Gardening Barcroft
A Report - July 17, 1998
There is a new forum for learning and fun community events while cleaning up the community house yard and establishing a lawn and other landscaping projects over time.
This started July 4, 1998 after the parade with a collection of names and opinions, and was followed up the next Tuesday at a meeting at Scott Brinitzer's house.
The next meeting is set for Thursday July 23rd, again at Scott's house 4708 8th Street). unless more space is needed, then the meeting will be at the community house.
The meeting will start promptly at 6:30 PM and end promptly at 7:30PM.
Please call Scott Brinitzer (892.0308) or Jill Herndon (521.8907) or Ann Witzig (271.5361) for more information, and to be added to the list of interested participants for the summer discussions and fall planning. This "committee" is coming together out of those who want to participate and everyone is invited for short or long term participation.
The Report in mid-September
September 13, 1998
This is a "heads up" from the ad hoc gardening committee, in anticipation of a "Y’all come over" invitation to start work on the grounds of the Community House to replace the compacted clay dirt with a real lawn, with lush green grass.
Summer is over and it is time to do the fundamental preparations. NO grass will grow without improving the soil first. These soil improvements will also help the plants and trees that are already there, like our 200 year old oak tree, help the neighbors who now experience too much water run off from the property, and make future improvements possible. September is still too early for this work. Weekends in the first part of October will be just perfect for tilling and seeding.
The garden group will start meeting again with some regularity. The first Fall meeting is scheduled for Thursday, September 17th at Scott Brinitzer’s house, at 4708 8th Street, about a hundred yards down from the Community House. Since we all have busy lives with multiple commitments, as with the other meetings we have had, it will start promptly at 6:30 PM and end at 7:30 PM, for the most part focusing on an agenda and arranging time outside the meeting or at later meetings for additional discussions. We will report out after the meeting, so we can include as many people as possible in the “virtual” experience of Gardening Barcroft - by phone, web page, e-mail, the newletter and flyers.
If you would like to be on our phone tree list or E-mail list, please contact Scott Brinitzer (phone at 892-0308) or Jill Herndon (by E-mail at HERNDON@TMN.COM).
Funding:
We are working on funding this first effort, and scheduling work days around other calendar events.
When we have the days, here are the supplies we will need: 40 lb bags of gypsum (20), 20 yards - eg. 9 cubic feet—of Garden Gro (20), one 50 lb bag of grass seed, 12 - 13 yards of mulch for the existing beds and trees. The estimated cost is between $1,200.00 and $1,500.00.
We have made a funding request for a grant from an Arlington civic group, and are waiting on the response. It may be that these costs will be covered in full by the grant, leaving us in good shape to begin more fund raising efforts for an irrigation system to be installed in January or February. If the grant does not materialize, we do have some preliminary indications of interest in donations for the irrigation system that may need to be diverted to these initial expenses, and immediate need for early fund raising to cover these costs.
If you would like to pledge tax deductible donations in this tax year or next, please contact either Scott or Jill to be added to the list.
Equipment & Labor:
We have two rototillers, and could certainly use more. We may also have a heavier earth moving machine to get the work started. We will need wheelbarrows, shovels, and rakes.
The immediate need, however, is for volunteers to work the heavy equipment, to help move some of the plants that are there now to improved locations, and to help grade and rake the soil and seed. Unfortunately, this time we need to ask that no small children participate, but energetic teens working with a parent or other adult friend are eagerly wanted. Many hands make light work.
If you would like to volunteer equipment and labor, please contact either Scott or Jill.
Summary of July Meeting
Who came: Bill Bryne whose corner house backs on the community center yard. Anne Witzig who lives across the street from Bill, in the old Casewell house, with a good view of the community center. Jill Herndon who lives on the same block as the center and "downstream" when it rains. Carolyn Doyle whose blue house with the white picket fence and azalea garden is a neighborhood pride on 8th Road. Barbara and Jack Clemens. In calling around, from the July 4th list of people interested, about twice that many would have been there if their schedule permitted; later this fed into the decision to meet every two weeks, to have more opportunities for people to schedule themselves in several times over the summer in spite of schedule conflicts, and to keep the forums short.
The process: Scott had planned an agenda, making time for us to get to know each other and to recap for us what his involvement has been in the past few years in volunteer landscaping for us on the Community Center grounds, and to have a discussion of peoples opinions and ideas about future community activity to maintain and improve the grounds. Everything anyone wrote in the opinion books on July 4th was shared with the group, and it was fun to find out how congenial and intelligent people are in Barcroft.
The background:
Scott is a professional landscaper. He has been volunteering some time and plantings for several years, and wants us to know what needs to be done for successful improvements to the yard. He has sketched up a long range plan as a design proposal for us to consider in whole or in part. This has been presented to the Board. The Board's concern is that this project might take away from the support also needed to continue and complete renovation of the building certainly a project of equal importance. Another point of view is that the two projects can run in tandem, since they involve different activities and the gardening may be able to proceed by organizing volunteer gardening days and donations from our own perhaps overgrown yards.
Basically, the first step in renovating the yard is to improve and grade the soil, which is such compacted clay that everything struggles and in July starts to die from the drought. This can be done by scheduling a weekend community event in the early Fall, when the ground becomes more workable, to till and add compost and other soil conditioners. Nominal donations would cover the cost of the conditioners and grass seed, and regular volunteers to water the grass as it becomes established. The grass will hold it all in place until we are ready for the next step.
Some grading could be done at the same time the yard is tilled, to curtail erosion and to stop flooding the neighboring yards. Excess rainfall would be diverted to the road and storm drains at 8th Street. Improved soil would also result in water retention (and reduce runoff), especially necessary for the old oak tree to continue to weather the seasons, and vital to a good lawn.
The next project would be an irrigation system. A vendor has offered a mid winter "special" at a drastic reduction, in return for neighborly goodwill and public acknowledgment in our newsletter and as a professional thank you to Scott, who has sent business his way. The market price is S10,000.00. The offer is S3.000.00.
The meeting on July 23rd is to focus in particular on organizing donations and fund raising activities for these two projects.
Purposes:
A garden is a magnet for community activities. The community house now serves a broad range of people and their needs, and this can be improved upon, especially for children, for community gatherings and fund raising by leasing the space. It would be possible to expand the usable area in the back of the building, and make it possible to walk around the building instead of meeting the barriers there now this would give us more space for July 4th in particular. Some people have spoken of the positive effect of upgraded appearance of the community house and yard to attract events like weddings, christenings, scrabble tournaments and office retreats in place of late night parties. The increase in revenue would contribute to renovation of the building.
Safety issues can be addressed by improvements such as: a new secure shed, low voltage lighting, appropriate fencing for children's freedom in the yard. Improving the community appearance is also a contribution to community safety we have several new neighbors who work in law enforcement and with the courts.
Plantings can be proposed and donations collected from our own yards, and sometimes from surplus landscape materials donated by local landscape businesses. One family would like to contribute a memorial tree in honor of their son who died suddenly two years ago. Many of us are already enjoying the plants that were moved from Betty Handy's Yard before the new houses were built there.
We will be contacting the BSCL webmaster to post this invitation on our web page and keep more people informed of our progress especially for the Fall tilling work and neighborhood party.
Please come to the July 23rd discussion if you enjoy planning these
neighborhood improvements and would like to be a part of these developments.
If you would like to be on a phone tree or email list for information on the schedule and
location of future meetings, please contact Jill Herndon at
herndon@tmn.com.
This page was last revised on: September 13, 2000.
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