Tree Board - Regular Meeting

We stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic to defend We have a guest that we wanna adjust the agenda to get her to get out of here.

I motion we change the order of the agenda to allow Michelle to make her appearance or her presentation for Earth Day.

Okay. Any all in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Second. The second. Okay. Uma seconded. Sorry. What in the agenda?

Hi, everybody. Thank you for having me. My name is Michelle Garvey. I am the Assistant Director of Community Events for the Village Of Wellington. We have Earth Day and Arbor Day planned again this year.

It's going be on April 25 from eleven to one We have vendors already signing up. I think we have seven vendors. So it was well received when I sent it out, like, just a week ago. We have public works coming to hand out seedlings, the garden club, the art societies, plus some outside vendors as well. This year I had a request made to us that the flower award winners, if we could get pictures of their gardens or their trees or whatever they're getting the award for sent to us at least a week in advance.

We would like to blow them up and have them near the stage so that anyone in attendance can see why they won that award. And hopefully maybe encourage them to come and accept the award on the day of. We also are going to do the release of butterflies again. That's been a big hit each year with the Boy Scouts and the kids that are helping with the Great American Clean Up that happens just before Earth and Arbor Day. That begins at 09:30 and it's led by our community services team.

And then they return to the site around 10:30. They get to have some snacks and some refreshments. And then we start our Earth Day presentation after that. The annual tree planning with Council and Smokey Bear will take place. And Will has decided on a pink cassia tree, which I blew up the picture of it in case anybody wanted to see it. I'll pass it around.

It should be a nice addition up there at the community center. Oh,

that's pretty. Yeah.

It'll be nice to have some color out there. If you have any vendors that you specifically would like me to reach out to, please email me. I'm happy to, you know, the more the merrier to join us. And then we'll also have the Garden Club plant sale going on at the same time. That day I just reached out and got confirmation on that. So we're excited. Do you have any questions for me? If

you would make some of these available for the garden club meeting that's going to be next month, first Monday of the month.

Okay.

And get it to one of several of us.

Okay. I'm located at Village Park, which is the gymnasium.

Okay.

I don't know if someone would like to come pick it up from there.

Okay.

Want me to leave it at the community center, whatever's

Michelle, more can just give them to me and I'll

make Okay. It

we don't want 89, which is about what we get in there. But stack of 10 or 15, that'll get you might get some more

interest You out of can just send it to me and I'll make some copies of it.

Okay. Great. No questions? All right. Well, I'll see you all on April 25. Okay.

Thanks, Michelle.

So moving back to the agenda. Have you all had a chance to read the minutes?

Yes. I didn't get the email, so I'll just I have to

didn't get it either. No.

Okay.

She already knows.

We already lied. Okay. I had an issue also, but I got it today.

I didn't get it. Yeah.

Take a second and go through it.

To read them.

Yeah. I didn't get I was thinking

Just a quick show of hands. Who who did not receive the email?

I had to call ask

for it. I I called and emailed him. Got it today.

Yeah. Mhmm.

I think y'all had a mail failure in your system because There there was definitely some kind

of an issue.

I got a note saying, hey. It showed that it wasn't It sent it, but it didn't send.

Okay. Definitely an issue on our side. I

thought it was just me. Anybody need to read any more?

Okay. Page I can go to the next page and

I think they must

she has it on the screen.

Okay. Read it before.

Ready for the next page? Anybody got any additions or corrections?

No.

Your emotions that we have

I wanted to say one thing. I don't know if that is it really it's okay how it is. It says on six, new business. Flower Award nomination says the Wellington Chamber of Commerce will send a write up to businesses to business members next week about the Flower Awards. I I guess that's okay. I I sent a thing to them to do that. You don't need that doesn't need to be that I sent them.

Not as you want it to be.

It's okay. How it is, that's fine. So I'm okay with how it is, though.

Okay. Motion to approve.

I'll motion that the minutes be approved.

Second. I'll second.

All in favor?

Aye. Okay.

Let's move on to staff updates.

All right. You're on deck. Good afternoon, everyone. So recent plantings, I haven't had a lot of stuff installed lately. Just this is not our time of year where we do a lot of our plantings. I like to wait till we start to get some rains. It makes it easier for us to get everything watered and usually I have a better success rate with our installed stuff when we wait until, you know, it starts to rain and we get some decent temperatures. A little bit nervous about water restrictions coming too. I'm not too sure what's going happen with that. Hopefully, we get some rain.

Luckily, we got some this last weekend. Lot of lot of frost damage around town. So we may be well, I'm gonna give this stuff a couple more weeks just to kinda see what starts to recover and and what doesn't. So we may have some landscape change outs coming up too in some areas that were damaged by the frost. But not a whole lot of recent plantings between now and maybe May. There's not going be a whole lot of plantings going on. We did finish the canopy study. I've just got to figure out how to get that up on the website. They sent me a link to like view it from. We just have to get it up.

