LACONIA — The grass is not greener along Lafayette Street, and if you talk to residents, they will be quick to tell you it’s not even grass at all.
Twenty-eight residents who live along the half-mile dead end street signed a petition expressing their disapproval about various aspects of the water and sewer line replacement project which took place last year. But what particularly upsets them, these many months later, is the appearance of the sublawns, the green buffer strip between the street and the sidewalks.
“We have been ignored and taken advantage of,” said Marie Bradley, one of the residents who presented the petition to the City Council on July 26.
Bradley said that soil which was put down after the project was finished was of poor quality as was the slurry of grass seed and mulch that was sprayed.
After two applications of the hydroseed, what is growing in the sublawns is a mix of crabgrass and weeds.
Bradley feels that not only have she and her neighbors been slighted, but the city has also been short-charged.
“I just want to see the city get its money’s worth,” she said on Wednesday as she showed a the scrub growth to a visitor.
They say the sublawns looked fine before the water-sewer project and they don’t know why they cannot look that way now.
City Public Works Director Wes Anderson acknowledges there are areas that look bad, but said a combination of dry spells last year and this, along with inattention by some residents are partly to blame.
The department will do some more seeding in the coming weeks in hopes of improving the turf on the sublawns. The work will take place between the latter part of the month and early September “because that’s a prime growing time for grass,” Anderson explained.
He said that each time the area was hydroseeded — last year and this year — it was followed by a stretch when there was no rain.
“When that happens the people need to try to water the grass,” said. That some people drove their cars on the sublawns did not help. Anderson said his department put a row of wood stakes along sublawns to keep vehicles off the grass.
Residents say it’s really in the city’s best interest to restore the sublawns to where they are attractive.
(1) comment
The tall and unsightly weeds that are growing in the space shown in the photo look like that area had plenty of water for growth; grass would have likely grown there if any grass seed was planted. Certainly the vegetation does not look like it does because cars drove over it; that's a poor answer for a poor hydroseed job.
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