildren and with her dark hair and eyes she could easily be my grandchild.

By now you are aware of the awards The Star and Hometown News won at the Wisconsin Newspaper Association’s Better Newspaper Contest. I am very proud of our team and hopefully sometime in the future we can bring home the General Excellence award.

Friday I had the pleasure of meeting with Justin Doherty, Associate Athletic Director for External Relations for the UW Athletic Department and Kevin Kluender the Assistant AD for Marketing and Promotions.

It was a joint meeting with The Daily Cardinal (UW’s daily newspaper) and Hometown News. We recently have entered into a partnership with The Daily Cardinal for internships, advertising and editorial content.

More will be coming on this topic in the near future, but on Friday we got the nod from Justin Doherty to share all communications from the Athletic Department with The Daily Cardinal and Hometown News. We will now have up to date sports news from the university!

One last thing: Remember when I said you didn’t want to be related to the Trimble’s because of the problems our two girls had with their cars?

Well, last week I told Ray the car was acting up but every time he went to drive it, the car acted fine.

Sunday morning we were finished helping at the Pancake Breakfast and Ray tried to start the car and nothing happened, nada, nothing. The car was totally dead. He tried many times to start the car and finally he couldn’t turn the key at all.

I calmly got out of the car and was going back into the building to seek out a ride when Tom Hebl saw me and asked what was wrong. I explained the car had died and Tom was very kind to offer us a ride home. Thanks Tom for helping us out!

So, now we wait and see what this Trimble bunch will be facing. The only thing I can tell you is that I am glad the car died on Ray’s shift and not mine. I always get blamed that I did something to it rather than it was just fate that it happened when I was driving the car. Ladies, ever have that happen to you?

Maybe the Trimbles should take up bike riding or in the winter snowshoeing — just a thought!

Trimble is Hometown News general manager; reach her at (608) 478-2518.

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Published: March 10, 2014 nbsp | nbsp
Updated: March 10, 2014 at 11:15 AM

Get expert home maintenance advice, browse for decor ideas, watch cooking demonstrations, seek landscaping guidance and attend seminars – all for free – at Florida’s Largest Home Show.

Admission fees are waived for everyone on Friday, March 14 courtesy of ABC Action News.

The home show is open from 11 a.m. until 6 p.m. on that day.

Regular admission is $8 for adults and $7 for seniors. Children age 12 and younger are admitted free.

The home show consists of over 900 exhibits and vendors conveniently located at The Florida State Fairgrounds and runs through Sunday, March 16.

For more information about the show, visit http://bighomeshow.com/.

The Florida State Fairgrounds are located at 4800 U.S. 301, Tampa.

The city of Apache Junction may review the methods with which it communicates projects to residents after unhappy homeowners filed a petition against the city for roadwork they claim destroyed the rural character of their street.

“Although we communicated in advance in writing with the neighborhood, the project has made it clear that we can and must do more,” Giao Pham, the city’s public works director, said in an e-mailed response to questions last week.

Twenty-eight citizens signed a petition that was presented to the Apache Junction City Council during its regular meeting Feb. 18. Most of them reside along North Acacia Road, where the roadwork was done, as well as neighboring East Manzanita Street, East Tepee Street to the north and East Superstition Boulevard to the south.

The residents are upset about roadwork to repair and widen North Acacia Road between East Tepee and East Superstition that took place during the first half of February.

They claim the city’s removal of roadside desert vegetation and the resulting wide, soft-dirt shoulders “negatively affects property values” and are an “eyesore to those who live on Acacia Road,” according to the petition packet. They also claim the removal of cactuses, Palo Verde trees and creosote bushes from the roadway shoulders will create erosion issues when it rains, has destroyed the area as a wild-animal habitat and creates dust issues, according to the packet.

“They did overkill,” Ray Bankler, who lives at 888 N. Acacia Road, said during an interview last week.

Private land was not disturbed during the two-week-long project, Mr. Pham said in the e-mailed response to questions last week. All work was performed within the 66-foot-wide Federal Patent Easement established by the 1938 Small Tract Act, which extends an easement 33 feet from the center of a roadway on both sides, Mr. Pham said.

In late January the residents were notified by the city by mail that pavement reconstruction would begin the first week in February, according to the city letter provided in the petition packet provided to the Apache Junction/Gold Canyon Independent by Mr. Bankler. Mr. Bankler submitted the petition to the council during the Call to the Public portion of the Feb. 18 council meeting.

