Tree Board - Regular Meeting

Okay. This will be the meeting on June 4 of the Tree Board. And if we could all stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to

the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay. So we do have a Everybody's okay over there? Yes, ma'am. All right. So we have everyone here. We're just minus one member who I understand she was going to be coming later. Okay, we don't know for sure. Okay, but we have a quorum. Okay. So if we could start with the approval of the minutes from the March 5 meeting.

Does anyone have any changes or additions to the minutes?

Move we approve them as written.

Okay. A second? Second. Okay. And all in favor of approving the minutes then say aye. Aye. Okay. All right. Staff updates. Will?

Hey. Good afternoon, everybody. We've got our recent planting. So we've been pretty active last month, last two months really planting. We got a lot of lot of trees in. Total is now 896 for this year so far.

Oh, nice.

So we did two major plantings really. We had couple of Arbor Day Foundation grants that we that we did last month. So we had actually three grants, and we planted quite a few trees. You can see on the list here, 32 sable palms, 29 green buttonwood, 27 satin leaf, 31 pigeon plum, 11 densa pine, eight live oak, and six wild tamarind. So we got quite a few things planted with that grant funding from the Arbor Day Foundation.

And then below that you see the Moncada plantings. So they've they've almost finished out there. There's still a few a few small things to do. They're doing the pathways and some of the grass work, but most of the planting's done. A lot of this was smaller stuff, seedlings and and small stuff. And like we spoke at the last reboard meeting, there's not a lot of canopy trees Mhmm. Installed over there. So our future plantings, we're gonna focus on the Moncada property and getting some canopy trees. Also any grant applications that we put in, we're gonna we're gonna put in grant applications for that specific area.

What what constitutes a seedling in your definition?

I don't know anything.

It's just the bare root planting.

Well, some of the stuff went in three to four foot. Okay. You know, and it's seedlings to me are even, like, in liners. Some of the stuff, two foot tall maybe. Okay. I would consider seedlings. Some of the stuff like the some of the live oaks that they did were six to eight feet. There's some Okay. Pretty skinny. They did some decent sized little pine. I think they were in, 15 gallon. Most of the other grasses were were either three or one gallon. Strangler figs went in at a decent size. I think they were 15 gallon. The Gumbo Limbo went in 15 gallon. Pond Cypress went in, think three gallon. They're they're pretty small.

Just as a question, is there any any attempt, say looking at a year going back and doing an inventory of what survived the first year?

Oh, absolutely.

Okay.

Yeah, we can do that.

So what I'm trying to get at is that when you do that, you can then adjust your counts. Correct. If you're looking for 500 trees and you plant 200 you you you plant 500 and you get 200.

Well, I think we have we have a one year warranty on that stuff. So if anything between now and that year is that doesn't make it, that'll be replaced. So we're gonna try and make sure that that we get the numbers that we have here to survive.

But I mean, in in the forestry business, you plant, 700 trees to the slash pine to the acre expecting to get 200 stems at thirty years. Right.

Well

Yeah. You have some loss.

Mean So you have to you have to think in those terms because you're basically planting a forest. Correct.

Mhmm. Yeah. When we do our native orchids in the preserves, I mean, we're probably at about 30% survival. A lot of them a lot of them just don't make it. But the ones that do, that's great. I mean that's that's we're making progress. I always try and plant more than what we're trying to do because a lot of them, especially out there where there's no irrigation sometimes they don't make it.

Yeah. There's an ancient study in Tallahassee that at the end of ten years 50% of the dogwoods planted are gone.

50%.

Urban landscapes are brutal.

Yep, very tough.

Well, can I ask you when you do the planning, the discussion between you and John, remind me then of something? What with the inventory that was done here in the city, when do these plantings become a part of that ongoing inventory?

We're working on the inventory. You know, when we have days like today, like it's raining and sometimes we can't get out in the field and do some of our chemical applications or fertilizer. I have my guys kind of focus on doing some of this, adding new stuff to the inventory.

Okay.

So we kinda keep if you let it get away from me, it just becomes overwhelming task to try and get it all on there. So as we as we go through the year, you know, we get days like today where we get a little rain and we try and work on that.

Mhmm.

Oh, okay. Alright.

I have a question. Are there any in the village, are there any like businesses like new businesses and things that the city oversees their landscaping or oversight with that? Most of that goes through

planning and zoning like all the new construction like the Lotus project they're doing out on April. They're getting ready to do landscape and they reached out to see, you know, if we needed to inspect it and it's all permitted. But yes, we have a landscape inspector that goes out to look at at the new plantings, new construction stuff to make sure they meet the requirements of our code.

Okay. So you do like recommended plantings?

I don't know if they do recommended plantings. They just have to meet our requirements that we have in our in our landscape code.

There is a part of the code is that they have to put in a certain number of natives.

Think 50 Yeah, think it's 50% native.

50%. And you have a list of the natives?

Yeah, I mean they have a list of recommendations.

So they have those to refer to.

Is there a list like that that we get on a regular, I mean I don't know. I'm pretty new. So do we get we get an update on those kind of projects or

or no? Usually all that stuff goes like it's not a Village of Wellington project. So a lot of that goes to planning and zoning because it's not funded by taxpayers. It's a, you know, private but you know, they do inspect the landscape and they have to meet our requirements.

Okay. But my other question was, is there any way we can have like some photos? Because I think it would help, you know, to see a visual sometimes of some of these things that you're doing.

Sure.

