The 19th Annual Hillcrest Garden Tour The HCCA Gives Back to the Community
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by Michelle Phipps-Evans
he 19th annual garden tour by the Hillcrest Community Civic Association (HCCA) was focused on giving back, according to a member of the Hillcrest Garden Tour Committee. “This year, we wanted to give back,” said Kathy Chamberlain, who is also an HCCA board member. “We earn a lot from the garden tour and we wanted to give something special to the community.” So, for this year’s 19th annual tour on June 23, the committee created a different experience by making over the front gardens of two senior residents of Hillcrest rather than exploring the traditional 10 to 12 homes and garden tour. This year, there were two small tours, one at 10 a.m. and the other at noon. Both seniors, Esther Fletcher and Maria Pantalina, were delighted by the prospects of having their gardens renovated. The HCCA Garden Tour Committee developed designs for the projects, and set to work digging up tree stumps, trimming hedges, removing weeds and poison ivy, prepping the garden beds, and planting the flowers. These seniors were suggested to the committee by other residents in the neighborhood. According to the committee’s write up in its garden tour booklet, each front garden “had its challenges.” Fletcher’s had two empty beds in front the house, which were rather bare, except for a border of healthy Arthur Joy Sedum, which was used as the foundation to provide multi-season plants with low maintenance color and texture. As a result of its focus, the committee created a mass planning of Sedum by transplanting all of it to the right side of one bed. After weeding both beds, they trimmed the day lilies, removed the invasive ground cover, and killed poison ivy creeping over from a neighbor’s yard. They replaced the black mulch with natural pine bark mulch, trimmed the huge bush. Eventually, they planted several perennials such as Dianthus, Lilies, Echinacea, Summer
Phlox, Variegated Irises, black-eyed Susans and Blue Salvia. For Pantalina’s garden, the challenge was that the mature hedges were overgrown and choked with ivy. “A dead tree left a declivity in the front lawn,” the committee wrote. The focus was on reinvigorating the
shrubs and replacing the stump with a new bed. Therefore, the committee trimmed all the shrubs to a sculpted look, removed the weeks, grass and poison ivy under the shrubs, weeded the lawn, and trimmed all liriope. Then, they installed cinderblocks at the sidewalk/fence border to prevent erosion of the garden bed, amended the soil with compost and installed plastic lawn edging around the bed. The perennials chosen for this garden included Creeping Phlox, Creeping Sedum, Blue Salvia, Coreopsis Daisy and Echinacea. The HCCA’s Home and Garden Tour Committee comprised Kathy Chamberlain, the HCCA first vice president; Marvin Bowser, a former board member and longtime garden tour committee organizer and this year’s chair; and volunteers John Johnson and Tom Beach. The HCCA, a Ward 7 civic association established in 1989, focuses on promoting the welfare of the neighborhood, voices its concerns and works in tandem with agencies and organizations to create a better quality of life in the city. According to the garden tour com-
CLOCKWISE from TOP 1. Home and Garden Tour Committee Members (L-R): John Johnson, Marvin Bowser and Tom Beach. Missing from the photo is Kathy Chamberlain. 2. Marvin Bowser works in the Fletcher garden. 3. Tom Beach pulls weeds from the Pantalina garden. 4. John Johnson prunes the Pantalina shrubs. Before and In Progress Photos by Kathy Chamberlain. After Photos by Michelle Phipps-Evans
mittee, the entire project—which included shopping and all the legwork— took about five days to complete; and the HCCA funded the entire project. Although the seniors did not come out to talk with all the visitors, according to Bowser, Fletcher appreciated “what we’re doing but did not just turn over the keys.” The 92-year-old, a cousin to native Washingtonian and the father of the blood bank, Dr. Charles Drew, was quite involved in the process. As the summer continues, it is expected that more flowers will be in bloom in the reinvigorated gardens. The committee mentioned that the 20th annual garden, which will be a special occasion, will return to its original home and garden tour format. It
will probably feature the Fletcher and Pantalina gardens to see how well they have thrived in 2013. The HCCA’s 19th annual home and garden tour kicked off a day of activity that featured the central theme of “giving back” to the community. June 23 also marked the community’s first Hillcrest Day, a day that highlighted free food, fun for children such as a moon bounce, a clown, face painting, arts and craft, and fun for the adults such as the putting green and an opportunity to mix with neighbors and visitors. For more information or to see more photos of the tour, visit Hillcrest’s Web site at www.hillcrestdc.com/gtour2012.htm. l CAPITALCOMMUNITYNEWS.COM H 47