But it a really good canopy study, heat island mapping. There's a whole bunch of very good information in it. So I just got to figure out how we're going to get that on the website so everybody can view it. But we just finished that up, don't know, mid February. So we're just putting in our package to get that one closed out. And then we were awarded another $50,000 grant for the preserve on a flying cow. So we've got I think that one's a one to one match. So we've got a fair amount of money. We're gonna plant some trees this year out at Majority Stoneman Douglas. I don't think we got the big $350,000 one. Probably would've

found Is this

Arbor Foundation again?

No. This is this is this is through the FDX. This is through Florida Department of Agriculture. Oh, okay. It's managed it's a it's federal money managed by the Florida Forestry Service.

Gotcha.

So we did we did win that $50,000 one. Have a little bit of money to plant. Okay. That's about it for the updates. The pool is open and that all got finished up. So it looks pretty nice over there. But as far as plantings and updates, I think that about covers it.

Well, you put in a wild tamarind over at the meadow.

Yeah, we did. Should the spreadsheet. I mean we planted a couple of things if you want to look at the tree planting spreadsheet. We did a couple of memorial trees.

Are you going to replace that Gumbo Limbo that had to be taken down?

Yeah. Well, I'm going to find something for that space. We might shift it over a little bit.

Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. I'll find a replacement for that. We had a Gumbo Limbo at the meadow. I guess we had those cold fronts come through when it got really cold, and like half the top broke out, so we take had it out. There was a bunch of decay in the trunk. It was in pretty bad shape, so that had to be removed.

How old would you say that tree was?

Probably not that old, maybe ten years, twelve years old.

Because that was one of the originals you put in when we

first Yeah, picked

the tree park,

I'm estimating. 15 maybe. Yeah. They grow they grow pretty quick.

Mhmm. Okay.

It was

planted before I was here. I'm

Yeah.

I I was at the the pool actually this morning. I guess I had to go over there and the plantings are really nice. Plantings Very nice. Very nicely selected. I don't know, you know, you I think you did a nice selection over there and how everything it just really looks nice.

It does look nice. Yeah. It's once everything grows in, it's really gonna look good over there. Lot of native stuff.

Yeah. I noticed. Noticed.

Lot of

different Did

Wellington do the landscaping or was that a contract?

It was a contracted thing. But, know, we kinda put together our our list of what we wanted. Mhmm. Some of the things they listened to, some things they they didn't. Of course.

Whatever's the

matter. Majority of what we wanted, we got in You know, they did some nice red maples, you know, a few cypress down by the you know, in the front along that swale. So we've got a lot of native trees in there.

I wanted to ask you, because we had such kind of extremes on our weather lately, lately, and I'm sure you're very busy with, you know, remediating a lot of the plantings and things like that, is what I wanted to ask you is if you're going to consider that, like, moving forward in the future, maybe not planting certain types of plants based on, you know, we're having this drought and then we had extreme heat. Then, you know, so a lot of a lot of the it's been harsh on a lot of the landscapes.

Definitely. One thing I noticed, all the landscapes that was damaged, the irrigation ran. So we talked about this before the meeting briefly. If you look around town, like all the Calusia, if you look very closely, there's either a sprinkler or a pattern. You can you can see where the water ran.

You can see the

arc. Yeah. You can see the exact pattern of the water when it hit the the foliage. And I guess we were 28 degrees for several hours, and it was just enough to freeze it. So that was a big component in why there was so much damage. Like some areas have very little and some areas are in pretty bad shape. And we put two and two together and it was where the water ran.

Yeah. That's interesting.

I've seen a lot of that. Mean, you go back in years, I used to water the citrus groves when they had the freezes, back when citrus was in actually Central Florida. And people think, oh, I can do that. The problem is you have to have continuous water, not just zone, zone, zone. It's got to be continuous. And it basically forms a thermal barrier around the it's kind of like being inside an igloo. But that only works it does not work on zone work. If you've got a zone, when the zone ends and the water's there, you get the damage.

You get a lot of evaporative cooling happens when the water gets on the surface. And then you stop watering and the wind blows across it, it actually cools it. That's part of the reason And

it why devastates it's it. Yeah. So you can have 28 degrees with wind and as the cooling process, the evaporation of that water off will drop it to 25.

Mhmm. Yeah. And that's where most of the damage occurred around town. So next time we have a freeze of that magnitude, we'll just shut the water down.

Shut the irrigation.

Yeah. And that should that should help drastically.

What I was gonna ask you is I know, water restrictions, you know, I mean, drought things are happening here. What I was going to ask you is, I saw that we use a lot of reclaimed water in certain areas. We'll maybe we'll have less restriction because we are using reclaimed water, right?