I think that would be good. Yeah, can do some photos. Okay.

Yeah, absolutely. Now the the plantings out there on Flying Cow, the the canopy trees were paid for with the grant funding but we still have to go back in and under plant some shrubs and some native stuff out there. So it's not quite finished but we'll take all the help we can get as far as funding on on trees because I got a lot, our numbers are better than last year because we the funding this year. And we do have another grant that's coming through the Department of Agriculture for another $50,000 to plant more canopy trees. I don't have the signed paperwork yet, so I haven't moved on that yet.

But once we get the signed documents, another $50,000 and it buys a was it a 138 more? It's a decent And these trees are going in. The ones that I planted on Flying Cow, you know, some of them were 45 gallon, the sable palms were, you know, 10 to 12 foot, decent sized stuff.

Yeah. That's great.

How about the satin leaf?

Did you get the The satin leafs were 45 gallon. Yeah. They were they were pretty big. Yeah. So those nice.

Excellent. I know it's cool.

So Binks Forest, is that Binks Forest Drive, like from the

Yeah. There's there's two locations that kind of that where the tornado went through. One's right along Binks and the other is like around the corner. There's a a berm that backs up to the canal on Southern. It's Village Of Wellington property. So there's that location and then along Binks Forest Drive. Okay. So those two two locations we'll be planting. And then Flying Cow. Flying Cow is finished for now.

We haven't done banks yet. You haven't you haven't planned

No.

We're still working on that. The grant that we're getting with the the Department of Agriculture, that's some federal money that we're gonna have available here in the next couple of months. So we'll plan a few more on banks and a few more in that that area in the back on that berm Okay. To finish that.

It's good. Good. The more the merrier.

And then we'll circle back to to banks or to, flying cow and we'll do a little bit more, under planting and then we'll mulch the beds and that should be that should be in good shape.

Do you guys grow any of your own plants?

They used to have like a tree nursery, but we don't we don't grow any of the stuff here anymore.

You

know, like we used to relocate a lot of stuff and they would have a holding area and hold those trees and then move them to the their their final location. But we've kind of made that more into a park now and you know, I usually buy as I need. And we have our orchids grown in the lab and they grow them up to a certain size and then we buy them. But as far as growing them here, no.

Thank you.

Okay. Any other questions of Will? Okay. You've got more?

I'm just thinking here. I think I think that covers it for the

For the okay.

For the recent plantings. Yeah.

Okay. Let me ask you about the Moncada plantings. Since there was some funding that was pulled back, how is that going to be funded in the future? It sounds like Department of Agriculture funding is going

Well, as to as more grants come available, we'll apply for those and and see what we get out there. It's gonna take it's gonna take several years. I can't do it on my budget. My budget alone, we're gonna have to get some some assistance Mhmm. With the funding. But I'm gonna plant as many trees as I can out there Yeah. With with my money.

Yes. Okay.

Now we have 1,200 small pines set up for September for the garden club event in September.

Oh, good. Okay. And I guess that's when they do the thing generally with the Cub Scouts or something. Yes. Yeah. Which is nice.

Kathy organizes that.

So Okay. Yeah. It's too bad she's not here right now. Yeah. Public Lands Day in September Right. Is generally when that has taken place. I'm not sure what the exact date is, but whatever it is. It's the last Saturday.

The last Saturday.

Whatever the last Saturday in September is.

Okay. September is when. And everybody's always invited there. So

Yeah. Think Kathy sends out invites for that.

Okay.

Any further discussion about Will's report here? Oh, well, actually, you said something about tree removals. We also have a sheet for that.

Yeah. We haven't had too many removals. Thank goodness.

I think there's one I have to add. We just need to take a royal palm from the amphitheater that had Ganoderma. Oh. They just recently did. So but there's not too many removals, which is a good thing.

That is a good thing, especially given the tornado from last year.

Yeah. Those those aren't on here as removals. I mean, because it was a natural event. I think I had did I bring a list? I think we lost about 500 trees in town counting the, majority Stoneman Douglas Preserve and what we lost in town from from our inventory. I thought I brought that to one of the Yeah.

Think reported on that.

Yeah. Think you

did too.

But that's not on I didn't put that on the

removals because it wasn't, like removals. Right. It's more of a

You didn't do it.

Weather event. We cleaned it up, but

But didn't remove it.

We didn't

do it.

It wasn't on purpose.

Are these are these requested tree removals from residents?

No. This is only the removals that we do on Village Of Wellington property.

Okay.

So if I have to remove a tree, I add it to the list. Anything on our publicly owned space. Okay. And we've lost a couple of arrow club palms, the Washingtonians out there to lightning and disease and I have to add that one royal palm from the amphitheater on here.

So when you lose a Washingtonian like say over there on Arrow Club where it's kind of consistent all the way, are you going to replace that one with another Washingtonian?

You going to try haven't put

been replacing them just because we would like to put something different over there. Getting to the point where they're hard to maintain. Mhmm. Some of those trees are 70 plus feet tall.

I know. Oh, yeah. Mhmm. That's fun.

And then to come back in and plant a new one, I can't match that.

Right.

So it's gonna look kinda funny. So maybe one day we'll be able to go through there and and replace them with a different type of palm something like that.

So as it stands in one if you lose one, it just stays like an empty space you figure out how you wanna proceed. Okay.

Correct.

Yeah.

How many Washingtonian palms are out there?

Think the count is 475 right now.

Oh, wow.

