TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Mow Town: Help Out By Adopting A Hillsborough Median

ADVERTISEMENT

By RICH SHOPES

rshopes@tampatrib.com

Published: October 6, 2008

TAMPA - Recent tax cuts have Hillsborough County pruning its landscaping budget.

After announcing in March the county would stop paying to maintain foliage on five state highways, two landscapers stepped in to do the work in exchange for signs promoting their businesses.

Natural Design Landscapers of Lutz last week started tending four miles of medians on State Road 60 between Valrico Road and Interstate 75 and four miles of U.S. 41 south of the Pasco County line.

Earlier, Total Tree and Lawn Care in Riverview said it would look after 1 1/2 miles of U.S. 301 between Bloomingdale Avenue and Gibsonton Drive.

The county says it cannot afford the $81,000 annual tab to maintain shrubs, grass and trees on five state highways. Unless citizens intervene, the medians on those roads will be stripped bare and returned to the state, whose maintenance budget doesn't extend past trees and grass.

Natural Design and Total Tree are caring for three of those roads, but two others remain sponsorless.

One of them - on U.S. 41 in Ruskin between 19th Avenue Northeast and College Avenue - saw its Indian hawthorn and viburnum shrubs pulled this summer.

The other - Hillsborough Avenue in Town 'N Country between Beaumont Center Boulevard and Memorial Highway - faces the same fate unless volunteers step in by year's end, the county says.

"Times are tough, and we can't afford to maintain state medians anymore," spokesman Steve Valdez said.

If you want to take over landscaping duties for a median, call the public works department at (813) 272-5912.

Costs

$81,000: Hillsborough's annual bill to maintain landscaped medians on five state roads

$14,000: The county's bill last year to tend just 11/2 miles of U.S. 301 in Riverview

$9,000: The yearly cost to Total Tree and Lawn Care for the same work on U.S. 301

Reporter Rich Shopes can be reached at (813) 259-7633.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT