Nelson Avenue Gang

The City is hosting a build-your-own rain barrel event on Saturday, July 12 from 9:30-11:30 at Francis Hammond Middle School, 4646 Seminary Drive.

Rain barrels conserve water and could lower your quarterly bill if you usually water your lawn. They help *prevent basement flooding,* reduce stormwater issues, protect the Chesapeake from pollution/runoff, and lots of other wonderful things I’m not smart enough to know about. Rainwater is also GREAT for plants (including houseplants, which thrive in the stuff). We have some *great* looking rain barrels on Nelson Ave. (which you can peek at if you stroll down the alley behind the Giant).

Registration is required. To register online, it’s $52 at arlingtonenvironment.org/barrel.htm. You can also send a check (info at the website), but your spot isn’t guaranteed until they cash it. They’re also selling ready-made barrels.

For more information about the Rain Barrel Workshops, call Jesse Maines, Office of Environmental Quality, Department of Transportation and Environmental Services, at 703.519.3400, ext. 166.

Announcement:

WHAT: ADAM PRESENTS

A Bus Tour of New York Avenue Metro Station in Washington DC, and of the future site of Potomac Yard Metro Station in Alexandria

WHERE: Place of Departure To Be Determined

WHEN: Saturday June 28, 9am to 12 noon

SPEAKER AND GUIDE:

John Thomas, Director of Major Capital Projects

Washington Metropolitan Transportation Authority

Mr. Thomas was one of the speakers at the May 27 meeting on the Feasibility of a Potomac Yard Station, hosted by ADAM, Coalition for Smarter Growth, and Del Ray Citizens Association.

Space is limited! Please reserve early by emailing info@alexmetros.org.

Reservations will be honored in the order received. A bus provided by WMATA will take attendees to both sites. Instructions on where and when to meet on June 28 will be emailed to confirmed attendees. ADAM requests a donation of $10 to enable us to continue bringing you interesting programs.

For further information, contact ADAM at info@alexmetros.org.

OK, not real high drama but we had yet another solicitor this evening on our block. I asked to see his permit and although he claimed to have one, he was unable to produce said permit. Since he was rude to me I called Alexandria’s finest (using the non-emergency number of 703 838 4444) and they sent not one but two cars within only a few minutes. I don’t know if they caught the guy or not but I’m sure he won’t be back.

This latest miscreant claims to be a representative of a group called “Environment Virginia” - I’ll contact them tomorrow to explain how we don’t want solicitors and that the man claiming to represent them was quite rude. I took pictures of him and they’re kind of funny. Take a look:

For the record, we here at NAG maintain a list of organizations we do not like because they send solicitors and leave trash on our porches. This list is here.

Yes, we’ve got trees but the contractors who planted them didn’t do a very good job of it. In fact, you might say the way they planted the trees is a case study in how NOT to plant trees.

For the most part, they did not dig the holes deep enough. They also made “volcanoes” of mulch around the trees - another big no-no. But the biggest sin committed by them is that they did not give each tree a good, heavy drink right after planting them.

Trees get stressed when they are moved. The best time to move/plant a tree is in January or February when they are dormant but they can be moved/planted most any time of the year if proper care is taken. When our trees were planted the root balls were no doubt dry (if wet they would have been heavier and no one wants to lift a heavy, wet root ball) and they should have been given a long soak right after planting. As you all can probably tell, most of our trees look stressed and not so happy right now.

I went out last night and worked with a few of you to get water to all of the trees (thanks for your help!) and that should be good for a few days. Some people are already watering their trees and that is great. For those who may not know, the best way to water a tree, especially a newly planted tree, is a deep, long watering once or twice a week. A gallon here or there is not as good as a long soaking of 20-30 gallons. This gets water deeper down and helps the roots grow into the surrounding soil. It also mimics natural rainfall - a light sprinkle doesn’t happen as much as a longer sustained rain.

So, if you can, please water your tree really well once or twice a week. I’ll work with the city to see if we can get those water bags they put around trees to help with this.

