Latest news with #ColumbiaRoad
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Lifestyle
- The Guardian
The best online nurseries to transform your garden without leaving home
It feels almost illicit to admit this, but for the past few months I've been in two very useful WhatsApp groups that exist to serve people who live in a certain corner of London interested in home improvement and gardening. I've come to find the patter of insight and community feeling around matters such as leftover boxes of tiles and how to solve a kitchen island conundrum strangely calming. The Guardian's journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more. It took me years to visit famous historic gardens such as Great Dixter and Sissinghurst – my love affair with gardening started with the well-tended window boxes on south London housing estates and the unruly front garden roses that you can smell from the pavement. Ordinary, not-enough-time, don't-know-the-Latin-name gardening is my jam, and there's plenty of it to be enjoyed in the group. Plus, the other day someone asked a question that I thought it worth sharing here: where to buy plants if you don't have a car and live in a city? Both apply to me. For the first few years of my gardening adventure, I would travel to local nurseries and carry cardboard crates home on the bus or back of my bike. These days, I make a couple of jaunts a year to one particular stall on Columbia Road flower market in east London for interesting perennials. I've not bought a single plant this year – I divided a lot of trusty perennials in the autumn, and they've filled up the beds instead. But when I am wanting to fill a bed or a tub or a micropond, I go online. Mail-order plant nurseries used to satisfy the avid gardener's retail therapy needs, and the same is true now, only on the internet. There are specialist nurseries for whatever you may want: peat-free perennials from Penlan Perennials (I especially like their shade offerings and ferns); foxgloves and hollyhocks from The Botanic Nursery; always-amazing peat-free varieties from Beth Chatto, whose site allows you to filter by situation and colour (their packaging and customer service is great, too). I get that it can seem intimidating – clinical, even – to buy living things on the internet, and it's important that you're around to give the plants a good drink when they arrive. But once you get into buying plants online it can totally shape your gardening. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion You can buy young plants in 9cm pots, for instance, which are cheaper and will grow better than the already-flowering more mature specimens on show at the garden centre. It's also easier to stick to your colour scheme or planting plan. Newsletters and catalogues will remind you when to get into the seasonal habits of care and maintenance, and you'll be introduced to all manner of plants you never knew existed. Plus, less time carting plants on buses means more time enjoying them in your garden.
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Columbia Road overpass closure begins May 19
May 17—GRAND FORKS — The Columbia Road overpass will be closed to all traffic beginning May 19 until October, with additional lane closures expected later this summer at 11th Avenue South. The structure needs to be closed to allow the city to replace the bearings that support the bridge deck , according to information provided by the city. During the rehabilitation, the entire deck will be lifted so crews can access the bearings and replace them. The structure is around 30 years old and this is the first time that they've been replaced. For most of the summer, Columbia Road will be closed from the DeMers Avenue ramps to Second Avenue North. Beginning in September, additional lane closures will come as the city connects a new stormwater sewer under the road. That connection is part of the Vail Circle storm sewer improvement project. Work to improve the area's stormwater capacity began in 2018 when a forcemain was relocated as part of the new Altru Hospital. The project has received $7.7 million in federal funding for the building of a new pump station and expansion of existing pump stations along 11th Avenue South. The city is also building a parallel sewer to expand capacity. Work has already begun along 11th Avenue South with lane closures expected throughout the summer. For most of the summer, traffic will still continue on Columbia Road until the final connection is made. When that connection is made will be reduced to one lane in each direction according to WFW Engineers, the company working on the project. The bridge rehabilitation project in total costs $12 million, $4.9 million of which the city is paying, according to the city. The project began last year when the bridge was repainted. The Vail Circle project will cost $11.2 million total.
