Jon Willing - July 17th, 2014

A picture of City Hall on July 17, 2014 after workers covered the damaged lawn with more sod.

More sod went down at City Hall this week after the annual Great Grass Slaughter at 110 Laurier Ave.

The Jazzfest tent destroyed the grass.

Actually, the lawn is usually beat up at least twice a year: During the winter from the Rink of Dreams traffic, and during Jazzfest.

One thing theyre going to try and do at Lansdowne Park is keep stages and other pieces of big equipment on the porch outside Aberdeen Pavilion. No one wants to see the new grass on the Great Lawn ruined.

As for City Hall, I dont know what the long-term solution will be. Maybe re-sodding is it.

Vacation alert: Starting Friday, Im off for a couple weeks on vacation. Ill be back in early August, so dont expect much action on the blog in the meantime. Hope youre enjoying the summer.

Follow City Hall reporter Jon Willing on Twitter at @JonathanWilling and at ottawasun.com.

Original post:
Re-sodding: An Annual City Hall Tradition

Ethan Irwin, 8 and Katalina Pete, 8, both of Farmington, play with a blue-tailed lizard on Thursday outside of the Kirtland Youth Association in Kirtland. Katalina said, "We're digging a hole for the lizard to live in." (Alexa Rogals The Daily Times)

Julian Gaytan, 8, shoots hoops at the playground on Thursday outside the Kirtland Youth Association in Kirtland. (Alexa Rogals The Daily Times)

KIRTLAND A new grass activity field is in the works for the Kirtland Youth Association after the group received a $50,000 grant from the Public Service Company of New Mexico.

The youth association is one of 24 nonprofit agencies in New Mexico and Texas to receive a grant from PNM Power Up Grants. The program distributed $500,000 to organizations for various community projects.

On Thursday, San Juan County Commissioners and representatives from local Navajo Nation chapters, San Juan United Way and the San Juan Generating Station attended a grant presentation in the parking lot of the Kirtland organization.

The Kirtland Youth Association is one of four agencies and the only one in the Four Corners to receive $50,000 from the PNM foundation. Twenty agencies each received $15,000 grants.

It's a dream come true to build the playing field for youth sports like football and soccer, said the Kirtland association's executive director, Charles Kromer. Members of the organization have worked hard to build the facility for the community, he said.

"We've trying to make it as successful for the community as we can," Kromer said.

At the presentation, children participating in the association's summer program sat in the bleachers set up in the parking lot. San Juan Generating Station Plant Manager Tom Fallgren opened the presentation by talking about the program and the effect the youth association has in the community.

"The Kirtland Youth Association is dedicated to serving the youth of the San Juan River valley with educational, recreational and social programs," Fallgren said.

Read the rest here:
Kirtland Youth Association receives $50K grant to build sports field

The kids at the Aurora Early Learning Center have more room to roam and play thanks to a grant from the Community Foundation of Fox River Valley.

One Hope United recently received a grant for $18,300 to resurface its Aurora Early Learning Centers play area.

Initially, when the learning center was built, sod was put in. The sod frequently turned into a mud pit, said Beth Lakier, the associate executive director of the Child Development Centers of One Hope United. The children were not able to run around.

The learning center depends on the ability to take the children out during the day to play or participate in other outdoor activities, said Ralph Voris, grant coordinator for the Community Foundation of the Fox River Valley.

The combination of kids and grass can lead to things getting pretty worn out, he added.

After a rain or at certain times of the year, what had been grass would turn into a muddy mess that was being tracked into the building, he added.

The sod has been replaced by artificial turf so that the area could be used almost year round, Voris added.

With the new turf, kids can don swimsuits and enjoy water play, Lakier said. Walking out on the playground, Lakier spotted a girl who was enjoying her very first time playing under a hose.

The new experience hit for Lakier.

With the beautiful new space, the kids get to go out do things that they typically dont get to do at home, she said.

More:
Good Cause: New surface for One Hope United playground

The front yard of Dr. L.W. Buddy Nichols and wife, Delores Beery, is filled with white river pebbles, river rock, mountain stone and pavers. Colorful blossoms of crape myrtles, knockout roses, zinnias and petunias pop against the white rock.

Delores Beerys landscaping includes seating areas where guests may stop to enjoy settings such as this birdbath surrounded by hostas, a rambling rose climbing a trellis and fuchsia crape myrtles.

This view from the second-story balcony shows the variety of rock used around the design of the front yards three islands.

Lily pads and a heron-shaped fountain are two elements in the couples backyard pond, where birds love taking baths, Delores Beery says.

Orange and yellow lilies and white petunias are planted beneath a hummingbird feeder.

Delores Beery always had an aversion to mowers, but never more so than when I mowed the end of my second toe off. That accident was the catalyst for a total landscape makeover in which she yanked all the grass out of the front and back yards at her East Ridge home and replaced it with pea gravel, river pebbles, river rock, mountain stone, flagstone and pavers. It is manual labor in which she and husband, Dr. L.W. Buddy Nichols, have invested over four years.