There was more. There was more. I spend I spend about 22 to $23,000 a year just trimming those, just that stretch. So Wow. Just because they're so tall.

Yeah. Think at some point you they they talked about removing them, but there was this the residents didn't want it.

The residents didn't want them removed. They like the look. I think we can achieve that look with a different palm. And I know FP and L has offered to take everything on the power line side and replace it. So I mean

Oh. Oh, that's good.

I called them, I think it was last year, that offer still stands. So

Nice. That's very good.

That's half the job. Absolutely.

It's it's quite

a bit. So they've made that offer

That several would be really good.

You just have to get the residents

I just have to get people on board. So that offer is still on the table and they they would come through and replace with whatever pond we we decided to to go with.

I think people would agree to that as long as they, you know, they see a visual.

Know? See, that's what we need. We need to show them what it would like. Here's what it's going to look like.

Right. That's what it is.

Do a little bit of PR work there with that. So I think the last two times they tried to take them there was quite a, it was quite a big deal. Think they made the news.

At some point in time you're not going to be able to, I mean they will exceed the height of your bucket.

They've exceeded the height of our of our we have a contractor that does it.

So

they bring the big truck

But you're gonna you're gonna exceed that. I mean Close.

70 feet is high.

You you can't afford a 100 foot bucket.

You know, that's that's what it's going to take soon. So those are most of the tree companies run like a 60 foot bucket. So currently they're in the bucket with a pole saw. They're pretty much at the extent, they're the extent of what what we can maintain. So you know, in the next few years, probably gonna have to come up with something for that.

Mhmm. Does it have to be palms that you replace it with? Is that like what the

For us resident it doesn't have to be. I would rather do canopy trees.

Mhmm.

But I think they want that Rodeo Drive look when you go through.

The lined palms, you know.

The palm lined streets like like Rodeo Drive. So I think that's Mhmm.

Is the lifespan of those trees? I

mean, I've seen some of those trees grow to over a 100 feet tall.

Right. But I mean the lifespan, how many years?

Depends on weather conditions.

Oh, you said they were about 70 now. So you think they may get even taller.

Sixty to seventy years maybe.

A long time.

Yeah. They grow a good long time. Depends on conditions.

Mhmm.

You know, if the conditions are good, they grow a little faster.

Mhmm.

If conditions are not so good, they grow a little slower. It seems like

it could be here forever.

Would depend on environmental conditions. Yeah.

With the monoculture, hopefully there won't be a disease that hits one and spreads.

Well, lethal bronzing lethal bronzing affects Yeah. Washingtonia

because that could do do a lot

of damage to

Eighty to two hundred and fifty years.

In two hundred and fifty years?

Eighty to two hundred fifty years.

Eighty to two fifty?

Two hundred fifty years for a Washingtonian. Wow. Wow.

You know, so I don't know if they would make it that long here, but

I don't think they'd handle a storm out

here. Yeah. At some point they would

That's the other thing too.

They would fall victim to weather.

Yeah. Yeah. Because they've been here ever since I've lived in Wellington and that's been since 1986 or '7.

Mhmm. Been here Okay.

Long as I've been here too.

Yeah. So Okay. Alright. So anything else? Any other questions for Will?

All right. Moving down to the old business of the Earth Day and Arbor event that we had back in April. Any comments?

It was hot.

I'm sorry, what? It's hot. It was

a hot one. Was a warm day.

It usually is.

It usually is. Has been hotter than it was that day. Yeah. There.

I thought it went well. The you handed out a lot of the sapling the, you know, the little

Yeah. We gave away most of our

Yeah.

Inventory that we brought. The the only thing was mounts had their plant sale the same day.

Yeah. Right. Yeah.

That that really Yeah. Took away from how many people should have been there.

But you didn't know that? You planned for

the The last couple years, they've they've they've done that. So it's hard it's hard to change our event though

Yeah.

As far as the date. I mean

They have fixed dates.

Consider it. But that the last two years that's happened. Yeah.

Yeah. They had their big plant sale on the same day and they they draw more people than than our event.

So Oh, yeah. People come from all over.

Yeah. Well, some

of us do both.

Yeah. That's true. You could do you could do both because theirs goes all day. I think theirs goes all weekend.

Yeah. It's Sunday, Saturday.

Sunday too. Mhmm. But, of course, you wanna get there Saturday to get the good stuff.

Before it gets picked over.

Yeah.

Right. Or you go Sunday and get the get bargains on what's left. Yeah.

They don't wanna take them home with them, so they always sell them for cheaper.

I thought it was put together well. I liked all the, you know, the informational things and and the seedling giveaways. You know, I would like to see more residents there asking questions about trees and things that they have questions about.

Mhmm.

That was pretty much it.

Yeah. Think that that our biggest problem was competing with mounts. Mhmm. We'd had a better turnout.

Do they does the city keep track of the number of visitors in any way, shape, or form? I mean, do they know how many people come through?

I can check but they don't do any ticket sales or anything like that. Free events, it's hard to track the Yeah.

You put one of

those there.

Those ropes down that people can step on and

they can count them. There there's there's a lot of pictures and photos of the event and you could probably estimate.

Yeah. Yeah. Is there a way to change the day? I mean, you know, since last few years, it's been on the same day as a conflict.

I mean, I'm sure we could we could probably make a change.

Yeah. That time of year, there's a lot going on. There's always something going on.

I mean, the weekend before. It's gotta be around Arbor Day.

Yeah. Right.

Day. So maybe the weekend before, I I don't know.