Right. The reclaimed will be less of a restriction. Right now it's voluntary. If they move to the next phase of restrictions and they start to tighten it up, but right now it's voluntary. And we water we're pretty responsible with our water use. So we don't run too much extra. We run just what we need. So I think we're only running two nights a week this time of year.

I don't think the drought predictions that are going on now are mostly hype. So this is very typical of wet dry season cycle. And I don't think the long term is going to give us a drought.

Most of the time, this time of year, March, April, it gets hot, it gets dry. And there's always the looming threat of water restrictions. It's pretty much every year.

I don't think we're going to I mean, having been through eight or 10 of them as firefighter in the Everglades, I don't think this is coming at us. I think in another month, we're going to be we're not going to be flush with water, but we will be okay. As long as you get get rainfall about once a week, that's all you need, period. We got

a little relief last weekend. Last weekend, we got an inch and a half, and then it rained a little last night. There were some showers that came through, so we got a little relief.

Yeah. You topped off my pool for me.

Will, what's the country of origin for the Calusia that they put in everywhere?

I'd have to look. Yeah.

Just curious,

I'd have look that up.

Yeah. Okay.

I don't know if it's Asian. I can't remember.

Yeah. I can either.

Okay. Anything else?

No. That should be it for the recent plantings. And then we can talk about the Arbor Day event here in a second. I think it comes up on the agenda. Is that the next thing?

Okay. The next thing, you did the planning as we talked. So we've already done the what is the thing after that?

Is that last year's? The seed oh,

the seedling summer.

Yeah. The so the tree seedlings, that's what we do for our Arbor Day and Earth Day event. Every year we give away seedlings to the schools. Hopefully, we can up our numbers a little bit this year. Michelle, is that last year's? Oh, that's that's all the years leading up to this?

Ten years. Okay. Oh, yeah. 2016.

Numbers were a little lower last year. We're hoping for better participation this year. We're gonna spend a little more time trying to reach out to the schools. Sometimes you lose contact with the person at the school and, you know, they don't participate that year. So we're trying to reestablish some communications with the schools that didn't participate so we can get our numbers up a little this year.

So these are seedlings that you are hopefully gonna go home and potted up to?

Correct. Yeah. This year, we'll have dune sunflower. We'll have some tickseed. They were a pretty good hit last year. Some flowering stuff, some low growing stuff that's easy. And then we'll have some red maples and some cypress again.

Okay.

Keep trying to get pines. So if I can get pines, I'll have pines. But it seems like every year we miss on the pines. They're just not quite ready. So I'm gonna try and get some denser pines this year if I can.

Okay. Alright. Moving on.

Bates went out of business. Right?

Didn't quite shut down yet. We're gonna go another round this year and

You're gonna you're gonna get some

Yeah. We're gonna get some stuff from

Bates. Source for you there

for Yeah. We're we're gonna be Seedlings. We're going to be looking here soon for another supplier for our seedlings, I'm afraid.

One comment I wanted to ask about. Under the tree plantings list for 2025, the pond apple there, that is let's see, I forgot now how far down it was. I've lost oh, here it is. Pond Apple over there at Moncada. Are they all grouped together? Are they in various places over there?

They kind of use them on the littoral shelves. So they're spaced Yeah, out they're not in the group. They're kind of like spaced out. But once they start to recede, they'll start to establish in groups.

And they'll

start to kind of move to where they want to be.

Yeah. I think that's so nice that those are being planted. Because as I learned from a book I read one time, that the pond apple were historically all around Lake Okeechobee, but particularly here on the southern end.

The wading birds really love to nest in the pond apple because of way they kind of go out over the water. We have a great blue heron right now nesting out at the preserve on one of the islands in the rest of the preserve, not the new area. But you can see it's kind of close to the front. It's like the first island if you're on the northeast corner of the preserve. One island with some larger cypress and there's a mated pair with a nest. Pretty exciting.

Do you see any gopher turtles out there? Because they love those pond apples.

I haven't, but that's not to say we won't attract some. It's not like they fly in. You know, saw a couple of burrows. Well, they're pretty stout and they can push under the fence.

I understand that. But

I saw a couple of burrows out there, but I'm not sure if they're a gopher tortoise or not on the A

lot a of animals use their burrows.

Yeah. A lot of animals use their burrows. On the backside of the property, the farthest west along that road, there was a couple of of you know, where they looked like maybe a gopher tortoise had dug a burrow.

Are you going to try to plant some gopher apple around since there may be gopher

Sure. Tortoises That

would be a good idea for ground cover?

Yeah. Well, I'm trying to get a lot of the canopy stuff established, but we can definitely come back in some areas and plant some of the understory and smaller stuff. We actually had a group come out and do some volunteer work out there. They planted a couple of things last week out there. One of the it was a non for profit, youth environmental alliance. It's a they're a pretty good group. They wanna use start using the area for classes, and we're we're starting to get that going. Nice. Yeah. That'll be a nice addition out there. So, you know, they had they had some kids come out, they were teaching them a few things about, you know, stewardship and, you know, all the native plants and flora and fauna and stuff. So it was a good little class they did. So we're going to try and get some more of that going out there.

