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A horticulturist could keep city beautiful
Published Sunday, July 27, 2008
The brown patch of vegetation silently speaks volumes.
Leaves curl into unnatural shapes; branches begin to wither.
Chemicals sprayed days before slowly leech out chlorophyll, the special chemical that many of us first heard about in elementary school.
Chlorophyll is the substance that gives living plants a green color.
Natchez is filled with chlorophyll. Our lush gardens and scenic streets are nearly as alluring to outsiders as the stately mansions that erupt sporadically through the greenscape.
But sometime a few days ago Natchez lost some of its color. What was once lush is now dry and crackling in the wind.
A large swath of brown can be seen near one of Natchez’s most beautiful scenes.
Tourists and residents alike driving down Homochitto Street have a disturbingly brown interruption as they approach antebellum Dunleith, easily one of Natchez’s most recognized, most beautiful tourism draws.
You see, someone decided to spray some kind of plant-killing chemical all along the edges of the roadway just before you get to Dunleith, heading toward downtown Natchez on Homochitto.
That happens when someone is asked to do a job and that someone is really more worried about speed than quality.
Why worry about what it looks like? Just spray it and we won’t have to cut it again anytime soon.
It’s a good assumption that most of the victims in the Great Homochitto Street Defoliation of 2008 were likely weeds.
But that’s not the point. The point is that Natchez should expect better.
Perhaps, the City of Natchez should begin providing some leadership in terms of the way the city looks.
What would happen if the city bit the bullet and moved some funds from the city planning department — which became bloated under the watch of the last administration — and hired a horticulturist?
Perhaps having an expert on staff would prevent such brown streaks along one of the entrances to the city.
Or, maybe a horticulturist could have prevented some of the tree butchering that caused so much flak a few months back when contractors for Entergy began clearing limbs from near power lines.
A trained expert would be on the lookout for small things that, when not tended, standout. For example, tree lines look odd when one tree in the line dies. A horticulturist would know to fix it, and fix it with a tree of similar age and size.
An expert would know which trees need trimmed and which flowerbeds need attention.
And, perhaps most important, a horticulturist wouldn’t allow someone to kill the vegetation and the view on one of the prettiest drives in Natchez.
Hiring an expert may seem like a luxury, but it’s not. In addition to having a skilled person in charge of shaping the city’s look, that person might ultimately save the city some labor, too, by knowing how to select plants that require little upkeep.
In the meantime, the brown streak of dead vegetation on Homochitto Street is screaming out “help wanted: apply at City Hall.”
Kevin Cooper is publisher of The Natchez Democrat. He can be reached at 601-445-3539 or kevincooper@natchezdemocrat.com.
Comments
Posted by oldsaw (anonymous) on July 27, 2008 at 1:34 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Kevin -- it's a shame that you feel free to point fingers at browning vegetation during the middle of the hot summer, with very little rain and want to blame it on the lack of a horticulturist on City's staff,
when the Natchez Democrat owns an eyesore downtown, on a prime piece of property in a location where it is seen by visitors and locals alike. You have promised time and again that the building will be renovated. Why don't you spend some of your editorial space explaining yourself?
Posted by kcooper (Kevin Cooper) on July 27, 2008 at 8:14 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Oldsaw, first the vegetation isn't browning for lack of rain. It was green before it was sprayed with a chemical. This was just one example. If you look around you'll see lots of opportunities for someone who is an expert at such things.
Second, our building plans are still under way, just delayed a bit. We were running at it very quickly a year or so ago with the belief that meeting the GO Zone deadline was critical. We have slowed up after realizing that GO Zone incentives were not terribly advantageous to us.
Posted by EnKiKur (anonymous) on July 27, 2008 at 8:57 a.m. (Suggest removal)
oldsaw, newspapers tend to have an inside track on politics. Expect a poll very soon asking if the people think Natchez needs an horticulturist. Could the Democrat possibly be sticking a finger up in the wind for the local Democratic Party leaders in control of Natchez?
I say wake up people! Wake UP! What can an horticulturist do alone? She will need a staff won't she? And an office. Dept. of City Horticulture. And she will need an advisory and enforcement group. The Natchez Horticultural Commission. There will be plant codes just like there are building codes.