Yeah. I think it might be worth investigating because it's not just mounts, but Okeheely always has something in there just right down the street.

Right. Right. Yeah. We don't want to be competing with other events when it comes to that. Call

it pre

Arbor Day?

Still call it Arbor Day. We're just celebrating in

We're just celebrating in

advance

of this day because we also want you to be able to go to these other events.

I think so because there's events all month that particular month. There's different places have different events. There's water, you know, conservation days and things like that. A lot of earth things.

Mhmm. Mhmm. Maybe we can talk to Michelle about it.

Let's look into that. We'll have to talk to Michelle Garvey and and see what her schedule looks like.

Right.

If we do it now, maybe we can make that adjustment before they fill up next year's schedule.

Mhmm.

When does mount set up its schedule? What do you know?

Yeah. I can find that

out.

You know when they do it? When do they set their schedule?

Yes. They are set schedule. You have to call in the office, they'll let you know.

Is their schedule already

set? There's gotta be some point in time where they Yeah.

They set their schedule.

Yeah. They have a set date.

But I know the last two years

check with them in advance.

Are they planning on the same date next year?

Okay. They have, like, four four plants here. So this one is biggest.

Yeah. Yeah. We don't wanna compete with that. So make a note here. See what we can do about that.

Mhmm. Okay.

Yeah. I think the butter the you know, at the flower award, the butterfly release is kind of a popular thing.

That was cool. Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's that's good. It seems like the kids really enjoyed that and they're a decent little crowd, you know, there. So but you wanna talk you'll probably talk about that. The award and how the person didn't show up to

Oh, the things.

Yeah. Think they were a little confused. They weren't kinda they weren't really sure, like, what they won.

You know? So anyway.

Uh-huh. Okay. So are there any other comments regarding Earth and Arbor Day? And we can hear from you in September about whether we can move it to another date and what might be viable?

Correct.

Okay.

I guess we can talk we're gonna talk about the flower award and new business. Mhmm. Okay.

Actually it's under old business. So that's actually next right now.

Right now. Okay.

To to go back, part of our Arbor Day and and Earth Day is we give away the seedlings to the schools. I have those numbers in that in here too.

Oh, yes you did.

Oh, saw that. That was a lot of giveaways.

Yeah. The participation has gone down a little bit with some of the schools Yeah.

We we

we only gave away 1,562 seedlings to the schools this year. So it's going down a little bit from last year. Part of that was banks. I don't think banks forest participated. Usually they get like 700.

But they still have a school garden and all that stuff.

Mean Yeah. Don't think banks I don't think we delivered to banks this year which was a large portion of it.

Oh, yeah. I see. Okay.

Yeah. See, they didn't get any last year or this year.

For the past two years. Mhmm.

Some teacher retired.

Oh, I'm looking at That's

what happened. Yeah.

There's a change of contact. We'll have to reach back out to them.

Mhmm.

It would be nice like for example at Wellington Elementary, they have that park there that has a lot of invasive species in it and all that. That if the, you know, did the giveaway and then had the kids plant those native trees in that area so that they could like start to grow and maybe replace some of those invasives that are over there.

Yeah. That's I think the

you'd have to work, definitely work with the school to coordinate.

I'd be happy we'd be happy to donate some plants. Absolutely. I think the key is getting it cleaned up first, though, and that's Yeah.

And that school board.

That school board. Yes. I think there's a pretty hefty price on the cleanup there. Mhmm. I've I've been in there. There's it's pretty extensive, the amount of vasives in there. Yeah.

I'm surprised that it went down so much. It's almost half.

Yeah. It's going down the last couple of years.

That's know?

2020 we had that, when we had COVID, so we didn't we didn't do the the giveaway. And then 2021, 2022 looks like we were picking up and then it's kind of tapering tapering off a little bit. So I think that's what happened. Some of the some people that were we we were in contact with, some of the teachers retire, they change. So and we're gonna have to reach back out to some of those schools and establish contacts.

Mhmm. Yeah. Because they have STEM programs that they have science teachers that are assigned and a lot of these schools have the school garden. So I would think that they would be open to getting more seedlings definitely. I'm surprised it went down by half. That's a lot.

Yeah. We're gonna have to reach out to the schools that didn't participate that usually do and see if we can make new contacts.

Just as a thought, is would the Wellington Boys and Girls Club be an organization that might accept seedlings for some of the kids there?

I don't see why not. Yeah.

They're not a school, but why not give them a try?

I'm just wondering if there is at the school board level, you know, somebody who you could contact and just say, look, this is what we do. Could you get the information out to all the schools in Wellington, you know, that this is what we're doing and possibly, you know, they'd get it from a higher level within their own organization. They might be more inclined to do it.

That's possible.

Put the pressure the superintendent put the pressure on

the principals. The principals put

the pressure on the teachers.

In past years, we had the best luck with with dealing with individuals at the school that were involved in that and that they kind of

Mhmm.

Promoted it a little bit and k. You know.

But in you know, to get the kids excited that has to almost be like a school wide thing. You know? Mhmm. The okay. It's Harbor Day and it's

a big deal and this is what we're gonna do and we're

gonna get the trees and everybody's gonna get their own tree and you can watch your tree grow and you know, you gotta get the kids into it. It's I mean because it's a really good program. I mean it's really nice that you can do that. It's just we have to figure out how to push it a little bit more.

