By Charly SHELTON

The Montrose Shopping Park Association held its monthly meeting last Thursday to address issues that affect all businesses and patrons of the shopping park. Among the topics were the board’s confirmed plans for the annual White Friday celebration as well as details surrounding Oktoberfest taking place on Oct. 3. Landscaping throughout the shopping park was a topic of much debate and discussion, with representatives from the City of Glendale including Glendale City Councilman Vartan Gharpetian in attendance.

The drought affects landscaping more than anything else as the outdoor watering is the first curtailment of mandatory water conservation. In lieu of having brown grass from lack of watering, the smaller plants and grasses were taken out of the shopping park and replaced with drought tolerant flora. But even the drought tolerant plants are succumbing in the current 100-degree temperatures and excessive heat.

“[With a new planting,] I do always anticipate some plant loss,” said Koko Panossian with Glendale Public Works. “Some of the plants, the quality when they came in was not great, so there were some issues we had with original quality. And then it was really hot right after we planted. I have my irrigation guys here pretty much every day monitoring the system and watering it daily.”

This watering, Panossian said, is still mindful of the drought. Each of the 230 plants are watered at a rate of one gallon per hour, which is much less than the water it would take to irrigate the original grass that was in place.

Some residents came to the meeting to address the board and representatives of the City on watering issues, with opinions on the impact the upcoming El Niño rains will have and the steps to be taken moving forward. One suggestion came from concerned attendee Rose Coghlin regarding the empty dirt and mulch planter areas.

“[That area can potentially be concreted over] so that people can park their bikes there,” Coglan said. “Because eventually you’re going to wind up with a lot more bike travel. This idea of holding onto every dirt hole I think that [the board] needs to look at the overall scheme again and see whether or not they even want to have that much landscape.”

The plan going forward is to replace the plants that are ailing or dead, getting them in place before Oktoberfest. The decision of whether or not to go back to turf will be made at a later date when drought conditions improve.

For more information from the Montrose Shopping Park Association, pick up their newsletter in boxes along Honolulu Avenue or visit shopmontrose.com.

  Charly Shelton