You may want to, I mean, you want gopher tortoises there, may want to contact the county because often in developments they will need to relocate. Now the process to relocating is not pretty, but

Yeah.

It's basically a backhoe to find it and sometimes the backhoe finds it directly. Yeah. So but

He's gotta wait.

They gotta have a place to put them. And if you got a place

I think that'd be a pretty good place for a few. Yeah. Absolutely.

Okay. Moving on to the flower award. You got anything else on that?

We made our new flower award signs. Lisa has one there.

Oh, there's a new one.

Yeah. Mhmm. That's nice.

That's nice. I like it. Milkweed.

So we've got our milkweed on there for the

Tuberosa.

Picture this year. Tuberosa.

Kind sourdies?

It's a milkweed, Asclepias tuberosa. Okay. Good old native milkweeds. Okay.

On the flower awards, has everybody had a chance to take a look at the two nominations? And have you had a chance to go see them?

Yes. I have not. Yes. Mhmm. One of them I have.

Okay.

The one I nominated.

Okay. Junkle Place. Any discussion?

Let's see what we have up there. Okay.

It's a lot of made of material for a small lot.

Yes.

And it's well sized. There is some I'd be more happy if it was less Florida snow, but it seems well maintained.

Yeah. I think that probably that Florida snow is all dead now. That freeze we had killed.

The frost hit it pretty hard.

Florida snow. Yeah. But yeah, it's that property is the front is nice, but the back is awesome. You know, she's got a lot of natives in the back. Of course, she can't do the back, but she has a nice mix I thought she had a nice mixture of tropicals and natives in the front plus the mature trees.

Yeah. The trees are what did it for me. Like the I like the trees. Okay.

Yes. And I see she has Florida coonte and some of the other things, plantings that are there too.

Yeah. Lot of native stuff.

She has a lot of native stuff. Thanks.

Alright. Moving on to De Havilland Court. That would assume that we can give are we going to give multiple awards. That would be a question. Okay.

Yeah. If you decide to both of them then can I can do that? We were making a couple of signs for that for that reason. Okay. Well,

technically, we should look at all of them Yeah. And then decide what we want to hand out. Yes. Let people nominate. So let's let's move on to De Havilland Court.

And I did not get to look at it until this afternoon or this morning, and I thought it was very nicely done and very well maintained.

Mhmm.

And for that area of Wellington, which was probably cleared when it was built or mostly cleared when it was built, they've made a good effort to get back in with a lot of native material. And they blended it very well with the exotics. So any any discussion about it? About the two? I

personally like this one the best other than the one that I nominated, which didn't you guys didn't get to go see, but there'll be pictures up here. I like this one the best because besides the the way that all the plantings were, but I liked that

This one is which one?

The one we're just talking about. The one on

The Havilland Court.

Havilland Court. Yes. Sorry. I liked that a lot of the grass was being taken over by, native ground cover. That's just personally, that's what I like. So I like that the grasses the native ground cover is starting to slowly take over the grassy area. I thought it was a beautiful yard. I loved all the bottle brush trees out in the front. I thought they were beautiful the the way that whoever, you know, shaped them to be, whatever. There was, you know, there were some freeze, damage, but for the most part, it it it really held up through the through the through this the weather and stuff. So I thought it was a beautiful property.

Mhmm. I mean, even some of the ground covers are native. I mean, there's cootie in there.

Yeah. That's fine. Yeah.

That's where I didn't see

ground cover yet. Right?

Yeah. Just where the grass is. If you if you got an up close look, I happen to get a pretty up close look of it. But in some of the other pictures, you can see where the in this one right here, there's a little cutout towards the back, and that's all a native ground cover that's starting to spread out in the very, very back corner up there. And then even in the front yard, you could tell that, a lot of the grass is being taken over by some some some native ground cover. I don't know what it is personally, but it I it's it's beautiful. It's much better than grass for me.

Is it those with the little pink puffy flowers on it, is it sunshine mimosa?

No. It wasn't sunshine mimosa. Yeah. Know what that I actually know what that is, but Mhmm. There was some other in the very front yard that the picture we're looking at right here is kind of off to the side of the house, but in front of where the bottle brush trees are, there's, maybe, Will can tell me what it is, but next picture. Yeah. Right in here. So to the left of the picture, can see this little green area right here, and that's some sort of native ground cover. I don't know what it is. Anyway, when you're looking at it, when you're personally looking at it, you can tell. It's starting to move into the rest of the grass and I that's what I really liked about it.

What was the what's the plant surrounding the palm trees?

Looks like the, palms possibly Right

out to the right side.