They definitely have a regional district person within the school district that's assigned to this region that oversees the schools that are in Wellington. So, like, as far as higher up, I would probably that would be the person that oversees that has oversight of the principals that are in these, districts in Wellington. And I know that the art teachers, a lot of times, they do a lot of art projects for Earth Day for the kids Mhmm. To draw something and do they do competition contests for these for the kids. So, I mean, you know, I think that they would be excited about the trees and things like that. So probably the regional, that regional district person that's for, that oversees all the

I can't remember his name. There's a guy retired in the garden club that held that job that was responsible for plantings on the school board. We'll just have to find out. I'll have to run into him and find out who replaced him.

Oh, okay.

He's one of the guys that

comes out.

He's in the garden club now?

He's in the garden club now.

Okay. Yeah.

That would be good, John. Okay.

And find out who that is and, you know, he brags a lot about how many millions of trees he's planted.

Oh, I know who you're talking

about. So

I'll get his name and find out who replaced him if someone did. They may erase the job. I just looked at the Google map of the Wellington elementary and I think the key thing that we probably ought to concentrate on is looking to replace some of the canopy trees that are not there, which I assume at some point in time were removed. Because there's a lot of open area behind all those pines, but you know, they may be using it for a field or something of that nature and figure out what their landscape plan is. And you know, some of these tree plantings that we do that are symbolic, that might be a good place to put one.

But in terms of planting a small tree on a school grounds from experience way back in the seventies, they don't last. You've got to go in with something 10 or 12 feet tall. You've got to put a barrier around it for a while and let the thing get established. Once it gets established, it generally does okay. If you try and go in there with a seedling or five foot plant, it's not gonna last either a kid's gonna break it off or something like that. You put a small you put six foot tree in there, they'll grab on the branches and pull it until it's they abuse it to death.

If they don't get it, the landscapers do.

Yeah. They don't

get Right. I I would blame it more on the landscapers than I would the kids. Just in my experience with school gardens.

I have two

boys. Yeah. Have my son too. I I I believe it might

be about fifty fifty.

Yeah.

Okay. Has anybody thought about reaching out to the homeschoolers? I mean, they're always looking for projects to do and, you know, things that to enhance their education stuff. We've got a huge homeschool, you know, community population especially in Wellington. There's a lot a lot of homeschools and you know they would probably be very interested in having an Arbor Day you know something you know that they could do too where they could all bring the kids together, get plants, plant plants, clean up areas,

you know, that kind of stuff.

Do they have like a PTA or somebody in charge?

There's an yeah, there is.

Okay.

And they have very strong association.

So, yeah. You know, that would

be wouldn't be a bad idea to get touch base with the head of the PTA of the

homeschoolers and just tell them that

it's Yeah. Available to

We could do that. And we can have like a pickup point where they can come come and get them or something. Mhmm.

Yeah. Because they're always looking for something. Yep.

Okay. Any other discussion?

Well, I was thinking the Garden Club does the with the Garden Club does some contests with with the elementary school, don't they do? They do like Smokey the Bear and some different sculptures with recycled stuff. So whoever is in charge of that, I'm not sure, but I can find out. They could maybe also plug the idea of getting, you know, when they're talking about doing these other projects with the kids, they can let the teachers and the kids know that we have this tree seedling giveaway available to them also. Okay. So that would be a way for word to get out.

Okay.

Yeah. If you find that contact information, let me know and we'll we'll reach out and add them to the list.

Oh, for the for the PTA? For the

Yeah. If you have contact information for the homeschooler PTA, we can

Okay.

I don't have it but I guess John did you know about that? You knew about that? The PTA?

I can send you the district regional person. That's what that I said.

Oh, okay. That's the public school stuff. Yeah. Yeah. You you send me that, we'll get the ball rolling and reach out and see if we can get get some cooperation and maybe some

And not just that's not just for elementary schools. That's every any school every Yeah.

I mean,

we we deliver to the preschools, elementary schools, high school. Yeah. And then there's a list of miscellaneous schools. Some of the private schools.

Schools and home schools.

Okay. All right. Any other thoughts in this regard for Will? Okay. All right. Then on to again in old business, the Flower Awards. There's someone who had some thoughts. What should I do with it? Yeah. Here we go. On the form, did you want to address that in particular, Heather, what your thoughts were?

Heather had some really good suggestions on how we can kind of promote it a little bit more and include some more

Just like to get more, you know

More participation.

More participation. You know, it was a little disappointing that the one person that won wasn't even there. You know, when we had the, you know, the mayor was there, the council members were there Mhmm. And the resident didn't even show up. Like, that was disappointing. When we spoke

to them, I don't know if they were in town Okay. That weekend. So I think they were out of town, and then they weren't quite sure what they had actually won. So Right. Clarified that. It was not

perfect. Wasn't sure what what what do they win even, like, I was there because I wanted see, like, what do they win? Is it it's a sign for their front yard?

It's sign

for A sign and bragging rights.

Okay. Mhmm. But is it possible for us to do also, a like a like I don't know, some plant giveaway from the garden club or or like maybe a a gift card to Home Depot or one of these places or donate, you know, get one of these businesses something to donate something to the something that they can do, you know, improve their landscaping or some sort of plants that they don't, not only do they want a sign, you know, in their yard in recognition, do we do other recognition like in a newsletter or you know, like for the winner of the You know, I feel like we should have a little more, recognition in our newsletter, online, for the village of Wellington for that winner, you know, those kind of things. So, it would promote, you know, the the award more and

Make it more visible.

