COMMENT OF THE DAY: ALL WE ARE IS MULCH IN THE WIND “. . . On the other hand, in the framework of geologic time, all things will be turned over, smashed or similarly annihilated, so, No Worries! In the short term everybody, do like the landscapers do: Drive your yard waste around town in a trailer or pick-up truck. It will vanish quickly – directly relative to your driving speed.” [movocelot, commenting on New Rules for Yard Waste]
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Landscape
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE BEST KIND OF NEIGHBOR FOR YOUR LAWN “I live on a large lot in the heights with a couple of mature trees. I haven’t bagged one leaf, actually I have picked up lawn clippings and leaves from neighbors that have been set out, and put both into my compost. I’ve filled 2 5′x25′ raised beds with the compost in the last 2 years. I now have a 3 pile/annual rotation taking up a 4′x12′ area. I doubt I will ever run out of capacity for waste generated by my property. Sorry but this arguement about not enough space is not a logical one.” [SaintCyr, commenting on New Rules for Yard Waste]
NEW RULES FOR YARD WASTE After several delays, Houston’s new yard waste regime finally goes into effect this week. From now on, if you want city trucks to pick up your leaves and lawn goodies, you’ll need to put them in city-approved compostable bags. The 39-gallon bags cost 50 to 80 cents each — as much as 8 times the price of conventional plastic bags — but city officials claim the change will save $1.5 million a year in waste-disposal fees and divert 60,000 tons of material from local landfills. The money saved will be used to expand the city’s automated curbside recycling program, but nobody’s reporting how we’re possibly going to make up the landfill gap. Don’t feel like shelling out for the bags? The Solid Waste Management Dept. is encouraging thrifty homeowners and yard crews to adopt the complicated technique of “grasscycling” — leaving grass clippings on lawns — and to start their own composting programs. In a few weeks, the city will begin doling out fines of up to $2,000 to residents who put leaves and clipping into city garbage containers. [Houston Chronicle; where to buy]
Video: Jason Witmer
COMMENT OF THE DAY: YOUR LOVELY NEW HOME IN TALLOWOOD “. . . I was in Dallas this weekend and while flipping through channels in the hotel room, I came across one of those Sunday morning suburban real estate infomercials where they showcase a single builder in one neighborhood that is under construction. During a testimonial from a recent homebuyer, the guy lauded the ‘acres of beautiful forests’ surrounding his new home. As the camera panned the landscape, I saw nothing but 10 foot tall invasive mesquite trees as far as the eye could see. Seems like our Houston realtors should start cashing in on the ‘aesthetic value’ of the ‘tallow forests’ – especially emphasizing the ‘fall color’ and its function as an ‘environmentally friendly privacy screen.’ Most homebuyers would have no idea what they’re looking at. Carefully rewording reality is usually what realtors do on HAR, anyway!” [Superdave, commenting on What Happens If You Don’t Garden the Wild]
TRYING TO PRESERVE PRESERVE LAND A year and a half after Hurricane Ike, what’s going on with Marquette Investments’ “The Preserve at West Beach” development plan for a huge chunk of Galveston’s West End? Here’s an update on a piece of it: “Last year, the environmental group Artist Boat applied for $11 million in federal Hazard Mitigation Grant Program money to buy 343 acres of bay-front land from developer Marquette Land Investments. Gov. Rick Perry rejected the application, even though island leaders and environmentalists flooded his office with e-mails, letters and faxes urging him to save one of the island’s most ecologically diverse tracts. . . . Now, Artist Boat and the city of Galveston are working together to secure a $3 million Coastal and Estuarine Land Conservation Program grant, administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. The grant application was submitted Thursday. . . . [Artist Boat Executive Director Karla]Klay said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association will announce the winners of the grant within six to nine months. Darren Sloniger and his partners at Marquette agreed to provide $3 million in matching land value if Klay and the city get the grant. If that happens, the city would hold the title to one-third of the 343-acre site, which sits east of 11 Mile Road and north of Settegast Road. Marquette intended to turn the site into a 35-acre marina and residential subdivision. The property is part of a 1,058-acre development that will include a 15-story resort hotel, 4,000 condominiums and houses and an 18-hole golf course.” [Galveston County Daily News]
WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU DON’T GARDEN THE WILD Starting from her own back yard, Lisa Gray tracks the local Chinese tallow invasion: “They breed explosively — one tree pumps out around 10,000 seeds — and they grow much faster than trees native to Texas. In China, moths and other predators keep them in check. But here, native animals and insects don’t eat them, and neither will cattle. Grasslands, wetlands, established forests: Tallows devour them all. Forget the Piney Woods. More likely, you’re in the Tallow Woods. Around here, if you leave a piece of land alone — don’t mow it, don’t burn it, just let it go — tallows will probably blanket it within 10 years. Within 20, you’ll have what ecologists call a ‘closed-canopy tallow forest,’ a single-species ecodisaster unfriendly to birds, bugs and animals. Drive from Houston to Galveston, and most of the woody areas you’ll see are covered in tallows. Around the Addicks and Barker reservoirs, the woods are almost all tallow. According to the Texas Forest Service, Chinese tallows account for an astounding 23 percent of all trees in the eight-county Houston area.” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
So much vacant freewayside selling space, there for the taking! At least temporarily. Alas, no pieces were sold in last weekend’s guerrilla furniture sale — an all-day event staged on the abandoned concrete campus of Landmark Chevrolet at 9111 North Freeway near West Gulf Bank. But wacdesignstudio‘s Scott Cartwright and Jenny Lynn Weitz-Amaré Cartwright came prepared for their Sunday digs:
Because the space was not rented, Scott and Jenny brought an envelope full of cash to pay off potential security guards (there were none), as well as food for any wandering homeless people. The crowd was a mix of architecture students, writers, and curious locals from the adjacent Hidden Valley ranch-style development located behind the dealership.
