JUNE AHNA MEMBERSHIP MEETING
Tuesday June 17 at 6:30pm
3855 Tulsa Way at Crestline Rd.
Fort Worth Firefighters Hall
This meeting is open to anyone who wants to come. Come one, come all!
Neighborhood Patrol Officer Andy Morquecho will give the monthly neighborhood crime report.
GUEST SPEAKER: GAGE YAGER. CEO OF TRINITY HABITAT FOR HUMANITY
Gage is celebrating his 25th year as the CEO of Trinity Habitat for Humanity.
A longtime Arlington Heights resident, Gage will share the highlights of his Habitat career
in an inspiring power point presentation about his adventures building homes for those who need them most.
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FREE OUTDOOR DANCE CONCERTS
The Shops at Clearfork are hosting Ballet Concerto’s free outdoor Summer Dance Concerts starting this coming Thursday June 19 through Sunday June 22. Curtain goes up at 8:30 p.m. each night on the lawn at 5188 Monahans Avenue.
Lawn seating is free–bring a blanket and a picnic. Reserved tables are available by advance purchase. Go to balletconcerto.com for reserved seating tickets.
This year’s concert will be the last for retiring guest
choreographer and Spanish dance master Luis Montero
who will present his acclaimed Bolero,
first staged for the 1990 Summer Dance Concert.
Another program highlight will be Jazz Swing
choreographed by the late Fernando Bujones and
staged by Ballet Concerto Artistic Director Webster Dean.
This is the 43rd year for Ballet Concerto’s annual summer concerts. Margo Dean, one of the most beloved ballerinas and local cultural icon, founded the non-profit Ballet Concerto in 1969. Her son Webster, after an international performing career, began teaching at their Arlington Heights landmark ballet school on Camp Bowie Boulevard in 1991 and in 2023 he was named the Artistic Director.
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JUNE YARD OF THE MONTH
The terraced retaining walls at 3804 Dexter Avenue
create dramatic staging opportunities for this month’s Yard of the Month.
As soon as Dona Verschelden bought her home on Dexter Avenue in 2015, she realized she was going to have to do something about the front yard which was essentially just a steep hill. “I knew I would never be able to grow anything there unless I terraced the yard,” Dona remembers. “So, I hired a landscape architect to work with me on the design and install.”
Dona wanted “something different” and didn’t want to copy her next door neighbors Renee and Jerry Boydstun (past AHNA Yard of the Month winners) who had already terraced their front yard. Dona wanted to keep it natural with all Texas natives, drip irrigation, and long terraced beds.
The bottom level of the three terraces feature sculpted yaupon hollies. Next level up is dominated by Russian sage with flowering Anthony Waterer spirea, artemisia and red salvia.
Hovering above are Texas sage, nandina and miniature grasses. At ground level with the house are more yaupons, crepe myrtles, and even a few patches of grass. On the east side is an enormous cedar tree that Dona planted ten years ago. “It grows like a weed,” according to Dona. “I have to have it trimmed every year.”
By the front door, Dona always fills a large pot with clematis and places a yucca as the centerpiece. “I do the same thing every year.” Up against the house is a bed of purple hearts which are the only thing Dona has kept from the original landscape. “They don’t die,” she has learned firsthand.
Dona uses Miracle Gro as a general fertilizer. For her indoor plants and newly planted outdoor plants she used Schultz Plant Food Plus that calls for just 7 drops in a gallon of water.
Her work as a technical consultant keeps her days busy, but not too busy for her daughter and three grandkids who live two blocks away. “That’s why I moved to Arlington Heights and I love it!”
Congratulations to Dona for being selected as AHNA’s June Yard of the Month. She received a $25 gift certificate to Archie’s Gardenland and a year’s membership in Arlington Heights Neighborhood Association, courtesy of AHNA.
We love getting the addresses of your favorite yards. If you see a yard you’d like to nominate for this award, please send the address to AHNA President Lori Murray Bosken at president@arlingtonheightsna.com. Thanks to those of you who have sent in nominations. They’ve all been entered into the competition.
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IRV ON THE LOOSE
Arlington Heights is known for its diverse community
which sometimes extends to the animal kingdom.
Imagine the shock of running head on into a giant tortoise munching away on the grass in your neighbor’s front yard. Unbeknownst to many nearby neighbors, Irv has been living in the backyard of an Arlington Heights home for the past nine years. Occasionally, he escapes out of the fence, but never for too long or too far.
