Longboat KeyGarden Club spruces up Public Works landscape

The Longboat Key Public Works building got a bit of a makeover Feb. 23.

On Saturday morning, 30 volunteers from the Longboat Key Garden Club and the Sleepy Lagoon neighborhood gathered to give the landscaping of the public works building a makeover.

In total, they scattered between 300 and 400 plants around the property ranging from crinum lily, and ginger to lady palms and pitch-apple.

In April, the garden club announced that their annual Arbor Day project would be for the public works department. Each year, the club work on a project in honor of Arbor Day, such as planting trees in Joan M. Durante Park, but for the 2018 project, the club went in a new direction.

Club President Susan Phillips said that the public works building was built in 2001, and the trees that were planted originally have now grown tall enough to shade the whole area.

To create the new look, the garden club donated $3,000 and the Sleepy Lagoon Neighborhood Association donated $1,500.

“This is the heart of a nice neighborhood, so it was just time to landscape,” Phillips said.

Phillips continued by saying that the new look will add to the community, like the partnership between the club and Sleepy Lagoon.

“It’s a great community that works together,” she said.