How high do you want your property taxes to be? So high you can't pay them? This is the situation that Sustainable Development has brought to many other towns and counties across the country.
Would you like to find yourself facing charges because of the type or condition of plants in your yard? Do you want to find yourself facing landscaping codes? http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/UW253
All of you garden district dwellers and antebellum home owners who see this as a good thing should be aware that you are the real targets of these programs you think will get the riffrafff in line with your beautification schemes. You folks haven't been doing your background research.
"...current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class - involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work-place air-conditioning, and suburban housing - are not sustainable. A shift is necessary. which will require a vast strengthening of the multilateral system, including the United Nations..." Maurice Strong , opening speech at the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development
It is you, the affluent middle class who are to blame for the world's environmental problems. You will be taxed, and taxed heavily for your transgressions, even though you have been recruited, knowingly or not, to carry out this agenda locally. You have already allowed your voting power over water rates to be taken away from you by the St Catherine Creek Utility Authority, which operates outside the jurisdiction of the Public Service Commission. Do you use water to maintain your landscaping?
Your interests are being used against you. Natchez does not need another public office funded by your property taxes. Everything Mr. Cooper proposes as a benefit of this new official could more easily and cheaply be provided by any of the local landscaping firms on a per job basis.
Or just about anyone else for that matter. Can you tell when two trees are of the same size and age? I can.
Posted by destiny (anonymous) on July 27, 2008 at 11:57 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I agree with the two posters. Sorry Keven, but what you are proposing is just another waste of tax dollars. A big waste of money, plus more rules and regulations for the tax payers to be burden with. Natchez has enough of those. Nip this idea in the bud. The one person spraying grass killer should know what they are doing. If not take their sprayer away from them. They're dangerous.
Posted by Hardcorps (anonymous) on July 27, 2008 at 2:48 p.m.
(This comment was removed by the site staff.)
Posted by Hardcorps (anonymous) on July 27, 2008 at 2:50 p.m.
(This comment was removed by the site staff.)
Posted by lowrider (anonymous) on July 28, 2008 at 12:19 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Whats the problem someone not like Hardcorp? He's such a polite being.
Posted by inocentbystandr (anonymous) on July 28, 2008 at 8:09 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I have not personaly seen the dead vegetation on Homochitto Street but I have seen the guys that are now doing the herbicide applications for the city and they seem to be very unprofessional both in their tactics and their equipment. Any spraying that would have been done on city roads would have been for Bermuda release(taking out any competing vegetation so the Bermuda will take over). Obviously the herbicide was applied at too high of a rate. If this is the cause, the applicator is the one responsible. There are strict label rates that are to be used for every situation and if these rates and were exceeded the applicator could be in serious trouble.
Posted by npc (anonymous) on July 28, 2008 at 8:37 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I agree that this looks horrible. In fact I was riding down Homochitto and couldn't believe that know one had pointed this out yet. Also, I was considering going down their myself and cutting the brown off.
Posted by Greenfields (anonymous) on July 28, 2008 at 11:23 a.m. (Suggest removal)
npc,
You should do that.
Posted by beammeupscotty (anonymous) on July 28, 2008 at 11:44 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Why didn't the rich folks that own Dunlieth take care of the problem. I trim near the street and clean up around my house. These antebellum people get too many perks for my 2 cents worth.
Posted by rburke1 (anonymous) on July 28, 2008 at 12:15 p.m. (Suggest removal)
The real culprit of the dead vegetation happens to be a sub-contractor working for Engergy. It's trees, not grass they're trying to get. Some of you missed Kevin's real message. Truth is, the City has a staff member qualified if they'd let her do it.
Posted by rburke1 (anonymous) on July 28, 2008 at 12:18 p.m. (Suggest removal)
ooops.. I mean Entergy.
Posted by motown (anonymous) on July 28, 2008 at 2:28 p.m. (Suggest removal)
aww the trees dont look pretty...
Posted by southernmom (anonymous) on July 28, 2008 at 7:54 p.m. (Suggest removal)
THANK YOU MR. COOPER!!!!
FINALLY SOMEONE NOTICED.
