THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 18, 1994 TAG: 9409160214
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Town Talk
SOURCE: - Eric Feber and Patricia Huang
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
Congratulate Terry and Keith Atkins of Western Branch. Their yard is a winner.
Judges for the Chesapeake Environmental Improvement Council's ``Yard of the Month'' competition selected the Atkins' place as top yard for August. Yards are chosen by a panel of judges and the winner is given the council's award the following month after the competition is over.
This is the first time the competition has ever bestowed its monthly award to a townhouse yard.
``Both the landscaping and decorative accents were outstanding,'' Gail Connolly, chairperson of the Yard of the Month committee, said in a recent press release.
The yard has been meticulously landscaped, is easy to maintain and contains a hot tub, table and umbrella and grill for entertaining. Judges said the yard is embellished with ``tasteful decorations'' and features a ``romantic European ambience.''
The Atkins' yard contains more than 225 varieties of plants, including irises, lilies, wisteria, foxglove, roses, turtleheads, shrubbery and small trees.
But the thing that really won the judges over were the many ``historical'' plants and touches in the Atkins' yard.
Keith Atkins said the cobblestones surrounding the flowerbeds come from the streets of old Portsmouth, the rocks used in the walkway come from his grandparents' homestead and their childhood school, the irises are from his grandparents and great grandparents' home in Halifax, flowers have been transplanted from his father's Churchland home, the hitching post that stands in the front yard was saved from a scrapyard after being removed from downtown Norfolk.
The yard even contains remembrances of past vacations, including some Spanish moss from Charleston, S.C.
Atkins' wife said her husband even hides tiny plant name tags behind plants so that she can identify their names for people visiting the yard. Hold the anchovies
Traffic congestion has been a longtime headache in Chesapeake for the droves of tourists and vacationers headed south to the sandy beaches of the Outer Banks.
But it has also posed problems for area residents, who have found that they must wait for street lights to turn from red to green more than once before they can make that one turn onto Battlefield Boulevard. It means that even getting to the grocery store can take an eternity if you don't time it just right.
And if you've thought about forgetting the trip to the store and ordering in was a good alternative, you can thank our traffic woes for ruining that too. At least, don't expect any piping hot Pizza Hut pizzas to be delivered to your doorstep. That's the latest casualty to traffic jams, according to Pizza Hut, which says it will no longer be able to deliver to the Riverwalk, Wickford and Las Gaviotas neighborhoods.
``. . . We are unable to meet this high standard due to traffic congestion and growth in the area,'' wrote Brent Jarvis, a Pizza Hut manager, in a letter to residents of that area.
Oh, well. At least the mailman still delivers. by CNB