Winners in a low-maintenance landscaping design contest will be showcased in tours July 22 and August 12, 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. In 2005 the Louisville Metro Air Pollution Control District held an EPA-sponsored design competition for residential properties. The winning designs incorporate low-maintenance landscapes that reduce the use of gasoline-powered lawn maintenance equipment. The tours are free, but tickets must be obtained in advance by calling (502) 574-5322 or by e-mailing lawncare@apcd.org.
Participants were asked to submit a design that would reduce gasoline maintenance, as one hour of mowing with a 4-cycle gasoline lawnmower produces as much smog-forming hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide as driving a typical car for almost 200 miles. Designs had to be adaptable to many urban residential settings, and use moderately priced plants—50% of which were to be native plants—which are hardy and drought-tolerant.
The competition categories included landscapes for sun, shade, mixed sun/shade, and a category for homeowners. Designs may be viewed at www.apcd.org/lawncare/design_contest/.
Posters of the low-maintenance designs will be available at the Louisville Metro Air Pollution Control District, 850 Barret Avenue, or by calling (502) 574-5322 while supplies last.

Governors Scholars come to Old Louisville

No, your calendars weren’t wrong. There was a cleanup going on in Central Park in July!
A group of students participating in the Governors Scholars Program at Bellarmine University were involved in different neighborhoods to complete a service learning requirement of the summer residency program.
Herb Fink of the OLNC Property Improvement Committee contacted members of the neighborhood to let them know of the program. Herb also made arrangements for additional assistance from Metro offices.
The Governors Scholars Program is a highly competitive program for high school students from across the Commonwealth to come together in a residential setting and immerse themselves in a course of study over the summer months.
On behalf of the residents of Old Louisville and those who frequent Central Park, thanks to Herb Fink for helping make this unique opportunity a reality in our neighborhood.
 

Kroger helps clean neighborhood

You may have noticed something missing from the sidewalks and alleys in Old Louisville and surrounding neighborhoods recently - grocery carts.
On May 15th, the Kroger at 2nd and Breckinridge activated its new electronic fencing system to keep those carts on the property. Thus far, the system has worked well. The new system causes wheels on the new carts to lock if they are taken beyond the boundaries of the property thus saving money in lost carts for the store and keeping visual eyesores off of private property throughout the neighborhood.
There are still some older carts out there. If you see any, please report them to the 2nd Street Kroger at 589-1025.
Additionally, Kroger has undergone many interior and exterior improvements under new store manager Lisa Kaiser. Many thanks to Ms. Kaiser and Regional Operations Manager Vance Blade for their efforts to improve the neighborhood we all call home.
Let’s hope that the recent resurgence in neighborhood housing interest, along with the downtown housing boom, will lead to expansion at that site soon!

Hidden Treasures Garden Tour a Success

  The 13th Annual “Hidden Treasures” Garden Tour was a great success! There was a near-record number of tourists and perhaps even set a record for the universality of its guests, who came from near and far, including visitors from China and Japan (who happened to be in Louisville for a conference). The silent auction was successful and will happen again next year. Mother Nature smiled as tourists enjoyed a relatively cool stroll through Old Louisville streets to reach the Toonerville Neighborhood, the site of the private gardens for the tour. Once again the tour revealed to visitors a glimpse of personal oaisis created by residents that otherwise would remain a secret.

Many thanks to the sponsors whose support make the tour unique and a welcoming experience that draws return visitors every year: Architectural Salvage; Bearwood Gardens/Kevin Kouba; The Conrad-Caldwell House Museum; the DuPont Mansion B & B; E. J. Printing; Ermin’s French Bakery & Café; The Gallery at 133, Oak St.; Gumby’s Garden Room & Catering; the Kling Center; Mary Martin, Semonin Realtors; Masterson’s Catering; Missy Murphy, Realtor; Nord’s Bakery on Preston; Oak Street Hardware/Lee Jones; the Old Louisville Information Center; the Old Louisville Coffeehouse; Plant Kingdom; Scheler’s Food Mart; Sweet Home/ Renovation Pros; Dr. Jeremy Thornewill, Family Medicine; Treyton Oak Towers; Metro Councilman George Unseld; and The Wine Market, Bardstown Rd.
This year’s tour featured an eclectic array of gardens. Nine of the eleven gardens had never been on the tour before, and those that had previously been featured had matured and/or expanded significantly. First Street provided the first, second and last gardens along the route. Steve Bourassa’s was the first of the private gardens to greet tourists with both visual and olfactory delights from the many varieties of Asian lilies blooming just in time for the garden tour. Next, beyond Noel Thompson’s and Sue House’s formally landscaped front garden, visitors encountered a more casual retreat, divided into different spaces, that provides the focal point for year-round entertainment of guests. At the end of the route, visitors discovered in Tom and Nancy Woodcock’s young but well-established garden an unusually large one by Old Louisville standards, anchored in the rear by a newly built carriage house that is a replica of the original.

The remaining gardens were located on S. Brook St. and E. Ormsby Ave. One truly hidden treasure discovered by the garden hunter was a charming cluster of four gardens at the corner of Brook and Ormsby. Here, the paved alley that acts as a line of delineation and yet unifies the individual elements of this garden enclave exists due to the collective efforts of Ray Alvey, the former residents of the other houses and Paul Chism, a resident of Brook St. Theresa and Ray Alvey’s garden, twenty-six years in the making, is larger than the others and offers vegetables as well as ornamental planting. But the three small hidden gardens of Rebecca and Bill Kessler, David Rogers and Jamie Wallace and Christi and Todd Ayers, although similar in size, inspired tourists with their considerable creativity and individuality. Great generosity was displayed by several of the garden tour hosts. Laurie and Bill Dailey of Brook St., newly arrived from Florida, enthusiastically opened their garden to this neighborhood effort and did some last-minute resuscitation of an abandoned pond as well as relandscaping. Irene Spicer, who also opened her home to the 2005 Holiday House Tour, further displayed her Old Louisville citizenship by offering her “moon garden” to the tour while she was deeply involved in the Presbyterian Women’s Conference.