Like a Mexican petunia, the little purple flowered

one.

Yeah. That had some freeze damage to it.

Was it?

Like the Mexican strike me when I saw it because of the damage. The little purple flowers. Yeah.

It was hard to tell because the there was a lot of freeze damage on that. It's an invasive plant.

Butting back up against the fence.

Is that

the the driveway, they've got a lot of cooney. And it's it's not just continuous. It's sort of interspaced in different locations.

Yeah. Yeah.

The the landscape concept was very well done.

This one's nice too.

Mhmm. Yeah. Well, going back to Junkwell Place. Someone want to nominate Junkwell? The third I did not see that.

After the agenda. It was with the agenda packet but since nobody got the email.

Okay. Mhmm. Okay.

But here is the nomination.

After. Let me look at

I could hear some talking about, oh, it wasn't they were talking to my dog.

It was the damage. Yeah.

It had some damage too. Yeah. Okay.

Oh, it's not even in the agenda. Okay. What is that? Okay. So was this what's the could you take us to the description of it?

Go a little bigger, if you would. One more.

Thanks, John. We're straying. I'm stranded over here.

They're very good about labeling the types of plants they have. Mhmm.

I have a list that I that was my nomination, but that I put in. But she sent me a list of all the plants that were in the yard just because I couldn't name them all myself. And so there's a bunch that I didn't put in there just because I ran out of room. So if anybody would like to see it, I can send it down.

Oh, yeah, I do. Because that's nice when you can name them.

Could you go up to the

She could name them. Couldn't.

Go up to the first picture.

They don't have a picture of this. That must be the lignite.

Pardon me. You don't see any pictures. Gumbo limbo.

That's a

Gumbo limbo. Yeah. These are all the pictures. So her yard is chalked. It's like her plantings are all interspersed and everything's mixed together. Yeah.

This is Gumbo limbo.

That one

I know.

That one I knew. Next picture. Okay.

Now she's got resurrection. Very nice.

Next picture. Next picture.

That freeze really hurt being able to take good pictures.

More variety than you realize. Yeah. You'd have to really zoom in to see some of the detail.

It's very shaded, so it's kinda hard to take a picture where you can see some of the plants that are in the shaded area.

Mhmm.

She works has worked very hard to maintain this and keep up the shard.

How big of a property is it?

That's a very small front yard. Very, very small front yard.

Did not know there was a third. Is there a fourth?

No. That's all the nominations.

Okay. Any more questions about this last location?

That was Green Tree?

This was on she's on Astor.

Oh, Astor. Okay. So that's in Sugar Pond.

Well, now it's on Astor Cove. They renamed that Sugar Pond Astor Cove.

They did? Oh. Yeah. Okay. Okay. But,

yes, it's an old it's

an

old Sugar Pond address.

Yeah. Okay. So you know kind of the size of the lot. Yes. Yeah. That is And her

front yard she has all backyard. Her front yard is very, very small.

Mhmm. She has, like, a pie shaped lot or something.

I know. Yeah.

I would love to see it in person.

Oh, yeah. Please drive by.

Do you have the last name on this person?

Fernandez. Oh, okay. You know Donna?

I do know Donna.

I've been to her property.

Yes. So yeah. Yeah. She yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Her backyard, like your your friends, her backyard is phenomenal.

Yeah.

But that's not part

of it.

Right. This is her backyard or

This is her front yard. Oh. Yeah. But her backyard is just as phenomenal. You don't have pictures?

No. I didn't take any.

I just took them of the front yard.

Yeah. I I I think we need to, in the application, ask for a full front frontal

view. Like a wide angle.

Like a

wide angle of the property edge to edge from the frontal view. Just one. We Agree. And and even for it to have a fourth picture to do that.

Mhmm. Yeah.

So you get, like, the the feel for the whole You

get the sense for the soul.

Sense of the whole yard.

Some scale. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, when I came up on Junkle, it didn't have a good wide shot. And I thought it was a house across the street till I started looking at numbers. So Oh,

I thought I took an because I'm the one that nominated Jonquil that I I took a from across the street, I thought I tried to catch the whole yard, but maybe I maybe I didn't add that one because I took a bunch of pictures. Maybe I didn't put that one in. But yeah.

This is yeah. This is a junk wall.

It's nice to know Donna's doing well. Okay. She is.

So let's go back. We have we have the ability to award as many as we want.

Just back. Mhmm.

And, so any comments about John Paul?

I guess the what the that first picture is actually about the full front as close as you're gonna get there with the two tall trees. Yeah. Yes. I know. I went by.

There.

I liked the Florida snow, personally. But, and maybe I just wasn't didn't get a close enough look, but I I gave this one eighty points. And the only reason I gave it 80 points was, because in in around some of the vegetation beds, it looked like weed. It looked like it was weedy, but I didn't wanna get out of the car and look to see if it was actually weeds or if it was other plants growing. So that's that was just my thought.

