Award-winning lawn grows in Mineola

BY ANNABEL HOFMANN

John Robinson of Mineola has been promoted from a monthly winner of Jonathan Green’s Show Us Your Lawn competition to a national winner.

Robinson, whose wife submitted the photo of their lawn behind his back, previously won the competition for the month of June. This automatically entered him into the national contest at the end of the year, where he also took home frst place.

Jonathan Green, a national supplier of grass seed and lawn care products, holds a monthly contest from April to October where people around the country submit photos of lawns grown using their products. The seven monthly winners are then entered into a year-end competition for the best Jonathan Green lawn.

“Over the thousands of pictures that come in Mr. Robinson won,” said Anthony Langlois, territory sales manager for Jonathan Green. “I think he could be very proud of his lawn, and the picture is beautiful.”

The prize for the monthly contest was $50 to be used to buy Jonathan Green products at Hicks Nurseries, the local retailer and the place where Robinson bought all the supplies to perfect his lawn. The prize for the national competition is a $500 gift card to Hicks and free fertilizer for a year.

Robinson said that his lawn hadn’t always been so photogenic.

“I did have a landscaper, but I had the worst lawn ” he said. “He was cutting weeds and dirt.”

When the pandemic shut down all other activities, Robinson decided to focus on improving his grass.

“I told my wife when I woke up one morn- ing. I said: ‘I got the biggest project. I want to do it and I want to do it right,’” he explained. After hearing about Jonathan Green products from someone at DeLea Sod Farm, he went to Hicks Nurseries and asked for help.

Documentary of local killer premieres on A&E

BY BRANDON DUFFY

A two-part documentary focused on Richard Cottingham, a New Jersey man known as the “Torso Killer” who murdered multiple North Shore women, premiered on A&E networks Thursday night.

The 76-year-old, who is currently serving multiple life sentences at the South Woods Estate Prison in Bridgeton, N.J., for previous murder convictions in New York and New Jersey, admitted in December to killing four additional women in Nassau County in the 1970s.

“The Torso Killer Confessions” dives into the work of Detective Robert Anzilotti of the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Ofce in New Jersey over multiple decades as he tries to crack the cold cases linked to Cottingham’s crimes.

“The special goes behind the scenes, exploring the relationship between the two men, and how that relationship culminated in Cottingham’s recent headline-making confessions,”

A&E says of the program on its website. “Through in-depth interviews with Anzilotti, neverbefore-heard audio tapes of the men’s conversations, intimate exclusive footage, and multiple confessions from Cottingham, the special is a rare look into an unrelenting journey for the truth against the odds.”

Diane Cusick, a 23-year-old mother, was a resident of New Hyde Park and an instructor at an Oceanside-based dancing school when she told her family she was going to the Valley

“I came in here and I said, ‘Guys, I’m starting this from scratch, step by step, tell me what to do,’” Robinson said.

With the help and advice from employees at Hicks Nurseries, Robinson’s lawn began to grow and thrive.

“I was ecstatic. I saw all the green stuf. I saw it bloom and all that, and I said to myself, ‘Oh my god, it’s so good,’” Robinson said. “I didn’t want to buy sod because I fgured this is a project I needed to do myself.”

Robinson said that his grass grew so thick and green that his neighbors started wondering if it was fake.

Langlois was impressed with Robinson’s commitment to the project.

“I’m very pleased to say that talking to him this morning he told me that he actually did everything: put the lawn in with the instructions of the people here at Hicks Nurseries, and he did everything on his own,” he said.

He also explained that Jonathan Green, a sixth-generation family business, focuses on quality over quantity when selling their grass seed.

“We’re not the largest seed company, but I have to say, I think we’re the best seed company,” Langlois said. “Because we don’t sell any in the national chain stores or the larger stores, we can keep a handle on quality and we only sell to the independents like Hicks.”

He also said that they believe customers will get better advice from local, independent stores – guidance which certainly proved useful to Robinson.

Robinson emphasized that growing an award-winning law wasn’t easy. It took lots of care and attention.

“It’s hard to maintain but if you moisten it –and just like your body, it needs vitamins – it’ll grow,” he said.