Hosta Video

Hosta is almost the perfect plant for gardens in our area.
This video will give you the basic information on planting and caring for your hosta

An Old Video for a New Year

This video was made about four years ago. It was one of the first videos that I made for the Beautification Committee. Since then, You Tube and my ability to make videos has improved a great deal, but it is this video that has remained the most popular of all our many videos posted on our You Tube page. The video was picked up by  an online magazine , and has over 40,000 views, and pages of comments. It has brought a lot of traffic to our sites from around the world, and added many new subscribers to our video pages.
I am posting it again, for those of you that might have missed it the first time around, it has not been seen on this site for about four years.
I hope you enjoy this look back at our old movies.

A Gardener's Year, Four Seasons with the Beautification Committee

A video of Beautification Committee member's favorite photos of their home and public gardens.
All the photos were taken in New London.

The Bump Out in Bloom

Beautification Committee member, Diane Smith, took these great photos of the Bently Bump Out, this past week.
Diane planned and planted much of this garden. She did replace the beach roses with "Knock Out Roses" for a season of continuous bloom This garden requires little care and little watering.
See the post below for the past history of the Bump Out. It is fun to see how a garden was started and how much it has filled in in the past three years.

WHAT IS A BUMP OUT?

In every city and town, you can drive around and find strange little forgotten spaces that have become eye-sores. We hardly notice them as we pass by, sometimes they are so overgrown that we have forgotten what they are or why they were made. Once you start to notice these spaces, they are hard to ignore.

Thus we arrive at what the Beautification Committee calls The Bently Bump Out [for lack of knowing what else to call such a weird little construction]. We were all in agreement that it was a mess, and this week we have finished redoing the whole thing. See above video.
A special thanks to Jim and Lisa Pettey for all your work on this project, truly heroic.

Is there a space that you have noticed, around the city, that you think needs attention? Perhaps you are just wondering how it got to be there. Take a few photos and email them to us [upper left hand column], or leave a message below in comments. Maybe we can help.

Seven Million Bulbs - A Video

 Tita Williams, co- president and member of the Beautification Committee made this video after returning from Holland just last week. It is a wonderful treat to see a display of bulbs like this, and to see Tita's skill as a photographer. This video is a great way to see how different bulbs can be planted together, and how color layouts can work. Thanks Tita.

Color in the garden - Painting tips

Paint some blue skies, paint some faded clay pots, paint a worn out fence, nothing gives you more value for the money then a can of paint.

A video from D.U.G.

  I am the member of the New London Beautification Committee who runs this blog, but I also have my own garden blog called  Diary of an Urban Gardener, where I post videos about my own gardens and garden projects.
At our most recent Beautification Committee meeting, the members had a long discussion on how to reach out to the public and get people involved in gardening both public and private. Members came up with some great ideas, which we plan to implement in the next year.
One idea that was easy to do right away, was to post more how- to projects on our committee blog.
The above video is the first video I made for D.U.G. and talks about planning your future garden, mostly on your computer. This is a great time of the year to dream about a new garden, or a new project for an existing garden, and when spring arrives, you will be ready to hit the ground running, so to speak.
In this video I do mention using a photo shop program, which are expensive to buy, but did you know that you can download a free program that does much of the same work. It is called Gimp, click here to go to the download page  
 I use this program all the time and find it is more intuitive and straight forward then programs that cost a great deal of money. So, get going, you have no excuses, you don't even have to go out in the snow. The Internet will provide you with the answers to any garden question you have, or email us, or leave a comment and we will answer your questions.

Three Years at Columbus Circle

There has been many changes made to this major traffic intersection in New London.
This video shows a time line for the past three years of improvements.

A Senior Center video

This is a quick video showing the improvements made at the Senior Center in the past year, by the Beautification Committee and by the New London Public Works Department. A nice job by all involved

Fall at the Old Town Mill

New Londoners sometimes forget about this wonderful place. While the mill itself is not always open, the grounds are. Children love this place and often ask to return. If you are looking for something to do with the family on the weekend, pack some juice boxes and head over to this historical site.  It is free. Your children will thank you and you will enjoy the peace and beauty of the place.

Time to go to the beach

Ocean Beach Park is one great reason to live in New London, so get your sunscreen out, grab a towel, and head for the beach, that many of us grew up on. Feel like a child again, meet your friends, eat ice cream and be happy!!!

Two Years at City Hall, a video

A short video showing the installation of the new sidewalks and garden, in the back of City Hall, last summer.

A Visit to Enders Island

A last look at our past summer. Beautification Committee member Sue Davis visited Enders Island in Mystic, in the height of the summer season, and took all the beautiful photos for this video. Thanks Sue for sharing this wonderful place with us.

Make some new memories at Ocean Beach Park - A new video

The first day of summer is almost here! Let us hope the rain clears out and we can enjoy some of the fine things the beach has to offer.
The Beautification Committee has been working hard to have our largest garden site, the Hillside Garden, planted and ready to go. We have added a new stone bench this year.
Hope to see you all at the beach!!

Speaking of the good old days, A New London blog,
Don't Shoot the Messenger, click to go.
has a cool video of a 1908 rescue off the pier in New London, well worth seeing.