Okay. How did it look overall in the neighborhood? Did it stand out?

I I liked it. Yeah. I thought it was

Stood out in the neighborhood?

Yeah. It stood out in the neighborhood. Yeah. Definitely.

Okay. So the curb appeal was

The curb appeal was great. That's the only reason I gave it in my yeah. I think that was the the notes that I took here was just the the the weeds in the in the bedded area. It was looked a little weedy, but that, you know, I like I said, I didn't get out of the car to look. I just drove I stopped and was looking from my car. Which

one? This one? This

on John Quill.

John Quill. Yeah.

But overall, I liked it. Thought it was a beautiful yard. John Quill.

I think it was a nice variety of plants.

Yes. Will we get a nomination?

Yes.

Excuse me. A motion for the nominating it.

I I motion for a nomination of this this yard.

Is there a second to that?

Can I vote since May?

Are we doing first, second, third, or

or No. We can give

They all get the same They all get the same sign. There's no one, two, and three.

Okay.

They're all they're all winners.

They're all

they're all

winners. I'm glad we got three. We're just putting two trophies.

Yeah. I

one could get I wouldn't have given one, but we've been busy.

I know.

Yeah. I I I I also I had you know, I I was a little disappointed that the the chamber the businesses weren't, you know they didn't really return anything, you know. And there's a nice business too.

We've got a second.

Yes. I'll second. Okay.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Carries. Moving on to De Havilland. Any comments someone wants to make or does someone want to go ahead and make a nomination that we've awarded?

The only my only comment is the Mexican petunia. That is considered, I think, a category to invasive species. So other than that, I'm fine with the property if you guys are okay with that.

I think bottle brush is invasive. Right? Invasive. Yeah.

Yeah. No. Not the bottle brush.

The Not bottle brush. The Mexican petunia.

That almost

seems Bottle brush is too?

I thought that

was a native Oh, maybe

bottle I think the bottle brush falls into the Melaleuca family.

Oh, does it? So that's also But considered a, yeah.

Does it do that kind of propagation that

It Melaleuca not. It just falls into the same genus. They kind of group them together.

Don't think that's listed. Don't think that's listed. I don't have the list with me, but I don't think it's listed on the invasive plants. Is it?

No, it's not an invasive plant.

Well, it's a native plant.

She wouldn't know.

I don't know if it's native. I thought it was.

Can I look at I

can I think it does fall into that when I look at

Well, I I I think the nice thing about these bottle brushes the way they're trimmed?

Yes. I love that.

I love that. Way they're trimmed makes makes

Maintain them very good.

Weeping variety and they don't regenerate. I mean, they don't spread by seed. Mean, pretty much they don't move. That's it. Once you plant one, they don't they don't propagate.

Those don't look like Mexican petunias underneath the palm to me. But I don't Okay. Know if it's damaged.

So we

If I was going say if there's if there's one point I could make since she brought up, I don't know what a Mexican petunia looks like. So I have to say, I would never have noticed it, you know. And just from the description, you know, it was a mix of tropicals and native plants, you know. And I think that that is something that we do have to have more specificity about when we make these nominations. And it's always been whenever I have made a nomination in the past, if I did see something there that was invasive that I knew to be on the list, I did not submit it.

Because I don't think you want to encourage the growth of an invasive plant. And that's the only reason why. Otherwise it's a nice landscape, it's nicely taken care of.

Yeah, according to the University of Florida, it has a potential to be Invasive. Invasive.

Bottlebrush or go?

Weeping bottlebrush, callous Oh, cholesterol.

I see that highly.

Often used in landscapes, recent assessment has deemed it a potential high invasion risk, meaning it can spread into natural areas, though it's not as destructive as Malaleuca.

I haven't seen one to this day.

I've, it. I Or it's

maintain them very well. I mean, could Well,

it just doesn't happen because they they're they're not even when they're close to natural ARIs, you don't see them invading in. Mhmm. And and Malouca is distinctly different from how that how it occurs.

They just get that because it's in that family. I think that's

the reasoning. Right. They

say it has the potential.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it produces a a billion billion seeds.

If we do nominate this one, can I make a suggestion that we don't blow up that particular picture to have on the stage?

The Mexican Yes, would do this one. This is a better picture.

Could you point out the Mexican petunia? Because like I said, I have no idea what it looks like. Is it visible in one of these photographs?

Yeah, was the was the plant. This somebody told me, I don't know. Whoever nominated it, I believe mentioned it. Okay. That was Kathy. I think her

name is on this one.

Yeah. I like these. This is I mean

think that's what it is.

Yeah. Don't think that's what it is either. Because Mexican petunias are they're long

Okay.

Skinny things and then they have, like, purple flowers on the ends.

Oh, I I thought something looks sad.

