Community Pulse: Tips for summer building and gardening projects

Summer is a great time to enjoy your gardens and complete the projects that may be needed for your home or garages.

Below are helpful tips on building and gardening and the events that the Land Use Department is offering this summer.

Utility Marking – Call JULIE

Always make it a good habit to call JULIE or 811 before you dig for a construction project or even to add landscaping like bushes or trees to your property. There are many underground lines such as electricity, gas, cable, phone, water and sanitary that may be affected if struck during a construction job.

Make the JULIE call or 811, or online at juliebeforeyoudig.com to enter all the pertinent information. To ensure that all lines are marked before you start work, call no more than 14 days before you start your project. Even if you are not ready to start the project or plant, it is good to get that completed as a planning tool. Remember that JULIE markings of utilities are only considered valid for 14 days.

The locating company for JULIE will come and mark the gas and electric lines only. Water lines and municipal lines will be marked by your village or municipality. If you install gas to a gas grill or electricity for a detached garage, these lines will not be marked. Digging should always be done slowly and with caution if these lines were installed by the previous homeowners.

Roof Replacements

All roofs have a life that may span from 15 to 25 years if there are no major issues such as hail damage, branches, or poor workmanship.

All roofs that are constructed in unincorporated Grundy County need to be permitted and completed by roofing companies that are fully licensed through the State of Illinois. We complete an ice and water shield inspection and a final for permitted roofs. The first is the ice and water shield inspection. This shield is a layer which extends two feet up from the exterior wall and at all valleys of the roof. This helps roofs from being damaged due to ice forming from snow melting on the roof through the freeze that periods of winter causing underlayment failure.

The roofs also need to have proper flashing which is used to prevent leaking around chimney, venting or solar panels. Flashing should be carefully installed to prevent this.

Never consider a patch for a portion of a roof as it will void your warranty but more importantly the installation is not consistent and may cause more problems than it is worth.

Gardening

Hopefully all plants and seedlings are growing well in your gardens, and you will soon be enjoying the fruits of your labors.

For those of us who enjoy the ease of perennial native species of plants, the National Wildlife Federation suggests that to prevent any concerns from neighbors that “weeds” are growing in your yard by posting signs for the species that you have growing or better yet receive the National Wildlife Federation Certified Wildlife Habitat plaque for your garden space. This way you may show off the beauty that you have as something that aids nature in development and balance.

Many homeowners consider doing away with turf grass to grow large areas of perennials in their front and back yards. However, please consider neighbors who may not have the same ideals by creating a small strip of grass that is properly mowed between your garden and the property line.

For the Grundy County code, we suggest a space of three feet between your native garden and the lot line. Also, ensure that the garden is properly maintained and weeded to prevent the garden from looking unkept.

Hummingbirds to your home

Hummingbirds are amazing birds who have abundant energy and provide another source of insect control to your outdoor areas. However, with that abundant energy is the need to consume a good number of calories.

Hummingbirds have typical flowers that they enjoy which you may want to grow such as butterfly bushes, bee balm, cardinal flowers, delphinium, sunflower, and columbine.

You may also make hummingbird nectar for your feeder by mixing one part sugar to four parts of water. During hot days, this feeder should be checked and cleaned to ensure that the nectar is in good condition.

Summer Events

We are offering a few events this summer that as residents of Grundy you may want to participate in.

Paint recycling is important as neither latex nor any oil paints may be disposed of in the trash. The best way to put extra paint to reuse is to find someone or an organization that may take it for painting of a habitat home for example or local church.

If you are unable to do so, please consider if you have more than half a can, contacting our Assistant Beth Skoff and setting up payment for the recycling of that paint. We will provide you with a receipt which you will bring with the paint to our storage facility for recycling. Earth Paints partners with our office to recycle tinted paints. As they pay their employees for the mixing and

organization of these paints, there is a fee to do so. Please see our home page for the cost or call Ms. Skoff at 815-941-3228.

Children’s Used Book Drive

Our office is having our annual children’s book drive until July 12. Please feel free to bring your gently used children’s books (preschool to 8th grade) to the Land Use Department located at 1320 Union Street, Morris. Those books that are collected will be distributed to Bernie’s Book Drive to children who are in need and have no books of their own. We are proud to say that we have picked up over 15,000 books since starting this event in 2017. Thank you, Grundy County, for your generosity.

Used Tire Event

On July 11-13, we will be having our used tire event from passenger and light trucks at our host facility Olson’s Recycling in Seneca. We ask that you bring all tires off the rims and that you limit the amount to ten tires. K&S in Chicago Heights will break down the tires and create:

- Crumb rubber for playground, and synthetic turf

- Lightweight fill for road embankments

- Agricultural applications for animal mats

- Asphalt additive for road pavement

The location is 354 W. Jackson Street (W. US Rte. 6) from 8-4:00 PM Thursday and Friday, and 8-Noon on Saturday.

Green Guide

A new Green Guide will be produced and online soon that has been updated by our Assistant Beth Skoff. Beth put in a lot of hard work to make sure that all the information is accurate, and we are happy she did.

Please feel free to contact me at any time if you should need any further information or have questions at hmiller@grundyco.org or (815) 941-3229.