Yeah. Definitely make it more visible. I I can't tell you the amount of people because I ask, you know, I like after the last meeting, I was asking like, hey, know, have you ever heard of this award? And like I wanna say every single person I talked to didn't know about it. And I was, you know, I said this shouldn't be, you know, because we take such pride in part of Wellington is it looks fabulous, you know, it looks really great, and it's it's this is the, you know, the the Mhmm.

Fabulous landscapes of Wellington. You know what I mean? We should have higher participation. There's people who are very proud of their yards and their flowers and their planting, and, you know, I just wanna get our participation a little more. So I had some ideas, and then I emailed Will about it, you know, how we can kinda get people more excited about this and engaged.

Well, the idea, the idea of announcing it in the newsletter was really good because Wellington puts out a newsletter. I don't know if they do it quarterly or if they do it monthly. Know Jim Barnes does something weekly. So it would be something that would be easy enough, I think, for the village to include in whatever in the newsletter that they put out. So that would be a I think that's a really good idea and that would be an easy thing to achieve I think.

Right? And then Yeah, currently I think it's just on our website and you have to It's search for not like in your face. I think you have to search for

But, you know, I get it and I usually do scan it, but if there are some like more human interest kind of things and not just business in there, you know, I think that's a good, that's a really good idea. Mhmm. I like that.

Kind of like what was posted on the village website. Let's see, this was done on May 28 and it was up there today. I don't know how long they stay up. But it was a picture of all those who participated or at least some of those who participated in the plantings Mhmm. On Banks Forest, Flying Cow

Mhmm.

There. And it looks like two of our city council people were there.

Mhmm.

And I don't know who some of the other people are.

We had some volunteers from State Farm Nice. That came out

to produce There was a couple of garden club people there Uh-huh.

Yeah. Yep. Oh. Yeah. So there were there were some

community community involvement. 10 to 12 volunteers?

Yeah. Probably. Probably about 12 volunteers. That's excellent.

Mhmm. Okay.

So And I know they do put I think they put pictures of the of Arbor Day and the tree. Yeah. They put all that stuff on their on their website.

Mhmm. After the fact, they put the pictures of the events and

But I guess the newsletter's like a little bit different than that. Like the news because that comes to each person's home. You don't have to go there to see it. That comes right to you if you're signed up for it. Correct.

I had no idea that they all that planting was going on there until, you know, we had the

Yeah. That one kinda moved that one kinda moved quick. It's not like the usual where I have months to to plan. That one they dropped on me a couple weeks before the planting. Yeah. But I

mean it looks fantastic and I

It does.

You don't even know it's there unless you actually physically

I'm gonna drive over there. I gotta see

that road. No, it looks good.

Let's get back onto the flower awards.

Yes. We digress. Yeah, the other thing we talked about last week I think was that every Tree Board member should at least nominate one do one nomination. So we would have seven of them

to look at,

you know. So that would help a little bit, you know. If we at least do our part.

Is that open for anybody in

the community to Anybody that wants to nominate.

Anybody can can.

But I And you can nominate yourself.

Each one of us should go around town and find a spot.

Right. Exactly. Now I also had an email about code enforcement officers, you know, can also nominate future residential properties.

Oh, that's good

idea That's an idea that, you know, because they go around to the properties all the time. And then the other thing was also for for the business category. Because there's there's a lot of categories. And I I don't see the level of participation that we should see from businesses in particular. I was thinking maybe if we, if we can somehow partner with the Chamber of Commerce, you know, to get the word out to the businesses that are in Wellington to participate in this flower award.

They they could be recognized as a commercial property winner for this award. You know, there's a lot of and I I gave the example of, you know, the the Publix did a renovation there Mhmm. Off of Wellington Trace. Those plantings are beautiful. There's a lot of native plantings in there. There's Florida Coontes, there's a lot of things on those medians that were well thought out and well planned. And, you know, I mean, Publix is a big, you know, big company. But, you know, I'm just using them as an example. I think it's, you know, it's something that a business would be very proud to do. It would give the business recognition.

Mhmm.

And, you know, if we gave them like a plaque or something that they can put in their business that they are, you know, well, they won a Wellington Flower Award, I think that would help as well.

Or

Or give the Or Yeah.

Instead of on a a post to put in the yard, they could.

Put the sign up on the wall

and sign

the Right.

I mean, recognition really is what businesses are looking for. They're looking for online online presence. You know, those are things that we can offer them from our village, you know. Okay, you're going get recognition on the city website, in the newsletter, you know, those kind of things, I think are desirable to businesses. So, I I feel like reaching out to the Chamber of Commerce, I don't know if that's something that can be done.

Or and also, I I put in this email, but I don't know if it can be done. If there's some sort of incentive that could be done even for a business owner in Wellington to participate in this award? Is there like could they get a discount on some sort of filing fee they have? I don't know. But if they won this award they would get it, you know, I don't know. But the, you know for the year. That that would really promote. Wow. We're gonna apply to this. We're gonna we're gonna make our landscaping look fabulous, you know.

Might be to go to the city permitting people and see who are the dominant landscape architects and designers and nurseries who are doing work here in Wellington. And then let's send out a notice periodically to them reminding them of the form. Because if one of them win it, they've won it. And they can turn around and say, we designed this one, it won this award. And so if you're looking for new landscapes and businesses that we'll probably need to say they may be completed by six months or something of that nature in place.