A It's kinda hard to tell in the picture because it's not exactly healthy. So Yeah. It's true. Looks like that.

This kind of Yeah.

It's not Tell the Mexican petunia because it has the nodes are very swollen on the on the stem.

High and a purple flower. Mhmm.

I have And

it does in the description, it doesn't say what's around the pygmy tree. Yeah. She mentions the pygmy tree, but not what's what's, what's surrounding it.

It looks more like bush or something.

Look at the picture.

What's that?

Oak hedge or something.

Oh, look like seven.

I got two

of them. At What is shopping centers. Okay. Now I didn't see that there.

Yeah. It doesn't look like butterfly plant.

That looks beautiful, but it's so invasive go everywhere. There

is a native variety of wild petunia. And this one is the non native variety that, you know, I know I'm being picky. I'm just bringing this up. Yeah.

Not in this We've got a nomination. You got a second?

Yeah. Just wanted to make one comment here. But I have no problem seconding that. I happen to have well, when we first bought our property, we had three bottlebrush trees in one corner of our yard. One of them got damaged in a hurricane and died. But I have two left, and we don't see them reproducing there at all. I haven't even seen any in the neighborhood, you know, that would be young ones, you

know. Yeah.

Or out and back even.

In all my years, I've never seen one in a preserve or Well, mean, all

the way into the eighties, the Division of Forestry was selling them. Mhmm. Mhmm.

I have neighbors that have bottle brush.

And if it's on she says this is a Florida Friendly Landscape property. This might be on their list of

a I bottle think it could be, you know.

I think some of the other plantings are very nicely done. This picture is

real pretty. Yard has a lot of curb appeal.

Yeah. Yeah. Very, very pretty. A lot.

So let's

I'll second your nomination.

We got nomination and a second? Who nominated?

Was it the first

Oh, I thought it was Lisa who nominated.

No, I thought

Okay. I'll nominate this for a flower.

We have a second.

I'll second.

Okay. All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? I'm Passes. Moving on to Ashter Cove.

I'll nominate Debbie. It's an argument.

You're not okay.

Spreading

any Not a nomination

at all.

I'll second it. I don't know why they haven't Alright.

You can tell her afterwards.

Lisa seconds.

I'll make up three of the signs.

All in favor? Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you all.

Three this year, yay.

Before we before we leave this, and and I think I have an excuse because I spent some time personally in the hospital in this time period, and my wife has spent a lot of time in the hospital. And so didn't nominate something even though I was going to. I think every member of the board needs to nominate something. And so next year or when we start off looking at this in the December time frame, I'm gonna push you all to

let's go find one. So I had one picked out that I was gonna nominate and I wanted to look at it. And the property recently sold and they had all the trees marked

Oh, no.

Oh, my goodness.

That's bad.

I haven't seen anything come through as far as a permit yet, but it kinda just turned me off.

That doesn't mean anything.

I've been very focused on businesses. I'm trying to get here and and I realized actually one of the businesses that I really liked and I took photos of is just outside, I believe, the Wellington limits. It's it's four forty one in Lake Worth. But I don't know that that could have been a contender because of where it was located. Was in that shopping center.

To be physically in the city.

Yeah. It was in the shopping center with the neighborhood Walmart down there.

It's in the setting, isn't it?

It's it's it's technically, I think, outside. When I looked it up, I didn't submit it when I saw Yeah.

If you look on the map, the line kind of jogs around a few things.

It was it was it was Jake's pet store. The owner there takes, you know, he takes the time to make sure he changes out the plantings in the front of the store on a regular basis. Anyways, he he really has a love of plants and and native plants, and different things. Always trying to make

it look nice.

But it's gotta be in the city.

Yeah. That was the issue. So

So Yeah.

Just a a comment about lawns on this award. I know we haven't really addressed lawns on this award. Is that going to be a thing? Like weeds in the lawn or

That's hard, I think. With how the weather has been, there's a lot of people that their lawns are not looking great right

now. And there's philosophy about lawns, too, that the Freedom Lawn, they call it, the Garden of Florida Federation of Garden Clubs is promoting it. And that's like, you know, no irrigation, or little irrigation, very little fertilizer. So what if the weeds come up? It looks green and it's mowed, it's fine. So it's a philosophy.

You know they're not spraying pesticides.

Yes. Right. Exactly. Exactly. So I think we should not personal opinion, and it's up to the Board not really consider the lawn as part of, you know

don't know how you would it's the biggest

I know that, but

I mean

if there's weeds in the lawn, so what? That's my opinion. I don't know. It's up to the Board. Okay.

Yeah, it is up to the Board.

That one, if we want to make the lawn and the beauty of the lawn a criteria for a person getting nominated and winning the award?

Well, perhaps you might want to make some modifications to the rules, something to the effect

It's the appeal, though.

It's part of the curb A percentage of the lawn needs to be maintained.