Unfortunately, you have not traveled far from Homochitto. Try looking at all the medians and blvd. around town - they were spraying Jeff Davis this morning.
Then try traveling 61 South to Baton Rouge.
The state of Mississippi looks like a desert thanks to someone who thinks that brown is beautiful.
In the spring, we were on the road from west Texas, across I-20 to Monroe, then through Natchez and to Baton Rouge. We were amazed at how beautiful the roadsides were with all the gorgeous waving grasses and the spring wild flowers.
Until we took 61 South.
After that I wrote letters to as many organizations as I could find - starting with Keep Natchez Beautiful, Keep Adams County Beautiful, Plant a Magnolia, Keep Mississippi Beautiful, and even Keep America Beautiful.
I wrote to the Agricultural Depart in Jackson, MDOT, and to a well know horticulturist.
Only 2 responded - MDOT told me how "GREEN" they were; the horticulturist told me that he had been trying for years to get the practise stopped and that no one would listen.
What is it going to take to get these people to stop destroying our supposedly beautiful city and country side. I daily travel a five county area - every nook and cranny has been touched by this destructive blight of herbicides.
Louisiana and Texas "weeds" do just fine with just an occasional mowing.
I know that MDOT has mowers - I recently saw them!
They go out to the roadways and smooth out erosion, place a seed mat over the spot, then about the time that the grass starts to grow in the mat, they go by and spray it and kill it.
Then the erosion starts all over -- talk about wasted funds!!!
And that is not even to mention the chemical being put into our air and water. Of course, MDOT said how safe they were - I think the same thing was said about neuclear bomb testing, and asbestos.
I have kept a small picture collection of how aweful it looks.
I am ashamed that an area that claims to be so attractive to tourist could allow this destruction to occur. I have a suspicion that the folks here that are criticizing you so much are actually the ones who are doing the spraying!
Do you have an idea as to what it takes to stop it?
Posted by Swapmeet (anonymous) on July 28, 2008 at 8:16 p.m. (Suggest removal)
southernmom,
MDOT should not have to mow the medians. That would actually require some work. ;)
Posted by sammohon (anonymous) on July 28, 2008 at 9:44 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your point of view, I've seen, from a professional standpoint, the good and the bad that a "city arborist" (read horticulturist, except that a horticulturist would have more power than a simple arborist) can do.
Columbus GA, a beautiful city, very similar to Natchez in a lot of ways, has a city arborist. It also has some pretty stingent development requirements regarding landscaping and tree planting in new developments. For the most part the developers go along to get along and then use the required greenery as advertising tools.
The situation has improved the status and use of landscape architects and landscapers, since they are required to comply with the ordinance and to monitor the upkeep of the landscaping and get paid to do so. It has also improved the appearance of the whole city. Architects and contractors don't mind because they get to profit from including landscaping cost in their fees or bids, respectively and it makes their buildings or projects better looking.
Posted by sammohon (anonymous) on July 28, 2008 at 9:47 p.m. (Suggest removal)
The unfortunate part is twofold, first the cost added to the project, particularly if the project isn't a "development" into which the cost can be folded. When an individual buys property to build a house or business on, or even if the City obtains property and builds a building, the ordinance and the aborist's powers to enforce the ordinance apply.
I've seen it become comically ridiculous. An example, the City of Columbus GA obtained property near a couple of new housing developments to build a fire station to provide fire service to and lower the insurance rates of the homeowners. A hill was cleared and cut down to obtain a relatively flat building site leaving a somewhat smaller hill behind the new station.
To offset the water runoff from the hill the architect (not me in this case) chose to create a "swale" (industry jargon for very shallow ditch), to guide the water around the new fire station to planned and constructed storm sewerage catch basins. Also to help interdict erosion on the hill the landscape architect in agreement with the architect provided for new trees and ground cover to be planted at the crest and down the hill.
The city arborist visited the site...without the architect or landscape architect and decided that the trees would die planted where they were due to lack of water on the top of the hill (the trees were sprinklered), and that the swale couldn't handle the fast runoff...he had the landscape contractor move them to, guess what?...the center of the swale to get them more water and slow the drainage. The trees along with the associated mulch backed water up in the swale and flooded the brand-new fire house doing $85,000.00 of damages.
