The Waldo Mansion at 201 Westmoreland St. in Westmoreland, best known (well, for its interiors at least) as the terrestrial stomping ground of playboy astronaut Garrett Breedlove, the Jack Nicholson character in Terms of Endearment, is getting a bit of a haircut today. Tree crews have been working all morning to start the process of ridding the site at the corner of Westmoreland and Garrott of “many” of its large surrounding oak trees, a reader tells Swamplot. But only a single tree has been removed so far, as these photos show.
Terms of Dismemberment
According to a Houston Chronicle report, a resident of Byrne St. reported to police earlier today an encounter with yet another act of public pooping in the 77009. And it appears to be the work of a familiar figure from that neighborhood: that of the 
Note: Story updated below, with further detail.
“. . . before you try to do something different and figure out a way to provide space for small garden plots, you should look at the demographics of your renters first. I work in the ornamental horticulture industry, and trust me, this has been a subject of deep interest in my business the last 5 years. To summarize dozens of surveys, fruit and vegetable gardening appeals to people in 2 age groups, the first is the 20-30 demo, and the other is 60+. There is a great big hole in the younger boomers and the Gen X folks who are middle aged, who basically don’t garden at all. If your apartments primarily have tenants in the under 30 crowd, they would probably pay extra for that amenity.
One last point is that edible gardening picked up substantially in the 2008 recession, and has not slowed down at all. Most other categories of ornamental horticulture sales are flat or down.” [
Craig Hlavaty’s writeup on the abrupt closing of the Midtown Community Garden has a few additional details about the fate of the 3-and-a-half-year-old garden space at the corner of Baldwin and Drew, in amongst his chronicling of the efforts of member gardeners to yank out their tubers before the property was shuttered: The 13,000-sq.-ft. vacant-but-for-vegetables lot that Swamplot reported on earlier in the week was 
“I wonder if the city would consider a change in the parking ordinance where you need x spots per unit (or SF of commercial space) or the equivalent in green space.
I know I’ve mentioned this before, but we’re about to build a new set of apartments and I wanted to have a big garden where all tenants get their own ‘spot.’ Nothing huge. Maybe 10 feet by 5 feet. We were going to do this by not putting in much parking. But I found out we need a TON more parking than I thought. We were told we had to pave paradise, and put in a parking lot (oooh, bop bop bop bop . . .).” [