Weve eliminated almost every bit of grass, she says. We dont have a lawn mower and we dont want another. We have one tiny patch of grass on one side of the house where were going to put in a putting/chipping green.

Hes got it all planned that hes going to paint Augustas Amen Corner on the fence behind it, she laughs.

Nichols estimates that the two of them hauled in 60 tons of rock, mulch and topsoil to complete the DIY project. The lawn is white river pebbles mixed with a small amount of pea gravel. Islands of raised flower beds are outlined in stacked rock with flagstone trails winding throughout.

Its a clean, manicured look that the couple says is easy maintenance.

Continue reading here:
Chattanooga couple spreads 60 tons of rock and mulch to get rid of lawn

In the Garden

Q: My roses are looking diseased and lots of leaves are falling off. Will cutting back now help to make them attractive again?

A: This wet spring has made roses highly susceptible to black spot. This is a fungus disease that begins with spotted leaves that soon turn yellow. In severe infestations most of the leaves fall off, leaving the shrub bare and unsightly.

It cant hurt to cut the rose back by a third. Hopefully that will stimulate the buds at nodes just below the cut to put out new growth. Feed your rose with a mix of alfalfa meal and organic rose food. Make sure your rose has adequate water, but use care not to wet new leaves or they will likely become infected with black spot as well.

As a precaution, spray the new growth weekly during rainy weather with environmentally friendly neem oil, available at nurseries and garden centers. If all goes well, the leaves will grow back and your rose will put on a nice display of blooms by fall.

Consider replacing your susceptible variety with a Knock Out rose. These roses are tested and only those varieties that are highly resistant ever reach the market. They lack fragrance, but they make up for it with attractive disease-free foliage and practically nonstop flowering all summer long.

Q: Ive noticed swarms of little moths hovering over my lawn and lots of small brown, dead spots are appearing. Are the two related?

A: There are a lot of possible causes for brown spots in a lawn, but the fact that youve noticed numerous moths above the lawn makes it likely that your lawn is infested with sod webworm.

The troublemakers are the offspring of the moths, -t o 1-inch-long caterpillars that hide in silken tunnels during the day and then come out at night to chew grass blades off at the base.

Just to be sure webworms are causing the damage, examine the grass. If you see silken tunnels and green frass (polite word for pelletlike bug poop) your lawn has a sod-webworm infestation.

Read the rest here:
Q&A: Dealing with rose black spot and sod webworm

CHARLES CITY As with everything involved in farming, this story begins with a dream and a bit of seed.

The seed is grass, not all that different from that used at the famous Field of Dreams only a couple hours from here.

On that farm, the fictional Ray Kinsella planted grass for a baseball field because he knew if you build it, they will come.

Near here, Mark Kuhn planted grass for a tennis court, much like those at the legendary All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, home of the most-famous tennis tournament in the world.

But, the thing to remember is the fictional Kinsella and the real Kuhn are both farmers, and they planted the seed because they each had a dream.

This used to be a feedlot when I was a kid, Kuhn says as he walks across the tennis court on his farm. We had cattle grazing on this part, he says with a sweep of his arm, and my sisters horse, Chico, on that side.

But, the dream started when Kuhn fell in love with tennis. He can still recall sitting with his grandfather as the two found a BBC broadcast of the Wimbledon tourney on a short-wave radio in 1962.

Kuhn grew up, went to college, married and started a family and moved back to the family farm. He became a leader in his community and served in the Legislature for more than a decade.

However, in 2001 a neighbor and friend, Peter Bjelica, suddenly died.

It reminded me that life is short, Kuhn says. I talked to my wife, Denise, and said it was time to do it.

Read more:
Farmer serves up whimsical replica grass court

CHIEFTAIN PHOTO/CHRIS MCLEAN Sprinklers are having to work overtime to keep grass green in recent very hot temperatures, but the water board is not going to restrict watering.

Other cities in the West ration water, use block rates to discourage water waste and even pay property owners to rip out sod.

Pueblo does none of those things, and a couple of people who attended last weeks state water plan meeting at Pueblo Community College wondered why.

Its driven by economics, said Terry Book, executive director of the Pueblo Board of Water Works. Using less water drives up rates. That puts more of a burden on poorer customers. Its a complex question.

For years, the Pueblo water board has seen a decrease in water use that began after the city put outdoor watering restrictions in place following the 2002 drought.

View original post here:
Water board leaves lawns alone

For the first time in more than 40 years, Sun Bowl Stadium will have live, fresh and all-natural grass.

The grass will be ready for Sunday's soccer exhibition game between Club Deportivo Guadalajara, known as Chivas in Mexico, and Brazil's Cruzeiro Esporte Clube. The game starts at 8 p.m.

