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HILLSBOROUGH:Right Touch completes township median landscaping program

By Audrey Levine, Staff Writer
   When Hillsborough’s Right Touch Landscapes, Inc., joined the township’s program for landscaping roadway medians, the company made plans to create an Earth Day event all its own.
   According to Right Touch Landscapes owner Joe LaJeunesse, he decided to adopt a Hillsborough median to landscape in an effort to give back to the community. He said he was assigned to one on Auten Road in front of Auten Road Intermediate School, and on Wednesday, Mr. LaJeunesse and his crews were busy reworking the median.
   ”I saw the median signs posted all around Hillsborough that say, ‘This area maintained by,’ but there was never anything actually nice about the medians,” he said. Each median in the township has been adopted by a local landscaping company, at no cost to the residents. “(But) most of them are just grass being cut on a weekly basis.”
   When he realized his median was located in front of a school, Mr. LaJeunesse said, he decided to put together a landscaping project to put in flowers that “kids could see every day out of their classroom windows.”
   ”I designed six perennial gardens, totaling almost 400 plants, to go in to the median, one at either end and four around the entrances to the school,” he said. “By June, these gardens will be such a beautiful addition to this area.”
   Once he had the idea, Mr. LaJeunesse said, he wanted a way to make the planting into an event, so he decided he would do the planting on Earth Day. He said he made signs that wish residents a happy Earth Day.
   Among the flowers being planted, Mr. LaJeunesse said, are purple coneflower, moonbeam Coreopsis and white coneflower, with annual flowers surrounding these and being rotated throughout the seasons.
   Aside from the one-day event, Mr. LaJeunesse said he will be continuing to mow the median on a weekly basis, as per the contract with the township, and will fertilize the lawn and apply weed control.
   ”My thought is you get one median and do as much as you can with it,” he said. “I always wished one day I could give back to the community.”
   Other firms maintaining medians in town include AEV Landscaping, All Decked Out, Rainfall Landscape, Schultz Landscaping, and Twin Oaks Landscaping. According to Public Works Director Buck Sixt said all roadway medians are being tended by local landscaping firms, saving thousands of dollars for the township.
   The program also allows the companies to place small signs on the medians, bolstering their advertising — and perhaps creating a little competition between the firms to improve the medians’ appearance.
   ”I think now it’s going to really take off as I envisioned it,” Mr. Sixt said. “I always thought it would take on like a challenge, meanwhile, everything looks really nice — what could be better than that?”