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Grant Will Help Eliminate Eyesore

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By ELIZABETH LEE BROWN, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 13, 2007

CARROLLWOOD - The eyesore of weeds around the Carrollwood Cultural Center annex soon will be a memory.

Members of the Carrollwood Village Gardeners received a $1,323 grant for a landscape makeover that will turn the barren grounds into a haven for lush, flowery shrubs popping with colors.

The stipend is one of $96,110 in minigrants Hillsborough County approved last week. The grants, capped at $1,500 each, were awarded to 71 neighborhood and homeowner groups.

In northwest Hillsborough, 28 civic groups and associations received minigrants totaling $38,219.

The county program through the Office of Neighborhood Relations awards money to homeowners associations to help fund small, community-oriented projects, such as beautifying entranceways, rebuilding community docks, creating civic Web sites and upgrading playground equipment.

In Carrollwood, the annex's landscape makeover plan was designed by expert gardener Cherie Bentley.

Bentley said she faced many design challenges and a bare-bones budget.

The plants needed to be low-maintenance, thrive in varying light conditions and be drought-resistant because the annex building lacks an irrigation system, she said.

'What I was trying to go for was something that was not the ordinary and just green,' Bentley said.

She chose to dot the landscape with Maui ixora bushes that have 'a profusion of orange blossoms for pretty much the entire year,' she said.

Other shrubs include the crinum lily, a big showy plant with big white flowers, and the white bird of paradise to give the area a tropical flair and to hide some ugly pillars.

Since the neighborhood minigrant program began eight years ago, the county has awarded 658 grants.

In Town 'N Country, the Bayport Colony Property Owners Association plans to use the $1,500 to help build the Mad Hatteras Bark Park. The neighborhood dog park on Cape Hatteras Way would be a fenced area where the community's growing number of families could take their pets and visit with other pet owners.

The park would have benches, trash cans and a fenced area for dogs to run.

The association also has applied for a county grant for trees and a low-volume irrigation system in the dog park.

In the Lake LeClare Shores neighborhood near Northdale, residents will use $1,500 to replace a 22-year-old wooden walkway and dock.

'It's in dire need of some help,' he said. 'It was just as bad a shape as the other one.'

The homeowners association used the same grant last year to replace the deteriorated main dock and walkway. Residents tore off the pressure-treated wood and rebuilt it with a new composite lumber made from a mixture of plastic and sawdust, said resident Michael Wiatrak, who applied for both grants.

Volunteers will strip off the rotted wooden planks and reconstruct the walkway with the new material. The county grant will pay for the lumber, but residents will pitch in an additional $3,000 and the volunteer hours, Wiatrak said.

In the West Hampton neighborhood off Race Track Road, homeowners will add decorative wrought-iron and wooden benches to create more outdoor reading areas around the community's numerous ponds.

The benches are an expansion of the Eagle Scout project completed nearly two years ago that added 10 benches around the ponds, said Michelle Lampert, president of the homeowners association.

The sitting areas have been popular for walkers who need a place to rest and for families who fish, Lampert said.

Reporter Elizabeth Lee Brown can be reached at (813) 865-1502 or ebrown@tampatrib.com.

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