Litter Patrol

While hiking around some mountain trails surrounding Phoenix, I am sorely disappointed over the amount and type of litter strewn about. The view was spoiled by plastic bags, giant convenient store drink cups, plastic bottles, food containers, and too much broken glass. What surprise me is there are ample and visible large 55-gallon trashcans located a few yards away. Did the trash blow out of the secured cans or are some of the park’s visitors the type who also leave their grocery cart a few parking spots from the cart return?

A self-described neat freak, I grabbed the plastic bag stuck flapping in a bush and starting stuffing in as much litter as it would hold. I could have stayed there for hours filling several large trash bags. A young boy watched me and told his father, “I don’t understand why people still litter.” Me neither, kid.

As a member of Keep Smyrna Beautiful back in Georgia, I wished the quarterly Adopt-A-Mile volunteers were there with me. Armed with their handy pickers, we would have had that place cleaned up in no time. If each park visitor that day picked up just one thing, most of the litter could have been removed off the trail. It pains me to leave that park knowing more trash will eventually find its way back.

With the New Year ringing in I vow to carry my own litter patrol supplies wherever I travel. Be it locally around my own neighborhood or hiking other trails, I’ll have at the ready a plastic bag, gloves, reflective vest, and anti-bacterial wipes. Maybe I should have put on my Christmas list a personalized aluminum handy picker.

Bloom Where You’re Planted

The featured gardens on this year's Keep Smyrna Beautiful 2nd Annual Garden Tour are sure to inspire. Gain tips from local gardeners to create welcoming and eco-friendly spaces of your own. Tour a variety of unique settings highlighting native landscapes, wildlife sanctuaries, and creative water solutions.

Advance tickets are $10* at the Smyrna Community Center, the Smyrna Recycling Center, and at the following locations: 610 Burbank Hair Salon, Backyard Feed & Seed, Love Street Gifts, and Pie-In-The-Sky. Proceeds from the Garden Tour will benefit the new Community Garden.

*Tickets are $15 on the day of the tour, available at participating gardens and the Taylor Brawner House. For lunch only on May 15, ticket holders will receive a 30% off at Atkins Park and Shane’s Rib Shack, 25% off at Village Café, and a free yummy Savannah bar at Great Harvest Bread Company!

Feathered Friends
The tour showcases two certified wildlife sanctuaries with native shrubs, wildflowers, water features, and woodland shade providing refuge year round.

Humans and birds alike enjoy the Bennett Woods garden. Established with hundreds of species of native trees and berry bushes, this garden also includes hundreds of Jonquils, year round color, fountain, game lawn, and a custom built brick oven and smoker.

The Vinings Estates garden welcomes all winged creatures with native shrubs and a butterfly garden, wildflowers, waterfall, and a wooded path leading to a secluded sitting area.

Edible Landscape
Several fruit trees, as well as blueberries and grapevines, along with herbs and vegetables adorn this garden in the Queens Gate subdivision. A pond takes advantage of lawn drainage. A fire pit and two seating areas maximize this petite and functional yard.

Cottage Garden
A short walk from Smyrna’s Village Green in Williams Park, a local artist shares her indie garden with urban chickens. Heirloom vegetable beds are decorated with found objects and antique bricks. The sunny organic garden cycles back to nourish a flower-cutting garden and wildflowers.

Private Escape
Also in Williams Park, enter this garden through a metal arbor draped with fragrant vines into a tranquil setting. Evergreens and flowering shrubs naturally obscure mechanics of the pool area built to resemble a small pond with waterfalls. Use of the outdoor entertaining area extends beyond seasons with professional lighting and a mosquito system.

Small Space, Big Impact
Woodlawn Gates neighborhood packs our tour’s longest water feature, a Koi pond, and tons of rock. See how moisture from the AC unit resourcefully waters the vegetable garden. Low maintenance perennials, bulbs, trees, and bushes reduce water use.

Special Thanks to Our Sponsors: Bright Side, Downey Trees, Chick-Fil-A, Jack's New York Deli, Gina Bridges of Keller Williams Realty, Marietta Signs, Old South Bar-B-Q, City of Smyrna, Stone Forest, Tuxedo Pool Service, The Village Cafe. Visit their displays in our Tea Room at the Taylor Brawner House, featuring garden demos, plant sale, and light refreshments. And Thanks to the Friends of the Garden Tour: Chris & Teri Anulewicz, Atkins Park Tavern, Floral Creations Florist, Great Harvest Bread Company, Howard's Restaurant, Love Street Gifts, Stone Distributors, Joan Stuart, Vinings Mortgage.

For more information visit KSB's Facebook page.

Lights Out

The global initiative sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund, Earth Hour, encourages everyone to turn off their lights on Saturday, March 27 from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Light some candles and tune into your family while contemplating what little steps can be taken to reduce your household energy consumption.

Simple habits to adopt which reduce climate change can include turning off the lights in rooms when not in use, turning off water while brushing teeth, replacing energy hogging old appliances, turning down the thermostat, eliminating energy vampires by plugging appliances and electronics into power strips, switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL), recycling, composting, and carpooling. Buying locally grown and produced foods can also help reduce the amount of fuel needed to ship food from faraway growing areas such as South America. Every little effort counts.