Well, you know those kinda folks are just showing up for the ambience and cheese anyway. Did you really think they’d be buying up the prototypes in your new furniture line? But hey — marketing is marketing! And look at some of the pix you’ve got to show for it:
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE RIVER OAKS MIDDLE AGE SPREAD “What’s sad is that River Oaks is losing the land versus house battle . . . What made River Oaks so elegant, really, was the amount of land on each lot which was probably 1/3 house to 2/3 land in most cases. Now it’s more like 2/3 house to 1/3 land. Many are nothing more than enormous townhouses with front yards.” [Matt Mystery, commenting on Down and Out in River Oaks]
Ready, at last, for the small screen: This lingering aerial tour of Houston’s rich natural and nature-processing landscape, straight from last year’s Center for Land Use Interpretation exhibit on Texas Oil.
Put on your headphones, turn up the volume, and take it all in!
Our journey takes us east from the 610 Loop and ends at the liftoff point for the Fred Hartman Bridge at Highway 146. When they gonna come back and give us some Baytown?
- Houston Petrochemical Corridor Landscan [Vimeo]
- Texas Oil: Landscape of an Industry [Blaffer Gallery]
- Previously on Swamplot: CLUI in Houston: Attack of the Pod People, CLUI Houston Residency: Open to Interpretation
Video: CLUI
COMMENT OF THE DAY: NO RESPECT FOR THE LAND “I was so infuriated when developers planted these oak saplings on what was once a lovely, open prairie!” [Unsid, commenting on Tying White Ribbons ’Round the Doomed Oak Trees: Is H-E-B Coming to Wilshire Village?]
Julia, the chicken who patrolled the parking lot and schmoozed with patio diners for many years at the Raven Grill at 1916 Bissonnet near Hazard St., passed away earlier this month of natural causes, a reader informs us. “We don’t know where she came from,” reads a note posted on the restaurant’s website, “only that she was a sweet bird who liked people and that she simply made us happy each time we saw her.”
Frequent diners of the Southampton-area restaurant have sent in their own website tributes to the “friendly and fearless” bird, who apparently exhibited much social grace in her daily appearances and egg-laying demonstrations for small impromptu gatherings of children, even while patrons devoured the carcasses of distant relatives only a few feet away:
She may have been ‘just a chicken’ but I watched Julia single-handedly form new friendships between diners. She was a tough, little city chicken. RIP Julia.
And:
The trees remaining on the site of the former Wilshire Village Apartments at the corner of West Alabama and Dunlavy are sporting some colorful new tags as of late last week, reports a nearby resident:
All the trees have ribbons around them. Trees along Alabama have green ribbons. All the other trees (on about 3/4 of the property) have white ribbons. Exception: green ribbons for 2 live oak trees that flank the old property entrance at Sul Ross. If white ribbons mean TEAR DOWN, then the property will be virtually denuded.
Of course white ribbons don’t mean TEAR DOWN. They mean SURRENDER.
And then there’s the new rumor our informant just heard and is passing along:
MORE OF THE STORY OF THOSE DISAPPEARING OAK FOREST OAKS 
“My neighbor lived in what you would consider a ‘tear down.’ For several years she struggled with selling and moving or rebuilding on the lot. A big factor in the decision was finding a builder that would keep the integrity of the lot and not cut down the gem – a 100 year old tree that is 4′ in diameter. She thought that she found the builder that respected the tree and had the same vision while simultaneous[ly] she found her dream home over in Garden Oaks. . . . Shortly after the transition, a family bought the lot and are ready to build . . . I have 2 neighbors including myself that would take this tree. I have till Friday to find an association that would underwrite this project and be interested in saving this tree.” [Kat Alan Madison + Austin; previously on Swamplot] Photo: HAR
COMMENT OF THE DAY: OAK FOREST OAK SEEKS HELP WITH MOVE “A neighbor of the Woodcrest demo is seeking help relocating a 100-year old red oak that is scheduled to be part of that demo. If anyone has the resources and/or machinery to do so email me or post here and I will put you in touch with her. mmatt_chew at h0tmail d0t c0m.” [mek ju, commenting on Daily Demolition Report: Memorial Plaza]