Certain amount of time, but of anybody who's going to nominate, you can nominate your own work but you're nominating publics. But I did the design for publics. Then I can go on my website and say, my design won this award. So I think this, if we go talk to the city officials and say who are the dominant guys who are doing business here in terms of design. Someone knows that because they're dealing with them because at some point in time they got to go through a landscape plan. And well, we don't like this and we do like that they got to talk to somebody. Someone in building and zoning has got to know Yeah,

so planning and zoning.

The other thing I had trouble scoring this one. Didn't for some reason I didn't pay a whole attention to our categories and all that sort of thing. And when I went in there scoring, first off we say curb appeal, and then we say free of trash and debris. That's not curb appeal to me, that's curb of disappeal. But curb appeal to me as does this thing look great? Right. You know, it's it's like seeing, you know, pretty building versus an ugly building.

Right.

I mean, you're down in town in West West Palm, they used to have a building we call the Darth Vader building because it was ugly. It's a big black ugly building. And and then you get others like Phillips Point that are physically pretty. And so we need to expand that category curb appeal somehow and describe that more as this looks good when I drive by it. That to me is the curb appeal. Curb appeal is not, did I clean up the garbage? So we need to change that for sure. So we need to refocus that. The other thing about curb appeal, I think it needs more points. Looking at the points on the two, we've got incorporated minimum 50% native landscaping.

And then we have Florida Friendly Landscaping and Environmental Friendly Landscaping. And granted, there's a definition of those two. But for the most part, Florida friendly landscaping are native plants.

Plants that aren't native without that they

do 60% of the points on native plants. We're not doing an inventory of the yard. So you're doing an inventory of the front yard or the visible yard. And sometimes that's hard to do. I mean, people like you and me have a lot of native plants that are were not planted.

And

they're they're there. And so so I think it's it's the design has got to be appealing. And I think we need to change the wording in there and somehow in our descriptions say, you know, it looks good, you know.

Well, yeah, that's that's true. But the beauty is in the eye of the beholder And right.

So Well, I mean, if we've if we have if if you know, we got seven people who have different ideas of beauty.

Mhmm.

And so there are seven nominations and seven votes.

Right.

One way or the other. So it's not like it's my view of beauty. It's there's a group that are making the decision. So again, we have a consensus group there, but to take 60% of the points and put it to essentially native landscaping, I think is unbalanced. So I think we need to move some points out of those two and move them into what I will call curb appeal. Does it look good when you come up?

We could also have elements of butterfly friendly plants that could be incorporated in here, and I don't see that here.

Of what friendly?

Like butterfly friendly elements. You know, like for example, is there is there a, you know, are there any butterfly friendly plantings that are in their yard? You know, are are there any

But but the problem we have with that is I have a bunch of butterfly plants behind my yard, but you can't see them from the street.

Right.

And so when you ride by, you're gonna see the pines, the cypress, you're gonna see the Royal Poinciana, and you're gonna see how the the lower landscape is blended in with that. And to me that is the curb appeal.

Right.

And you know, how does the landscape blend? You know, how does the, you know, is everything square and boxed out, which would be unappealing to me or is everything curved and somewhat halfway natural but actually looks more than natural?

Right. Yeah. But that's part of the application, know, if they if you think because I think part on the application is what's stands out, you know, what stands out about the yard itself. And it could be a, you know, an English garden look. It could be a more native look. It could be a meadow look. It could be

Right. I understand that. But when you are running there in points, between what I call curb appeal and what you're talking about is theme or style of landscape

Yeah.

That's only 20 points.

No. I agree I agree that the points need to be adjusted how they are. But I think that there's elements that should be included in that evaluation that are missing. Because for example, for a city to get a you know, certain awards, right, designations that we get for our city, we have to have a certain amount of type of landscaping in order to get those designations approved. So you know there's certain elements that they look for for us to be able to apply for those designations. Similarly Tree

Talking about Tree City?

Right. There are certain designations in that but also you know if somebody if somebody like has Lantana or they have different elements that incorporate wildlife, that should be also on this, I feel, it should be on the, it should be part of the evaluation. Are there elements in that yard that can incorporate wildlife? You know, like bees or, you know, butterflies in their front yard. People can have those plants in the front yard.

You might have it in your backyard, but some have it in the front yard also. Think those elements could be added in here also. You know, that's just a thought but I agree the points

need to be takes for what you're talking about especially if you're talking about bees, it takes someone who really knows what to look for and I don't think most of us on this board know what to look for.

Well, you look for the bees buzzing around

the place. I mean, they fire bush is one, you bush is one.

You know, people are You've got to be there when the flowers there for the beards to be there. Mhmm. So if I go by and see a queen palm, are you thinking about bees?

Not necessarily, but

they like pop. Next time your queen palm, you see one flowering, like I have one in my front yard doing now.

They're full

of bees.

They're full of bees. If you go back and look to the side where I have sable palmer, when they're flowering, they're covered in bees.

Right. Same thing with the palmetto, right?

Those kinds of things

Seasonal.

Take an expert to do and we don't have many experts.

Right, right. So that goes back to the curb appeal though. I mean, I think that covers like a wide range of what somebody could be looking at and it being appealing to them. Right. The idea that it attracts wildlife would be appealing, that would be curb appeal to that person who's looking at it.

Same thing with if it's a kind of a wild looking native garden, it could be appealing the person who's looking at it. Might want to but in a real structured, you know, English garden, maybe somebody would be like, yeah, you know, it's just too much maintenance on it, it looks good, but it doesn't appeal to me. Right. So that's why that word to me, curb appeal covers a wide range. And so if you're going to try to break it down so much, I don't know, I don't know if it's necessary.

