Get your green thumbs on!!

Please join your fellow Hip D’ers on Saturday, October 26th for the fall Gateway Project clean up and winter color installation.

The work starts at 8 am.

There are three target sites:

Briley Parkway/Lebanon Rd, Toll Booth (Stewart’s Ferry Pk/Lebanon Rd) and Stones River Bridge (Lebanon Rd/Stones River)

We will need to spread 84 bales of pine straw, trim trees, and install winter color. As always, we appreciate the support from our neighbors and volunteers! If not able to join us, please consider supporting the effort by making a tax-deductible donation.

Thanks to all the volunteers from  Andrew Price United Methodist Church, Hickman Elementary PTA, and  Donelson Gateway Project. we added a new bed with knock out roses, a crepe myrtle, and tall grass.

Be sure to help out the beautification efforts of one of our community schools….Hickman Elementary. The work begins at 9am, Saturday June 8th. Bring garden gloves, a shovel, a rake, and a willingness to make our community even better!!

Thanks for getting involved. Be sure to click the donation tab on this website if you’d like to contribute to our efforts.

If you need proof of our efforts, please watch this video that highlights the work that we have done and continue to do.

https://vimeo.com/66212204

Together we can make Donelson an attractive place for businesses and home owners.

Got Spring Fever? Has the lengthening daylight awoken you from your winter hibernation? Are you noticing the buds and bulbs that are about to burst forth with spring color? Do you delight in the smell of freshly applied 28-1-4?  Do you walk in your neighborhood and see all of the positive changes going on in Donelson? Have you asked yourself: “who are all these hip people actively involved in their community?” Are you asking yourself: “how too, can I make this a better place?”

Start by putting on your garden gloves and showing up this Saturday, March 23rd for the annual Donelson Gateway Project  workday. We will start at 9am am. Pick one of your favorite sites: Briley Parkway and Lebanon Road, The Donelson Library, Eastgate (Stones River Greenway), and the Toll Gate site (Stewarts Ferry and Lebanon Rd.)

At the library site, we plan to get started at 9:00 a.m.  We plan to:

1)      Pick up trash and rake leaves

2)      Trim back spent perennials

3)      Do some weeding

4)      Rake back mulch and work in compost and amendments

5)      Replace mulch and tidy up

Come with leaf rake, small spade and/or weeding instrument. Team leader: Dorris Smith or Naomi Regensburg:  dws9250@gmail.com or nfr1025@comcast.net.

At the Eastgate site, we plan to get started at 9:00 a.m.  We plan to:

1)      Pick up trash

2)      Spread mulch around sign and cedar trees

3)      Plant cone flowers

Come with garden gloves. Team leader: Mike Rose roseofmike@hotmail.com

At the Toll Gate site, we plan to get started at 9:00 a.m.  

Floyd Shechter is the team leader.

Site looks great already. Just general clean up.

At the Briley Parkway site, we plan to get started at 9:00 a.m.

Inventory plants and put down new seed.

Site needs to be cleaned and plants divided.

Phil Claiborne will be on site.

This is a great chance to get involved in your community and take an active roll in making it an attractive place to live.

One way to keep your lawn or garden weed free and pristine is to use a broadleaf herbicide. While herbicides are easy to use and require far less labor that digging up weeds manually, they can uninatentionally harm plants if not used properly.  DGP board member and TN AG Extention agent David Cook provides the following tips when using herbicides in your garden:

Certain herbicides have a tendency to volatize (change from liquid to gas) when
air temperatures reach 85 degrees and higher. The commonly used broadleaf weed
herbicide called 2,4-D is one of these. Applied as a liquid spray, any of the
liquid that is not absorbed into the target plant has the potential to turn into
a gas during periods of hot weather. Also, any liquid that contacts warm, bare
soil can volatize. During hot days this process can occur within minutes and
continue for several hours or even days. Dicamba, another commonly used
broadleaf herbicide does not easily volatize, but may remain in the soil for a
period of several weeks. Dicamba does not bind to soil particles, but is highly
soluble in water, and because of this factor, may enter into exposed surface
roots of trees. The herbicide Roundup (glyphosate), which can kill both
broadleaf and grassy weeds does not easily volatize, but does bind to soil
particles. Because Roundup binds to soil particles, it is rapidly broken down by
microbes in the soil and rendered harmless. However, caution should be used when
applying Roundup around trees to control weeds as it can be absorbed into trees
through wounds or openings in roots and bark if sprayed onto these areas of the
plant.

So what does herbicide injury look like?.  You might see very small
adventitious leaves appearing on the branches of plants. The leaves will appear  distorted and leaf veins and leaves will not fill out and grow normally. The plant may be alive,  but leaf development will greatly impacted. Plants will eventually grow out of this condition and develop normally, but this may take some time.

Thanks again to all of the volunteers that helped out with the April 7th workday. Below is a summary of the work done to and condition of each site:

Donelson Library:

Lime and fertilizer were added this week at the recommendations of the soil tests done earlier in the year. Thus far there is no sign of the rose rosette disease on the Knock-Outs. To fortify their immunity, we plan to add some marigolds in the sunny beds with the hope that they will help deter the mites that carry this virus. Additionally in the color bed this year, we plan to add two varieties of gloriosa daisy: Gloriosa Daisy, Prairie Sun, an AAS winner and Rudbeckia Denver Daisy, two hardy perennials that are drought tolerant and pest resistant.

In the shade garden, three Encore Azaleas were planted on Saturday where the holly was removed. This year, additions to the shade bed include several varieties of hosta, columbine and heuchera. Also in our plan for this year is a mulched area connecting the oak and the saucer magnolia with additional Encore Azaleas.

When the violas are past their prime, low-growing annuals will be planted around the library sign.

We are focusing on low maintenance, drought tolerance and, of course, color.

Briley PKWY Site:

On Saturday, April 7th 2012, 3 Girl Scouts from Troop 283 of Holy Rosary Academy, Donated $250 from the money that they earned selling Girl Scout cookies to the Donelson Gateway Project. On hand to accept the donation was District 15 Councilman Phil Claiborne. Phil told the girls about DGP’s humble beginning and how it grew as a movement to make Donelson a better place with help from organizations like the Girl Scouts. The check presentation was made in front of the sign at Eastgate, the site next to the highly visible Stones River Greenway. After the check presentation, the girl scouts stuck around to help with other volunteers working on the site by picking up trash, spreading mulch and watering the flowers.

From L to R: District 15 Councilman Phil Claiborne, Zoe Davis, Jackie Rose, and Loren Legaspi

About 50 volunteers turned out on Saturday April 7th for the Donelson Gateway Project “workday”. Teams were spread out between various sites weeding, spreading mulch, raking, mowing, trimming and doing general clean up.

It was a perfect day and the number of volunteers that turned out made the work easy. Some of the Knockout

Roses at the Briley site were infected with a virus and had to be removed. They will be replaced soon.

At the Eastgate, crews had to straighten a few of the cedar trees that were tilted by recent storms.

Thanks for everyone that helped out!

The Donelson Gateway Project could use your help this weekend with a Spring clean. We will need help at the following sites: The Eastern Gateway at Stones River, The Donelson Library, and The TollGate site at Stewarts Ferry and Lebanon Rd.  The Briley PKWY site will need the most volunteers. Work will begin at 9am on Saturday, April the 7th.

The planting of Spring/Summer flowers is also on the horizon, but will not be a part of this weekends activities as we will be doing  “prep” work.

Be sure to bring garden gloves, any garden tools that you might have, and a your enthusiasm for making our community a wonderful place to live.

The more people that show up , the less time it will take. Thanks for your help!!!