Installation of the 1.5-inch thick grass began at 6 p.m. Wednesday and should be finished by the end of today, University of Texas at El Paso officials said. Precision Turf LLC out of Georgia is handling the installation.

It took 30 trucks to haul the 90,000 square feet of Bermuda grass from Gardner Turf in Santa Teresa to Sun Bowl Stadium.

The grass is being placed over the AstroPlay turf that is already installed in the Sun Bowl. A protective geo-turf cover will be laid in between the artificial turf and the natural grass, said Jorge Vasquez, UTEP's special events director.

The last time the stadium's playing surface was made out of grass was in 1973. The next year, AstroTurf was installed and in 2001 the new synthetic AstroPlay was installed.

The cost of the grass is estimated at more than $100,000 and it is being paid for by Soccer United Marketing, which is an affiliate of Major League Soccer.

Soccer United spokeswoman Marisabel Muoz said that grass is just a better playing surface for soccer.

"We seek the best option natural grass or FIFA approved turf for the elite clubs and national teams we host," Muoz said. "Therefore, natural grass will be brought in."

Vasquez said the grass is easier on players' knees and ankles.

Read more from the original source:
UTEP Sun Bowl gets grass for Sunday's Chivas soccer match

glen rock gazette file photo

The Glen Rock Board of Education is discussing the possibility of adding lights to the Glen Rock High School all-purpose field, which was renovated in 2012.

The possible installation of lights at the Glen Rock High School all-purpose field emerged at the Board of Education's June 23 public meeting.

In a new element of talks principally aimed at the improvement of girls softball fields at Coleman Elementary School, the high school lighting tie-in was broached last week by trustees in tandem with a natural grass solution at Coleman, rather than the previously contemplated $1.2 million synthetic surface there.

The new alternative was recommended to the BOE Operations Committee by district Superintendent Paula Valenti, with the support of Athletic Director Frank Violante, according to committee chair Elizabeth Carr.

Officials emphasized that should such a proposal move forward, it would not materialize until the summer of 2015, following full BOE analysis and public outreach and input beginning in the fall, notably involving residents who live in the immediate vicinity of the high school field.

BOE President Sheldon Hirschberg said his hope is that at the next BOE meeting on July 7, "We can vote on a way forward on our fields. There are two topics here: We need to fix the Coleman Field, and our administration is (also) strongly in favor of putting lights at our football (all-purpose) field."

Having called for the June 23 discussion in a prior email to board members, Hirschberg said, "I think this is the kind of issue that deserves the (full board's) attention. I'm not asking for a vote tonight because I think we should first put this in the public domain, so that residents who are for or opposed to it can reach out to any and all of us."

Officials supporting the idea cited the improvement at Coleman, the expanded scheduling capacity at the high school venue, and the cost. The high school lighting was estimated at $300,000 to $350,000. Combined with $427,000 already in the district's capital budget based on the original plan to sod Coleman, the two projects would top out far below the synthetic turf alternative alone - an amount that would revert to the district's capital reserve, according to Business Administrator/Board Secretary Michael Rinderknecht.

Carr kicked off the June 23 discussion, noting that while she had previously supported the synthetic turf option, the multiple benefits, natural grass solution and financial aspect of the new alternative proposed by the district administrators changed her mind.

Go here to see the original:
Lights at Glen Rock High School field added to options

Houston, TX (PRWEB) June 30, 2014

On July 7th, 2014 the Fresh Patch Company will start offering a completely biodegradable product. The Company will use a new technology to manufacture the leak-proof containers it uses to house and ship hydroponic dog-potty grass nation-wide. As a result, the Fresh Patch containers will be totally biodegradable and recyclable because no wax coating will be needed to create a moisture barrier. The new technology will give us the impermeability of a wax coating, without the environmental drawbacks, says Company President, Andrew Feld.

We were seeking a high-tech, biodegradable container to match our technologically superior hydroponic grass, says the Company. Unlike conventional sod, hydropically grown grass is lighter-weight, longer-lasting, dirt-free and highly absorbent. Now, we will be offering a container that is also technologically superiorjust like our grass.

According to the Fresh Patch Company, fruit and vegetable suppliers are also likely to start adopting the new technology to manufacture containers for shipping perishable items. Were at the forefront of a new eco-friendly trend in packaging and shipping, says the Company. By offering 100 percent biodegradable, disposable dog potties, we expect to attract many new customers who have environmental concerns. Our disposable dog potties are already 99 percent natural grass. Now, our biodegradable containers will be as green as our grass.

The Fresh Patch biodegradable, disposable dog potty units are intended for dogs up to 25 pounds. The Company also offers 2x4 feet hydroponic grass pads for larger dogs. More information can be found on the Fresh Patch website http://www.freshpatch.com.

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Fresh Patch Company Offers Completely Biodegradable and Recyclable Dog Potty