Making a Dry Creek Bed Garden

BELOW ARE SOME HELPFUL INSTRUCTIONS IF YOU ARE THINKING ABOUT INSTALLING A FEATURE LIKE THIS.
First plan the course that the dry creek bed will take down the slope. Mark the 2 edges of that course with landscaper's paint. A meandering course looks more natural than a straight course. How high up the slope should you start? In some cases, there's little choice. For instance, if a landscape drainage pipe that's already in place is dumping all that excess water onto your property, your decision is clear-cut: begin the dry creek bed right under that pipe....

But in cases where you have more leeway (especially for dry creek beds that are purely decorative), attempt to disguise the "headwaters" of the dry creek bed by making it bend out from behind a large boulder or some plant material. When the source of a stream is mysterious, viewers have to use their imagination. And what we construct with our hands is rarely as pleasing as what we construct with our minds!

We've talked about how high up the slope to start. But what about where to finish down below? Some homeowners redirect excess water toward the street. But it's best to contemplate a worst-case scenario when dealing with public property, because that means dealing with the government -- which can be a real stickler when it comes to issues like redirecting excess water. So check with your local public works department first. If their response is positive, get something in writing that says so....
What if you're not allowed to redirect the water to the street? Unless you already have a landscape drainage system in place (allowing you to route the runoff into that system), you have 2 main options. You could channel the water to a location on your land (but make sure it's your land, not a neighbor's!) where it's less troublesome and where, if the soil is sandy enough, it can percolate harmlessly down into the ground. A second option is to build a pond and funnel the water into it

So much for the course of a dry creek bed. What about its depth and width? These dimensions don't have to conform to any rule exactly. Look at dry creek beds in nature: they're obviously not all of the same depth and width. But there's a general rule you can follow: dry creek beds tend to be wider than they are deep, which is good news for you -- less digging! A 2:1 ratio is about right, meaning you could make the dry creek bed 3' wide x 1.5' deep, for example.
With the planning done, now it's time for the first real work in the project: the digging. It's easy to build dry creek beds for landscape drainage, provided that the soil you'll be excavating isn't strewn with roots and rocks. Those with difficult soil to excavate can take solace in the fact that excavating the dry creek bed will be the toughest part of the project!
Take the soil that you're excavating and mound it up along the sides of your dry creek bed, as you go. This will reduce the amount of digging that you have to do, since you'll be lowering the base and raising the sides in one motion. Tamp down this excavated soil with a tamping tool.
After the trench for the dry creek bed has been excavated, lay down landscape fabric along its whole length. You want the fabric to cover the mounds of earth on both sides, as well as the trench. Hold the fabric in place using fabric pins or garden staples. Now for the part of the project that will be visible to viewer's: the rock....

For projects intended to improve landscape drainage, all rocks need to be mortared into place to form a solid channel that will carry water away (for ornamental dry creek beds, this is optional -- and probably undesirable). Apply mortar only to short sections of the fabric at a time, since mortar dries quickly. Use at least 2" of mortar. Lay the rocks in the mortar, then repeat the process with the next short section. It's easier to work from the top of the slope, down.
You can use rock of various shapes and sizes, but many homeowners prefer to select more round rocks ("river rocks") than flat ones. Round rocks conjure up an image of the water that has been gushing over them, knocking them about and causing them to become round over time.
Place small river rocks in the center of the trench; the water will flow over these.
Place your larger rocks on the sides of the dry creek bed, where they'll help channel the water and where they'll have the most visual impact. Save any boulders for the biggest bends in your stream's course and to disguise the "headwaters" of the dry creek bed (as discussed above).
Tips:
After you build dry creek beds, you can dress them up a bit. Plants will soften the edges, for instance. If you're more ambitious, you can install a landscape bridge over the dry creek bed and plant tall ornamental grasses to serve as "bookends" at both entrances to the landscape bridge. Adorn the landscape bridge with hanging container gardens to create a knockout focal point for your yard
What You Need:
Landscaper's paint
Landscape fabric
Fabric pins or garden staples
River rocks and boulders
Mortar
Wheelbarrow for mixing the mortar
Tamping tool
Shovel

Our Summer Photo Album

Take a look back at the past summer season, with committee members, and some of their favorite photos.
It is a chance to see the members home gardens as well as some nice shots of the waterfront.
All of our members are great gardeners but we have some great photographers as well.
Pause for one last look at a summer that seemed to pass all to quickly.........
Now get out there and start raking.

A NEW LOOK AT CITY HALL

Have you noticed new splashes of color when passing New London City Hall? The magnificent architecture of this fine building was recently enhanced by the New London Beautification Committee. The addition of new planters is part of an ongoing collaboration to improve the appearance of this noble structure. The two planters at the front doors were donated to the City by the New London Garden Club. The other nine planters as well as all the plants and soil were purchased by Beautification. The installation of these concrete planters would not have been possible without the assistance of the Public Works Department. Special thanks go to Dave DeNoia from Parks for his cooperation and advice. Thanks also go to Bob Myers, Assistant to the Director of Public Works, Corey Elmore and Sean Porter from Parks, and Jim Petty, George Frankewicz, Matt Alloway, Don York, and Bill Barlow from the Buildings for their assistance. Beautification also thanks Brian Desautell from Center City District for doing such a fine job keeping all the downtown plants watered during the summer. It’s collaborations such as this that will continue to improve the appearance of downtown New London.Tita WilliamsNew LondonChair, New London Beautification Committee