By Louise Caudle, Chair

 

As announced at the Courtyards at Southpoint homeowners association annual meeting Nov. 3, homeowners in our community voted overwhelmingly for the HOA to provide premium hardwood mulch instead of pine straw for areas maintained by the HOA on individual lots and for most of the common areas throughout our neighborhood.   

 

The premium hardwood mulch will be refreshed every two years versus the annual refresh of pine straw that has been done in previous years. This is because the hardwood mulch costs more but maintains a nice appearance for much longer than pine straw.

 

For homeowners who currently have pine straw mulch, the premium hardwood mulch will be spread on top of that pine straw unless the homeowner rakes up the pine straw in advance.

 

For those who have hardwood mulch and have recently refreshed it, the Boyco landscaping crews will refresh the hardwood mulch if needed.

 

We want to remind everyone the HOA is not responsible for landscaping beds that homeowners installed within fenced-in areas, along the sides of homes that have only one front decorative fence and along the backs of homes. Homeowners are fully responsible for maintaining those areas, including refreshing the mulch.

 

To answer a frequent question: If there is only a front decorative fence — and no fence at the back — between your house and your neighbor’s house, or if there are no fences between your house and your neighbor’s house, and if the homeowners have not landscaped along the sides of their individual homes, then the HOA will spread the premium hardwood mulch between those two homes.

 

Four homes have opted out of HOA-supplied mulch and will continue to maintain and refresh their own pine bark mulch. The 15 neighbors who voted for pine straw on the HOA survey received the option to opt out of the premium hardwood mulch and to assume responsibility for maintaining and refreshing pine straw at their homes. None of those neighbors has elected that pine straw option. 

 

Boyco expects to be able to spread the premium hardwood mulch in late December or early January. The Landscaping Committee has asked Boyco to provide those work dates in advance so that we can notify homeowners via Slack.

 

When Boyco comes to spread the premium hardwood mulch on individual lots in areas maintained by the HOA, workers also will spread the hardwood mulch in the common areas throughout our neighborhood with a few exceptions. Pine straw will be used on the berms behind some of the homes on Fenwick Parkway and on the berms behind some of the homes at the cul-de-sac end of Cherob Lane. They also will spread pine straw mulch on any other common area that slopes sharply downhill because pine straw does not wash as easily as hardwood mulch on inclines.

 

If you have any questions about the mulch project, please send them to the landscaping email address.

 

Landscaping Committee members are Debbie Bell, Kathleen Cirillo, MaryKay Doane, Leigh Garmhausen and Bob Williams, with me as chair.