His long journey to Fort Worth began thirteen years ago on a West Virginia golf course where he was rescued by his current owner. While still a toddler, Irv and his new family moved to Arlington Heights in 2016 where Irv’s been in the backyard ever since. As pets go, Irv is relatively low maintenance. He survives on the backyard grass and plants there–no pesticides allowed. Big advantage: the backyard never needs mowing. During extreme cold spells, Irv retreats to his bed in the garage. Otherwise, he’s content to confine his roaming to his Arlington Heights backyard 24/7.
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MAY MEMBERSHIP MEETING THIS TUESDAY
Please join us for the monthly membership meeting this coming Tuesday – everyone is always welcome.
Tuesday May 20 at 6:30pm
Fort Worth Firefighters Hall
3855 Tulsa Way at Crestline Rd.
GUEST SPEAKER: BUD KENNEDY. One of Fort Worth’s most prolific and enduring journalists, Bud has spent more than fifty years writing for Texas newspapers. He’s called the Fort Worth Star Telegram home since 1981 where he’s published his Eats Beat food column for decades, as well as serving as a news and opinion columnist.
A Fort Worth Westsider through and through, Bud’s presentation this evening will be “Ask Bud Anything About Food and Politics.” Bring Bud the Fort Worth questions that haunt you—if Bud doesn’t know the answer, no one does.
As always, our meetings are BYOB, so feel free to bring the beverage of your choice. And bring enough to share with Bud.
BIRDING EVENT BY AUDUBON SOCIETY AT BOTANIC GARDEN
If you’d like to know more about local birds, mark your calendars for Saturday May 24 at Fort Worth Botanic Garden. A special one-time guided walk through the Garden begins at 8:00 a.m. until 9:30 a.m. Learn how to identify birds both visually and by sound. Leading the group is Arlington Heights’ own Tom Haase who is a longtime member of the Fort Worth Audubon Society and a North Central Texas Master Birder.
For more information: FWBG Audubon
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MAY YARD OF THE MONTH
This month’s winning yard has evolved over more than
thirty years under the stewardship of Ann and Billy Wilson.
Many of the plants have been gifts and trades with friends and neighbors.
The 1939 vintage red brick house at 4405 El Campo Avenue was in solid shape when Ann Wilson bought it in 1994. But, the front yard was not. It was mostly weeds with a little bit of Bermuda and St. Augustine grass. There were no trees, just a few nandinas, crepe myrtles, monkey grass, a boxwood, old fashioned thrift, iris, with a large holly bush on the west side of the yard.
A few years after settling in, Ann planted a red oak tree that today commands the west side of the upper front yard. “It was a very small 1-inch caliper tree,” she remembers. Soon after, she took advantage of a program Arlington Heights Neighborhood Association participated in with the Fort Worth Water Department to re-populate neighborhood parkways with free trees. Ann picked a Chinese pistache and another red oak, both 2-3- foot saplings. Neighborhood volunteers planted them for her. Twenty-five years later, “the yard used to be all sun, but now I have a lot of shade,” she says.
Over the years, Ann has created additional plant beds, including one with fall asters and some parsley and basil mixed in. “I just stick it where I think it’ll make it,” explains Ann.
Coneflowers, a gift from the next door neighbor, dominate the east side the yard. Ruellia and daisies were a gift from neighbor Kahani Mahelona (a former Yard of the Month winner) who Ann credits as her guiding light for all of her yard decisions.
While most of the plants in her yard are perennials, she adds a few annuals every year for color, like coleus and impatiens.
The parkway was originally all grass, but Ann started planting things there, including three kinds of sage, daylilies, paper whites, rock roses, oxblood lilies, hardy amaryllis, and even some chives. In the middle of the Gregg’s mistflowers, there is a striking maroon daylily, a gift from a friend in Georgia who creates new varieties of daylilies.
Husband Billy, a retired aerospace engineer, joined Ann’s team in 2001, taking over the mowing and edging. Under Ann’s direction, he is the chief digger.
Two years ago, Ann and Billy decided to add the red brick retaining wall by the front sidewalk. “The yard sloped down so much that it was hard to mow and it was hard to keep grass growing there because all the water flowed downward,” explains Ann.
A retired educator, Ann gardens organically and fertilizes by sprinkling dried molasses and red lava sand around the yard occasionally. “I always add a handful of the sand when I’m digging a hole for a new plant,” she says. She also uses corn gluten meal to nourish the soil and to keep the weeds down.
As the May Yard of the Month winners, Ann and Billy received a $25 gift certificate to Archie’s Gardenland and a year’s membership in Arlington Heights Neighborhood Association, courtesy of AHNA.
If you see an award-worthy yard, even your own, please let us know by sending the address to president@arlingtonheightsna.com.
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