Sustainable Living

Visited a Celena unit in Avida Settings Nuvali Phase 4 last week, and was surprised to be greeted by wild vines inside the unit!

This was turned over clean and with a visible perimeter in January 2012.  Six months after, it\’s overrun with grass and vines, literally looking like a jungle.

I asked the ASNU admin re: grass cutting in the village, and was advised that not all areas have been turned over to them for maintenance, so they can only remind/call the attention of the existing landscaping service provider when certain areas remain unkempt.  Also, Avida\’s responsibility only extends to trimming grasses on sidewalks and vacant lots that haven\’t been turned over to owners.

I think this policy can be amended to include all vacant lots regardless of status, if only for the safety of existing residents (we recently heard stories of snakes combing the village grasses).  To date there are still no association dues in Avida Settings Nuvali, however, so we residents are actually in no position to be so demanding.

My own area has overgrown cogon, and we just decided to be proactive about it and replace it with manageable groundcovers ourselves:

In a few months, hopefully, we\’ll have blooming peanut shrubs instead of wayward cogon covering the sidewalks, much like the one shown below:

If I had the budget, I\’d plant frog grass– which supposedly never grows high and therefore has zero maintenance — on all sidewalks and frontage of vacant lots in the village.  This was actually an idea I heard from my friend\’s dad, who sits as board director of another residential/farming community in Silang  (bulk of their budget really goes to grass-cutting).  Not only will it maintain the visual and safety standards of a premier subdivision, but it will also cut down on grass-cutting costs and save money for the community in the long run.  We\’d also be doing future homeowners a favor– I remember it took considerable effort to uproot all the cogon on my lot before building could start.