While turning off your home's lights for a mere hour may seem minor, consider last year's event which involved hundreds of millions of participants worldwide. Four-thousand cities in 87 countries turned off their lights in 2009 and saved millions of dollars in energy bills while raising awareness. Vote with your light switch, join this year's Earth Hour. For more information visit www.myearthhour.org.

Arbor Day Dedication

A welcomed respite in the winter weather made a perfect day for a tree dedication. On cue, the sun shone warmly on the arboretum for Keep Smyrna Beautiful’s (KSB) annual Arbor Day Celebration. Ann Kirk, KSB Executive Director, and Pete Wood, Smyrna City Councilman, greeted families who gathered at the gazebo on the hill to honor loved ones with a tree dedication ceremony. In total, three native Georgia trees were hand selected for inclusion into the multi-acre area reserved behind the Smyrna Community Center.

A Swamp Chestnut Oak was dedicated to Gary Wehner for his work in founding and nurturing the arboretum over ten years ago. A Southern Sugar Maple and Buttonbush shrub, named for the tiny white button-shaped flowers that bloom in spring, were also dedicated to longtime Smyrna residents. Since the city’s first Arbor Day celebration in 1990, hundreds of trees and shrubs have been planted. The arboretum is almost full. The city’s long term goal to increase the tree canopy will ensure future dedications planned in other city areas.

Traditionally celebrated nationwide on the last Friday in April, Arbor Day in Georgia coincides with the best time to plant trees in the state. Visit the Arbor Day's website for more information and tree planting instructions.

An Education In Smart Reuse

Over a hundred dedicated teachers form a line outside the Cobb County School System warehouse on a chilly winter morning. Inside the cavernous stockroom a few dozen volunteers prepare donated materials for the Teachers Supply Store quarterly open house.

School budgets are getting tighter than normal. Teachers get creative and purchase supplemental teaching supplies with their own salaries. Local companies and manufacturers have overstock, outdated products and byproducts that don't belong in the landfill. The nonprofit organization provides a helpful solution to repurpose useful items, transforming them into free educational materials.

Items such as carpet samples, fabric swatches, rolls of colored paper, twine, containers, buckets, cardboard storage boxes, Styrofoam, bubble wrap, MDF (medium-density fiber board), spools, specimen cups, and wooden blocks are used for science or art projects or classroom displays. Local companies also donate bulk quantities of paper, books, binders, posters, plastic storage bins, ink toner cartridges, envelopes, folders, and furniture.

Educators show proof of employment (school I.D., paycheck, or letter from an administrator) to enter the open house. Home school teachers are also permitted with a letter of intent. Teachers come from nearby counties and can take whatever they can carry out. First timers bring tote bags or boxes while seasoned open-housers graduate to push carts, rolling extra large suitcases, or brand new trash cans on wheels.

Already overflowing landfills get a break. Companies find a better use for unwanted items. Teachers’ pocketbooks are spared while accessing helpful education materials. Students benefit by stretching their creative imagination.

Visit the Teachers Supply Store for more information, to donate items, and the date of the next quarterly open house.

Mobile Green Tips

Access green tips on the go. Get tips sent to your cellphone by texting GREENTIPS to 44636 (4INFO). A service brought to you by USA Today.

Closer to Home

This season's unusually frigid winter (dumping snow on 49 states) and the recent email admission from environmental scientist (dispelling the hype surrounding Global Warming) have some people reconsidering the importance of going green. If skepticism convinces us to forget about curbing greenhouse gas emissions, offsetting our carbon footprint, turning to more sustainable power, then maybe the new documentary Garbage: The Revolution Starts at Home, will bring the message closer to where we live.

If “seeing is believing” than filmmaker’s, Andrew Nisker, latest project should persuade Doubting Thomases that the issue of careless human consumption is a physically real problem after all. How much does one family consume and discard over a 3-month period is answered in eye-popping detail.

The family under scrutiny, Glen and Michele McDonald, agree to account for every piece of trash they create. Rather than haul away with the weekly garbage pickup, the McDonald’s trash quickly piles up in their garage. Nisker follows the trash cycle to expose the ugly truth of where our trash goes once it’s out of our sight. From kitchen scraps, bathroom waste, plastic water bottles and shopping bags, to the energy used to power Christmas lights and the fuel burned driving around town, viewers will begin to assess their own consumption and waste.

The social experiment and modern day archeological dig reveals what and how much our average society regularly uses and throws out. Without the unnecessary drama of witnessing a sea turtle choking on one of millions of plastic waste that ends up in the ocean, the visual magnitude of 3 months’ worth of household trash and where it eventually ends up should be enough to question our consuming behaviors. Thankfully the film is not available in Smell-O-Vision.

Show times on the Sundance Channel: Tuesday, February 23 (9 PM), Wednesday, February 24 (4:15 AM), and Sunday, February 28 (11 AM). The film is also available for purchase as an educational tool.