Gardening & Landscaping
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
City wide beautification
Has anyone ever had a permit from their city and done a beautification project? My city, I believe, needs the following:
1. Signs in our downtown area (I live in a historic area in Fl so signs would refelct the history)
2. Planters/window boxes in front of stores.
3. Dog park-not sure where to start with this one!!!!!!!!!!!!
4.Repainting benches, windows, and doors of small businesses
5. Planting flowers, bushes, and trees at local parks.
Does anyone have an idea where I would start with this? Has anyone done this?
TIA
Re: City wide beautification
Look up your local Cooperative Extention.
In MY municipality, these fall under the jurisdiction of:
1. Signs in our downtown area: Dept of Public Works
2. Planters/window boxes in front of stores: Property owner (and they can't be forced to do it)
3. Dog park: Dept of Parks and Recreation
4.Repainting benches, windows, and doors of small businesses: If it is public bench, then it falls under DPW, windows and doors only have to comply with building codes, they are privately owned and the shop owners cannot be forced to make them "beautiful"
5. Planting flowers, bushes, and trees at local parks: Inside parks, it goes to Parks and Rec, all other trees on city property are overseen by Dept of Urban Forestry
Does anyone have an idea where I would start with this? Has anyone done this?
I plant trees on city property so often, I have the permit saved in my document file so I can keep changing the location and date, and email it quickly. I also have another permit saved for "tree maintenance" (pruning).
GO TO YOU CITY'S WEBSITE and find the appropriate department, and contact them. Bravo on your initiative! I wish everyone would do this.
Your city probably has a committee for that - it may be defunct, but it or the infrastructure for it probably exists. Look up your city's website and look at its city council meetings, agendas, and sub-committees to find a point person. My mother is VERY involved in her town's beautification cmte - I mean, it borders on a full-time job for her. (She's retired and enjoys the work.)
If your city doesn't have a committee, talk to your city government and ask if you can start one. A good place to start would simply be chatting with the secretary in the mayor's office. In all likelihood, s/he's been there for decades and knows everyone.
If you have a historic downtown, it likely already has a committee or group, so downtown things would be you getting to know them and talking. Tread carefully there because times are hard and $30 for a gallon of paint is too much for some small businesses. (You may scoff and think I'm exaggerating, but a relative of mine owns a very popular independent bookstore in a thriving historic downtown and they live paycheck to paycheck.)
If you've got the gift of gab, you may be able to get paint stores or nurseries to make donations down the road. One smart way to go about dressing up road medians and sidewalk planters is to get businesses to sponsor them - they pay $X a year and they get a sign by the planting and someone else (volunteers or pro landscapers) maintain it. Expecting businesses to maintain beds themselves is unrealistic and you don't know the product you'll end up with.
No doubt school groups will want to get involved - Eagle Scout projects (for his, my husband planted a nursery of saplings for his town to pull from for free for street trees in X years when they matured), scout troops, high school and college clubs looking for community service. If you run a good program and your town is small, you may be able to get small-time offenders assigned to do community service to do some of the projects as well.
Lemme know if you have specific questions you'd like me to pass along to my mom. (Yeah, she knows about the nest and there is nothing more on this earth she likes to talk about more than her beautification cmte lol.)
My Pinterest
The Googlesites Paint Bio
Thinking of doing cosmetic updates to a dated home? These were our costs.
LOL, nothing makes city officials tremble in fear like bored retirees! Same phenomenon is in place here!
Here, we also have the Clean City Commission, which has been helpful to groups I belong to (provided trash cans in areas where we kept having litter problems).
It's so ironic that I struggle MOST with my own department (Urban Forestry). Every permit I apply for is a pi$$ing contest with the powers that be- I am the only woman, and I am an appointee (pro bono) and I generate more applications than the entire rest of the department combined.
I'd check with the local graden clubs or horticultural society.
1. Signs in our downtown area (I live in a historic area in Fl so signs would refelct the history)
This would be vetted by public works and the local HARB where I live.
2. Planters/window boxes in front of stores.
Hard to mandate, but contests for "most original" or "best box" often engage merchants. Especially if you can get them coverage in local media outlets.
3. Dog park-not sure where to start with this one!!!!!!!!!!!!
This would usually be a function of parks & rec. Your local animal welfare organization might know other interested parties willing to have you join them. My neighbor recently pushed for one locally.
4.Repainting benches, windows, and doors of small businesses
Not a whole lot an individual can do about this. If there are HARB regs, you can sometimes get cooperation. But otherwise good luck with this.
5. Planting flowers, bushes, and trees at local parks.
This is often a function of the local horticultural society or garden clubs. You could also tender suggestions to kids particpating in 4H and scouts bent on earning Eagle or Gold Awards.
I sent an email today to the Parks Supervisor in my city about the dog park. There is an Adopt-a-Park program that I think I am going to apply for in order to work on turning the park near my house into a dog park! I am very excited and ready to move forward!
The sponsor idea is great-the budget here is pitiful. I just want our city to reach it's potential.
There is a committee that meets to discuss signage, painting, etc. I am going to call them and see when they meet.
Thank you all for the advice! I really see a need for this in my city and hope my efforts are worthwhile.