The two “veteran” gardens on East Ormsby were both products of near-heroic efforts by owners Kevin Kouba, Rick Tabb & and W.S. Walston, Jr., of the 200 block, and Helga Ulrich, of the 100 block. Kevin, whose Bearwood Gardens had hardscaped the Kesslers’s garden a year ago, had worked closely with Helga on the expansion of the existing landscaping into the adjacent vacant lot on her property. Helga, whose house was also on the 2005 Holiday House Tour, agreed to join the garden tour, and despite breaking her foot in the spring, stayed on board with Kevin’s help. Kevin and Rick, the latter recovering from back surgery, put the last touches on their significantly modified garden, working up until the eleventh hour.

The garden tour will soon be displayed on film, thanks to the civic consciousness of David Rogers, whose company will produce a documentary available at the OLIC on VHS and DVD formats. The efforts of many Old Louisville residents and friends from outside the Old Louisville community went into making it the success that it was. Linda Ewen at OLIC handled the presales. Volunteers staffed the gardens, worked as “gophers,” sold tickets and served in the hospitality center. The LMPD provided a mounted patrol. Gayle and Herb Warren, in addition to sponsoring and hosting the Fourth Annual Art in the Garden feature, also hosted the wind-down party open to garden tour volunteers, sponsors and garden hosts. The garden tour planning committee extends its warmest thanks to all who participated in this community effort!

 

Ghost Tours Highlight Area’s Haunted History

The next full moon will see an increase in the number of ghouls and goblins on the streets of Old Louisville, a neighborhood that is fast gaining national recognition for its haunted history. So says Nore Ghibaudy, director of the Visitors Center in Historic Old Louisville since it opened last spring in the 200 block of West Oak Street. “Our ghost tours of Old Louisville have been so popular that we’ve decided to create specialty tours that capitalize on seasonal events and unique occurrences like the full moon,” he says. “What better way to explore the ghostly legends and stories associated with Louisville’s premier Victorian neighborhood than by the light of a full moon?” The monthly full moon ghost tours will visit many of the haunted hotspots mentioned in David Dominé’s first book, GHOSTS OF OLD LOUISVILLE: True Stories of Hauntings in America’s Largest Victorian Neighborhood, as well as some of those highlighted in his upcoming book, PHANTOMS OF OLD LOUISVILLE: Ghostly Tales from America’s Most Haunted Neighborhood. According to Dominé, who often guides the tours himself, popular stops on the chauffer-driven tour include a haunted orphanage on First Street and the steps of the magnificent First Church of Christ, Scientist on Third Street, where the sad phantom of a young woman who died in the Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1918 still waits for her fiancé years after he failed to show their planned elopement. The tour will also include a romantic walk through gas-lit Belgravia Court in the heart of Old Louisville to hear some of the district’s most chilling stories.

The Visitors Center in Historic Old Louisville at 218 West Oak Street will offer full moon ghost tours on Wednesday, August 9; Thursday, September 7; Saturday, October 7; Sunday, November 5; and Tuesday, December 5 this year. The tour will depart at 9:00 p.m. and will last roughly two hours. The price is $25.00 per person. The wildly popular “Ghost Tour of Old Louisville” still departs every Friday at 7:30 p.m. throughout the year. Those interested can call 502-637-2922 or go online at www.ghostsofoldlouisville.com. David Dominé can be reached at 502-718-2764 or davidram13@iglou.com.

Cooks Corner
Summer Salads

With temperatures in mid July hovering near 100 degrees, it was time to dive into dinners possible without turning on the oven! Scouring over the many cookbooks and clipped recipes cluttering my kitchen shelf, I stumbled upon some wonderful “old friends.”

A personal favorite of mine is an old chicken salad recipe my mother used to make for me when I was a little girl. Succulent chunks of chicken with diced celery, sliced red grapes, and barbeque almonds were combined with salad dressing and served on crisp lettuce leaves. This one is easy to do without turning on the oven if you grab a rotisserie chicken from the local grocery! Crusty bread and raspberry iced tea round out this special summer salad meal.
A second favorite is any version of the Cobb Salad. The inventive among you can probably lay out an incredible platter of this salad without turning on the oven or firing up a burner on the stove. It is possible to put together different “themed” Cobb salads, in addition to the more traditional salad. For instance, try laying out a bed of greens and topping them with rows of sliced, toasted almonds and pineapple chunks, crumbled bleu cheese, and shredded chicken. Use an Asian ginger bottled dressing for this one. It’s incredible!

You may like to try one with sliced Harvard beets, thinly shaved roast beef, grated carrots, chopped hard boiled eggs, goat cheese, and thinly sliced onions. This version is especially tasty served on a bed of baby spinach.
A third version is for the Italian lovers among us with fresh mozzarella cheese, wonderful sliced tomatoes, fresh basil, and your favorite Italian shaved ham served with nothing but olive oil and balsamic vinegar as a dressing and a great loaf of crusty bread! Artfully arranged on a platter, this meal is a feast for the eyes as well as the stomach. Given that we still have a good two months of hot weather remaining, avoid that beast of an oven in your kitchen and turn to the salad bowl…or in this case, the salad platter.
 

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