By Louise Caudle, Chair

 

The Landscape Committee contracted to have several “clean-up” projects done in October.

 

The projects included:

• Ernesto with North Carolina Landscaping cut the dead limbs out of trees along the brown fences that line Cherob Lane near the main entrance to improve the appearance of those trees.

• Boyco mowed the nature trails on both the meadow side and the pond side of Cherob near the main entrance to our neighborhood. In discussions with Boyco, we timed this mowing so the trails would be in the best shape for people who walk them in the fall, winter and early spring, when the weather is generally nicer and there are fewer mosquitoes and snakes. In the spring, we will revisit the timing for mowing those areas during 2027.

• As they did earlier in the summer, Boyco mowed a few feet on either side of the access trails from Martry to the American Tobacco Trail, from the end of the Cherob cul-de-sac to the ATT, and along the first section of the Fenwick access trail, up to where it curves out of sight from the street.

• We hired Ross Landscaping to clear the weeds lying across the pavement and growing on and around the black fences at the far end of the Fenwick access trail, as was posted on Slack. Ross was able to deliver a quick turnaround to complete the cleanup within days of providing an estimate for doing the work.
   

As has been mentioned several times previously, Boyco plans to aerate all the grass in the neighborhood around the same time they did last year, which was early November. Several people have asked why Boyco does the aeration in November.

 

The first reason is Boyco could not aerate the grass in the new section of the neighborhood until the sod had had time to become established in 2025, so they aerated both the original and new sections of the community at the same time last November to keep the whole neighborhood on the same timeline.

 

The second reason is Boyco prefers aerating Bermuda grass at any point from November through February prior to when they apply pre-emergent in late February/early March. Boyco does not want to aerate after they put down the pre-emergent because the aerator prongs will compromise the weed barrier established by the pre-emergent and allow weeds to grow during the growing season.

 

Installation of the drip irrigation system at the pavilion has taken much longer than we were told originally. According to the irrigation company, the inspections by the city and getting the meter set caused the delay. When the project is finally completed, the irrigation company will schedule a walkthrough to show us what has been done, tell us what needs to be done going forward and hand over a manual for use by future volunteers overseeing the system. We hope the project will be completed by the time this report is published.

 

And lastly, we are pleased the marker at the Fenwick entrance to the neighborhood is finally in place! You may have noticed lines on the ground around the sign. Those are part of our planning for installation of trees and plants around the marker. We are in the process of finishing that plan and asking several landscapers to provide estimates to help with soil preparation, planting the trees and larger shrubs, and putting down sod around the landscaped area.

 

As a reminder, all landscaping issues and concerns should be addressed to hoa@wmdouglas.com.

 

Special thanks to the dedicated, hardworking volunteers who serve on the Landscape Committee with me:  Debbie Bell, Kathleen Cirillo, MaryKay Doane, Leigh Garmhausen and Bob Williams.