Thanks,

EZ

It would be hard to miss all the new trees on our little block. Today the city planted about a dozen (I’m not sure of the exact number yet) trees on our block. This has been a long time coming - I’ve been working on this since February - but there is still more to come. The entire project involves removal of a bunch of stumps and about another dozen trees to be planted. Here’s hoping they do both soon. If you want to help speed up the process, call or email the city arborist - John Noelle at John.Noelle@alexandriava.gov or 703 838 4999.

We’ve ALL thought about it, we’ve even talked about it to each other once and a while. Well, here is a post for us to discuss/plan a block party!

In meeting neighbors for my little tree project, a lot of people have expressed enthusiasm for a block party. So what are we waiting for? Discuss below…

Just wanted to let you all know that we should be getting 21 to 23 new trees on the 500 block of Nelson Ave. soon!

I’ve completed the tree survey and worked with John Noelle, the city arborist to finalize the list. The next steps are for John to get the stumps removed and I am getting signatures from the lucky people who will be getting new trees. Once we have the stumps removed and signed forms, new trees will be planted by a contractor to the city (a contractor also will remove the stumps).

I am hoping that within a month or two this little project will be completed but you know how slow things can be when working with government…

Do you want to get involved? Let me know (EZ) by posting a comment.

~EZ

This post is slightly off-topic as it doesn’t have a lot to do with Nelson Ave. or the neighborhood. However, there are a lot of eco-friendly people on our block and I bet some are wondering the same thing I am: what to do with those “eco-friendly” produce bags from Harris Teeter?

Our local Harris Teeter stores, where I shop occasionally, offers “100% degradable” plastic produce bags. I buy a lot of lettuce, and I have eco-guilt: in other words, what the heck is “100% degradable”? Aren’t these still going to a landfill?

The answer is yes, more or less. The produce manager at Potomac Yards’ Harris Teeter told me that the store accepts the bags back for recycling.

However, representatives from the bag manufacturer, Epi-Global, says that recycling is only appropriate for clean, pre-food bags. Once the bags have been sullied, it’s best to either compost them or toss. Like the corn plastic peanuts, they’ll break down in a regular (non industrial) compost environment, but it’s going to take awhile. My produce bag has been in the compost pile for about 4 months, but Epi-Global estimates it will take 3 years to disintegrate. There is a cool photo on their site, epi-global.com, that shows a bag disintegrating in two weeks. Don’t be fooled, this is a best-best-case scenario.

Biodegradable plastics are better than regular plastics, of course, because they will eventually return to CO2, water and biomass. Still, this inquiry didn’t satisfy me. Does anyone have a better idea of how to stop all the produce bags? Also–if you have a better way of getting restaurants to stop using polystyrene leftover containers, and it doesn’t involve hauling your own Tupperware to a nice restaurant, please let me know.

–Rebecca, 529

In February, the city of Alexandria acquired the parcel on the corner of Commonwealth and E. Del Ray Aves., 1 & 7 E. Del Ray, for a then-undisclosed amount. The site had been on the city’s pocket park acquisition for some time, and will eventually become an improved passive-use site open to all.

At the time, the combined assessed value for the parcels was about $520,000 on the city’s Parcel Viewer. (You can check it out on alexandriava.gov.) I checked this morning and it looks like the above figure, $628,778 is the combined value of both properties, which seems a likely figure the city would have paid. Of course, I have not called to verify this information with Parks & Recreation or Real Estate Assessment, but I think the number is reliable.

Hi everyone! I just wanted to introduce you to FireStar- it’s FireFlies new music “contest” on Tuesday nights, beginning April 1st. Basically, several bands will play on Tuesday night to compete for the chance to play on Thursday. Customers will be able to vote for their favorite band. The band with the highest number of votes will be invited back for a full gig on Thursday night. All music will be from 6pm-9pm.
It should be a lot of fun!

I hope to see my fellow Nelson Avenue-ers there!!
Marylisa