Granted the sub-contractor was wrong to just do it on the spot without the general contractor's approval, the arborist was wrong for doing it on the spot without paper work prior to the act...the irony was the arrogance within the city arborist's office that made this particular CITY EMPLOYEE think he had the power to do what he did to the CITY which also had the arrogance to give him the power to do so.
Moral?: If a person is to have this job, the job, and the ordinance must be very narrowly defined!
Posted by redusmfan (anonymous) on July 28, 2008 at 10:09 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Too much power and too little intelligence to go with it, Sam. This happens often but does not get reported. I had a job a few years back with Hinds County school Borad where an Architect forgot that gas heaters needed gas to burn When the gas lines were run through the halls to furnish gas, just like the plans that were submitted and approved, there was no money allotted to paint the gas lines.
It took weeks to finally get it through the peoples heads that the pipes were necessary and that someone had to pay for thepainting.
They made life tough, but it just showed what happened when someone was given power that they were not intelligent enough to handle.
If yall hire an arborist, please set the scope very narrow on what teh job will entail, please.
Posted by misslou (anonymous) on July 28, 2008 at 11:55 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I would believe that we already have someone who is responsible for overseeing the work done by contractors and we should have guidelines by which they go by to perform their work. If not we should get these guidelines and consult the appropriate people to insure our guidelines have a narrow path to be followed. Then get the PIC to make sure the contractors follow them. As for as hiring a full time horticulturist, I would be against it and I’m against creating any full time position unless it can be backed up with facts that the position can pay for itself either by savings or money brought in. Kevin’s article certainly didn’t do that and left me wondering if we are going to need another hotel tax increase or if he had a family member that is a horticulturist that needs a job.
Kevin- Just joking
Posted by southernmom (anonymous) on July 29, 2008 at 5:46 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Back to the bigger question.
How do we get these people to stop spraying chemicals all over creation in Adams, Wilkinson, Amite, Jefferson, and Franklin County!!! Natchez itself is only part of the problem.
Maybe if the state or the county got involved, Natchez wouldnt even have to spend a dime on hiring anyone.
Not only are they killing our greenery, but what are they doing to our health??
They spray and kill the grass and the weeds - once the spray wears off, what grows back are the weeds!! The grass that grown along our highways, is the same grass that grows along Texas and Louisiana highways.
This brownery has nothing to do with the heat of summer - In the spring after they sprayed, there wasnt a green blade of grass between Fayette and the LA state line.
Does anyone out there know who is responsible? Surely we could petition his boss and try to stop this.
Posted by sammohon (anonymous) on July 29, 2008 at 7:20 a.m. (Suggest removal)
The responsibility for the spraying on most highways lies with MDOT as part of their right-of-way maintenance, but I don't know who did this on Homochitto or whether or not it was in the right-of-way or on private property. It looked to me like it was too far away from the road to be on the ROW.
Posted by sammohon (anonymous) on July 29, 2008 at 7:27 a.m. (Suggest removal)
redusmfan...the gas line gaff, was most probably a mistake by the mechanical/plumbing engineer, but also could have and should have been caught by the architect's review.
Most architects specify that all exposed piping is to be painted unless specifically noted, but if the piping was forgotten by the engineer the associated painting would have to have been added as part of the change order adding the piping.
Sounds like someone was trying to make a point or an example of the architect and/or engineer or simply wanted to be a horse's a@# because, normally, honestly made mistakes can be negotiated without much ado.
Posted by Hardcorps (anonymous) on July 29, 2008 at 4:52 p.m. (Suggest removal)
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Posted by southernmom (anonymous) on August 1, 2008 at 8:55 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Looks like I missed it!
I mean, the post where someone said that they called the appropriate office or person to put in a complaint about use of chemicals on our public areas.
If one of you gentlemen would just tell me who, what, where, and/or a phone number, I would be glad to make a call.
Probably won't do anygood - just like MDOT did me, they would probably tell me that they know what they are doing and that they are within all guidelines. Oh, and how "green" they are!
But at least someone would have tried!
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