Well,

need to get it out of debris.

Yeah, I agree. It should

be Yeah, you can try to tratch it. That's kind like, think on.

I think we I agree with

you, Jess.

We should not have trash. When when the I've trash and debris should not be part of anything on our evaluation. It should never be in anyone's yard.

Well, because it's not appealing.

I think we should put manicured. Is it manicured? Like, something like that would be better. Is it, you know, is it is it well manicured or something for curb appeal? I would say, okay, the hedge is nicely trimmed, things like that,

you know. One of our two things was trashing. One of our two nominations

Yes.

It was trashing. It was not maintained.

Right. Exactly. And so that didn't get approved. Yeah. So, you know, don't know who nominated it, but it shouldn't even have been nominated if they looked at the criteria. Yeah.

Now are we can I ask another question? If when we do this evaluation, the points obviously I think we should I agree with John, we should reevaluate how because 60% is in one area. But then and I think we need to look at what is important when we look at a landscape in Wellington to the residents. What is important for our village? You know, is 60% of the importance on it being Florida Friendly?

And you know those are things I think we need to look at. What percentage are we do we think is important for somebody to have in their yard? And that that could be adjustable. I wanted to ask with the with the scoring, do we normally go out as board members drive by these properties like you say, okay, we're gonna give you all one month, you're gonna drive through and then we submit everything to Will? Like are we submitting, okay, this is my scoring for the, you know, because I feel like we need to kind of

change We're supposed to go look at it and we're supposed to decide what we think they are and run your own scoring. I actually did that. I sat down and created a chart for both of them sites. And I went by and I looked at the points and I ran the points. And then I looked at qualities that I was looking for. And that's why when we came in I was sort of very much against one of them because I didn't think it met the minimum requirements to be even nominated.

Currently But the way it works is all the nominations are gathered up. Okay. They come to us. We bring them to the tree board. The tree board goes and looks, scores the properties, and then they're voted on at that. Okay. Is that? Is that a cell phone near a microphone? Anybody's cell phone near the mic?

Can't remember if we did did we say that on the kiosks in the community center there's the application with the criteria there for people to pick up if they want to? Do we have that? Because that would be a spot too for if we wanted to try to reach I

think that was mentioned.

Yeah. Think so

too. I don't know if that ever

I think we just ended up putting it on the website.

Yeah. I would try to do some physical applications with the criteria at least as it gets closer to you wouldn't have to leave them there all year round, but as it gets closer to the deadline for nominations, just have those applications out and they can announce it on the or have the announcement on the website that we're accepting applications for, you know, fabulous landscapes and, you know, get an application at the city. Some people aren't really, you know, they're not comfortable using the computer. I know older people like me, I'd rather just pick it up and fill it out, so.

I know we put in something, last week about distribute tree pruning brochures with the water. Why can't we just send out an application with the water bill or some city bill that goes out?

Might be too expensive. Yeah.

It has to do with the postage.

I I feel like in newsletter. If you have you have the email newsletters, put this in the newsletter. Well, you can That's easy. You just do two pages in the newsletter and the application is there. The residents can print it out. They can apply. They'll still read the newsletter and the email. They'll say, oh, I I can apply for this. Mhmm. You know, and then they'll stay they have the information here where to send it back.

What about in

the what about in the little Wellington newspaper that we can we can we ask them to put a spot in there, you know?

We'd have to put an ad in.

Oh, the town crier?

Yeah. The town crier would we'd have to pay

for an ad.

Yeah. You just we'd

have to pay for an

We have to pay for an ad.

But I mean, is that worth the effort? I think it is.

Yeah. Wouldn't hurt.

I mean, I don't know what an ad in I

don't know what an ad cost.

I could look into it. Mean, some of them are depends on the space, the size.

I thought if we put in the newsletter, that's gonna be a big change game changer. And I think if you put if you put that application in the newsletter and announce it

Start with that.

That's excellent.

The manager's report or are you talking about them?

No. The newsletter that we get every month from, you know, Parks and Recreation, city of Wellington, they they do an email newsletter that you could sign up to. I get it in my email. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

So if it's have to sign up for it.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's great.

Have to look at.

I think that'll get it to more people, though. That will definitely It's cost effective because it's more people. Yes. Electronic. You don't have to pay the postage. Because we have a contract right now for for the everything's already been decided is what they're gonna spend.

Oh, yeah. It's budgeted already. You can't.

Yeah. All that. So it's already budgeted.

That's true. Mhmm. But, yeah, the business, if you do the for the businesses, the Chamber of Commerce connection, I think will work very well. But I don't know what can we do an incentive, what can be you know, what can be given there. Is there exposure is the incentive? We could do exposure in the newsletter as the incentive and on the website originally. That's I

think the intent of this though is more community pride than, you know, what can I get out of it? So Well don't

it is pride. It's recognition it's recognition for doing such a beautiful job in your Now

what they might do I don't know. You can maybe do some kind of voucher. Well I could probably

get a local nursery to like donate some plant material of some some native plant material of some sort.

Right. Exactly.

Their name is, you know, donated by

Jane Jane Thompson, she'd probably give, you know, just a voucher here. You get this. Push a voucher. You can go over there

and You know, you you present the award. Yeah. You know, this tree was donated by such and such nursery and then you you That's perfect. And then you get some Yeah. Some kind of

a That's perfect.

A tree or a shrub or