The letter explained the street would be widened to about 22 feet to accommodate a 20-feet paved surface. City crews would remove the existing asphalt and about 6 inches of underlining base, and then place 4 inches of new base and then pave the road, the letter said.

The letter, signed by Greg Mayer, the city’s street maintenance supervisor, explained the street would remain open during the three-week-long project and asked residents not to park on the street or shoulder Monday-Thursday during roadwork.

A subsequent letter notified residents that street paving would take place Feb. 3-4 and instructed residents when they could drive on the repaved road and how to access their driveways during the paving process.

Both the city and residents agree Acacia Road needed to be repaired. Acacia resident Darryl Cross, who lives at 1018 N. Acacia Road, said during a phone interview last week that the road was constantly getting washed out and needed potholes filled in. The reconstructed road “never had a great base” and now that it does should last 50 years or more, he said.

“But nowhere in the letter did it mention disturbing, removing and decimating the landscape,” Mr. Cross said. “Everything south of my driveway is scraped bare 50 yards or so.”

Residents also questioned why so much land was disturbed at the south end of North Acacia Road while vegetation toward the north end of the road was barely touched, Mr. Bankler said.

Mr. Pham explained the city’s thought-process in his e-mail.

“The original roadway was in poor condition. When we pave or improve a roadway we have to make sure that width is a minimum of 20 feet (10 feet for each lane) to prevent head-on collisions. This sometimes requires widening of the shoulders and relocating mailboxes and fences. The city will try to avoid a lot of the man-made structures such as fences and landscaping. The city will grade or widen the shoulders because of drainage and steep slopes,” he wrote.

He said during a phone interview March 6 the road shoulders were widened to 4 to 8 feet in some areas so vehicles could pull off safely while other areas had to be resloped so they would redirect water to nearby washes during rains.

When presenting the petition to the council, Mr. Bankler asked why a tree and vegetation were removed from the southeast corner of his property. Both provided a barrier cars and pedestrians could not cross as well as a screen for his fire pit and its seating area from traffic, he said during an interview last week.

Mr. Pham said during an interview that the vegetation posed a safety hazard by blocking the stop sign posted on the northwest corner of Acacia and Superstition.

To save money, the city used its own labor force rather than contract out the work, the public works director said in his e-mail.

He said in his e-mail that utilizing a contractor would have increased the cost by three to four times.

The cost for the project was: $49,875 for the 800 tons of asphalt; $11,716.83 for in-house labor; and $8,667.50 for equipment. The work was planned in the current budget, Mr. Pham said.

Five members of the city council have toured the area.

“Everything they did was done legally. But was it done in everyone’s best interest? That’s something we need to address,” Councilman Chip Wilson said during an interview last week.

“As a part of the city’s — and before it was a city — history, many of our roads are not in the correct alignments,” Councilwoman Gail Evans said March 7 in an e-mailed letter to the Independent. “Citizens were able to blade their own road to their property. Sometimes the roads were somewhat where they should be and a lot of times they weren’t and usually only roughly 33 feet were bladed in not the whole 66-foot easements. The city can only stay in the rights-of-ways; unfortunately many citizens don’t realize or understand where their property line (net) is as compared to the gross property, which in many cases is the center of the road.

“When the city came in to repair Acacia — which I am sure is greatly appreciated — construction sometimes takes out vegetation that is in between the gross and net property lines as needed to complete their jobs, which in part trying to have the road where it actually belongs,” the councilwoman said. “My point: just because the road is where you see it doesn’t mean that is where it is should be. Acacia itself has many dips with small runoffs that affect the road’s surface longevity. The good news is even though the vegetation is gone for now, with our wonderful desert vegetation a few rains it will return.”

Councilman Wilson said he would like to hold a neighborhood meeting with the residents after all members of the council have toured the area. Mayor John Insalaco and Councilman Dave Waldron had not visited Acacia Road to view the project as of press time Friday, Councilman Wilson said.

“We know not everyone will be satisfied but we hope the majority will understand why things were done,” Councilman Wilson said. “We hope they feel they were heard and their problems were addressed.”

In the meantime, the city is reviewing the way it communicates with residents regarding projects, Mr. Pham said during his phone interview March 6. He said previous letters have been sufficient but now he understands the city may have to spend additional time explaining the projects more in-depth.

“In the future, especially in the rural areas, we will enhance our up-front communication with residents. Ideally, we’ll meet face-to-face in a meeting. That way we can communicate our plans and hear — up front — the perspectives and ideas of those whom we serve,” Mr. Pham said in his e-mail.