The HOA has faced a major challenge with the park strips in our community since inception. The struggle: in some areas plants have never thrived. We hope homeowners recognize the efforts of the Board over the past 5-10 years with renovation, planting, renovation, planting, in a seemingly endless loop. The good news is much of the replanting was done under warranty after the previous landscaper recognized their original work was not up to par. The bad news is the replanting effort was nonetheless unsuccessful. 

 

The Board discusses this dilemma at nearly every Board meeting. Over the years, they’ve come to the conclusion that the likely culprit for the plant failure is the trees. This is most obvious on Casablanca where nearly all the plant material has failed except for one location - where the Ash tree was removed the Myoporum ground cover is flourishing. It is with this information and knowledge that the Board is basing decisions on for correcting and improving the state of the park strips. 

 

Earlier this year, the trees along Carmen Way and Carmen Court were removed and replaced with Chinese Pistache. The Myoporum was monitored to see if it would rebound after the removal of larger trees. The hope was that the removal of the larger trees would decrease the competition for water and nutrients in the soil allowing the ground cover to flourish. Unfortunately the Myoporum has not recovered substantially. 

 

The Board approved the replanting of Carmen Way and Carmen Court with Carex grasses instead. Carex is a hardy, slow growing grass that typically doesn't need much supplemental nutrition to thrive. If successful, this process - tree removal and then replanting - will be repeated on Casablanca and then on other streets where trees seem to be impacting the success of the ground cover. 

 

The replanting of Carmen is scheduled to take place around the week of September 29. We appreciate your patience and efforts to not step on the new plant life as it gets established.