Well, no. I agree that

I've got lawn nothing be but weeds, and it looks like weeds.

Right.

And when we get hit winter, it all dies. But in the summer, it's a great picture.

Like I say, it's a philosophy, you know? Right. It's It's a do you want to if we're in a drought or we need to conserve water, do we want to waste our water on lawns? To keep it green, do you have to fertilize? You know what I mean? It's just, I don't know. If the house looks nice and the lawn is green, it should be fine, in my Write

that up. In the way that

Put that in the application. Application.

I mean, like, right right now, for example, the the village code says, if you put a fence in, you've got to have a hedge that covers 50% of the height of the fence. Well, that makes every fence look the same.

Everybody's putting in the same hedge.

Everybody's putting in the same hedge. But if you were to say, we want a 50% opacity to the fence, which means that I can have stuff down here at ground level, and I got a couple of trees or a shrub in front, and I achieve 50%, it's a measurable item. As opposed to you've got to have a four foot hedge. Approaching a lawn that way may be a good way to approach it. We don't want you to have great big dead spots in your lawn.

Right. Yeah.

Okay. But we will accept some.

Right.

And I think you want to look at the proportion of grass in relation to the proportion of plantings throughout the front of the house, since that's what we're looking at.

Okay. Well, we've a year

to figure that one out.

Okay. Can I make

a comment about since Michelle brought up the idea of pictures of the winning properties, having them, you know, like on a tripod up there at the stage, I think that's a great idea? After the presentation is made and people have looked at them a little bit, we could bring them back to the tree board tent, you know, and put them out there.

Oh yeah, there you go.

You want to look at the pictures that we have and see if they're adequate? If not, either you take them or I'll take them.

Yeah. I can look through and pick pick nice pictures for each, and we'll blow them up.

Mhmm. Okay.

Okay. Very good.

Well, how are we she gonna have a screen up? I mean, I don't think we've had a screen before.

I have to ask. I'll find out how she's gonna present them. I don't know if they're gonna be on, like, a poster board backboard Yeah. Or something that can be taken away or if it's gonna be up on a up on the screen.

It's lot cheaper on the screen. Yeah.

But can't go back to the tent on the screen. That's okay. But

Let's move on to the annual work plan.

Okay.

Well, just real quick, the tree canopy study, did they give you a percentage of what

Yeah, there's I mean they broke it down really nice. I'm going have to figure out a way to share the link. Because I don't know if just I have access. We're going have to figure out how to give everybody access to it so they can maybe view it on our website.

Was it good? I mean, it good information?

Absolutely. It's broken down privatepublic overall. So to give you the numbers and it's broken down the private sector, the public areas. And there's a lot of good information in it.

Are we keeping up? I mean, are we at 30%, 40%, 50% canopy?

We were thinking in the teens.

We're still in the teens?

Yeah. Okay.

The overall, it wasn't as bad as I thought it was gonna be.

Oh, well that's good. That's good news. Yeah. Okay.

Well, mean, we've got a lot of young stuff.

Yeah. And we've been planting a lot on on public property the few years. So once that stuff starts to get more established, we'll have a little bit better cover.

There's there's a forestry concept called ingrowths. And it comes from the fact that I I plant a I plant a whole field of trees, and they're worth nothing until they're all merchantable. And that's ingrowth. And you see that in natural landscapes. And I see ingrowth is when you get a neighborhood that suddenly has squirrels. And so when you start right off with a new subdivision, that sort of thing, if you look at a lot of places in Wellington where things are much more mature, there's squirrels there.

Yeah. That's true.

And in fact, the head arborist in Fort Lauderdale used to have on the back of his card, and he reviewed site plans, if a squirrel squirrel can't cross your property without touching the ground, you don't have trees.

Trees, yeah. Yeah, it's amazing to watch them do that, the way they just go from tree to tree to tree.

But when I lived in Broward, my yard was at engrossed when I was there. And we had no squirrels when we first got there. And about four years later, all of a sudden, we've got squirrels. They had enough tree protection to be there. So you and I have a bunch of squirrels.

Yes, do.

And I don't have a huge barber, I have squirrels. So with the annual plan, the annual work plan, I actually this is one of the things that I had I sent to Michelle. But for maybe next Well, I mean consideration of

next we're gonna vote on the plan. So if you want to add something, now is the time to add it.

Right. So what I wanted to do is I wanted us to review the urban forestry management plan. Okay? Because every year, we vote to continue with the existing plan, but we are not offering recommendations on a plan that's from 2021. Is that correct? It's about five years. So I think it's due for I think it's like, I think it's due that we actually review the urban forestry management plan for our city before just, like, carrying it over. You know what I mean? We did it we've carried it over for the last five years. I think it's I think we should review it, at least, for some maybe recommendations that we can do.

Give us a wording to change that line.

Okay. Want to continue.

I mean, you could say review review the

Review