Decatur, Georgia invites garden enthusiasts to harvest ideas and inspiration during its 2007 Garden Tour. The Decatur Preservation Alliance (DPA) and Oakhurst Community Garden Project (OCGP) are in partnership to host the annual event, which takes place Saturday, September 29 and Sunday, September 30, 2007.

A variety of gardens is featured, including eight private gardens throughout Decatur, and six public or semi-public gardens. A private garden highlight is the bonsai garden of award-winning expert Cozart Smith.

Public and semi-public gardens include internationally-recognized garden designer Ryan Gainey’s garden, the Oakhurst Community Garden, Woodlands Garden, Scott Community Garden, Glenn Lake Nature Preserve, and the 54-acre Decatur Cemetery.

Programming for adults and children is featured throughout the weekend, including native plant walks, cooking demonstrations, storytelling, outdoor painting and more. A schedule of events is included below. Tickets will also include a designated bike route.
Woodlands’ Master gardener Ruby Bock, who leads the garden selection committee, says that this autumn garden tour “can give people who might have a spring-focused garden a good opportunity to see the great blooms of the fall, which include asters, goldenrod, Japanese anemone and other, later-blooming botanicals.”
Events planned for the weekend are listed by day and venue:

Saturday, September 29
Smith Bonsai Garden
216 Fairview Avenue
10:15 a.m.
Cozart Smith, bonsai master, gives an informal talk on bonsai in his garden.

Historic Decatur Cemetery
Commerce Street Entrance
11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m.
Tours of the cemetery conducted by guides in period costume
Ongoing
Cookies and lemonade served in the Gazebo

Oakhurst Community Garden
435 Oakview Road
1:00 p.m.
Performance by the drumming group Conundrum
4:00 p.m.
Chef Billy Allin, a local Decatur chef, demonstrates cooking with fresh, locally grown produce.
Ongoing
Plant Sale ongoing during Garden Tour hours
Docent Tours on the hour, last guided tour begins 4 p.m.

Ryan Gainey’s Garden
129 Emerson Avenue
11:15 a.m.
A Walk with Ryan Gainey—“A to Z of Plants”
2:00 – 2:30 p.m.
Flautist Lynette Suzanne performs Native American music.

Woodlands
920 Scott Boulevard
11:00 a.m. (meet at Decatur Preservation Alliance office)
David Funderburk leads a walk-and-talk on Woodlands’ native trees, shrubs and wildflowers.
1:00 p.m. (Woodlands amphitheatre)
Steve Sanchez presents his native piedmont garden plan for Woodlands.
Ongoing
Docent tours of Woodlands

Scott Community Garden
231 Sycamore Street
2:00 p.m.
Children enjoy a tour and scavenger hunt in the garden, ending with a fun plant project: draw a face and plant it with grass seed. When the seed comes up it will represent hair which they can cut and style with scissors!

Sunday, September 30
Smith Bonsai Garden
216 Fairview Avenue
12:15 p.m.
Cozart Smith, bonsai master, gives an informal talk on bonsai in his garden.
Historic Decatur Cemetery
Commerce Street Entrance
3:00 p.m.
Tours of the cemetery conducted by guides in period costume
Ongoing
Cookies and lemonade served in the Gazebo

Oakhurst Community Garden
435 Oakview Road
2:00 – 4:00 p.m.
Children will enjoy a variety of activities that celebrate the essence of fall using materials found in the garden.
Ongoing
Plant Sale ongoing during Garden Tour hours
Docent Tours on the hour, last guided tour begins 4 p.m.

Ryan Gainey’s Garden
129 Emerson Avenue
1:00 – 2:45 p.m.
Harp and wind duo Fionnuala performs.

Woodlands
920 Scott Boulevard
1:00 p.m. (Woodlands amphitheatre)
Melissa & Jerome Walker present “Creating Your Own Audubon Wildlife Sanctuary.”
Ongoing
Docent tours of Woodlands

Scott Community Garden
231 Sycamore Street
2:00 p.m.
Karen Lindauer of the Georgia Native Plant Society presents “Using Native Plants in Containers and Small Gardens.” Native plants are especially adapted to survive in our heat and humidity and are being increasingly used in landscapes throughout the region.

McConaughey Garden
393 The Falls, Atlanta
1:00 – 2:45 p.m.
Harp and wind duo Fionnuala performs.

Tickets, on sale at local businesses and at www.decaturgardentour.com beginning in September, are $15.00 in advance and $20.00 during the tour weekend. Proceeds from the event will be shared between the two organizations, and will support their operations and programs.

Dates and Hours: Saturday, September 29 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday, September 30 from noon to 5 p.m. On the web: www.decaturgardentour.com.

The Oakhurst Community Garden Project is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving community greenspace and cultivating the next generation of environmental stewards.

This Labor Day Weekend, when you’re ready to kick back, relax and celebrate the last weekend of summer, head to Underground Atlanta for the highly anticipated Montreux Jazz Festival.

The FREE Montreux Jazz Festival Atlanta will be a weekend packed with fun activities that the entire family can enjoy. In addition to a variety of music from multiple stages, the weekend’s festivities include an interactive Kid’s Zone, arts & crafts and food vendors.

Celebrate Music in Atlanta

Jazz – Latin – Hip-Hop – Blues – Soul – Rock – World – Alternative – Country – Gospel – R/B

Montreux Jazz Festival Atlanta 2007 Highlights
Entertainment Includes:
- Sleepy Brown
- Leela James
- Chrisette Michele
- Ledisi
- Gordon Chambers

And the Blues Stage In Kenny’s Alley Will Rock All Weekend With:
T Bone Smith, Frankie’s Blues Mission, The Cazanovas, Chicago Joe Jones, Bill Shefield, Lola and more!

Montreux 2007 will also feature a Film Series to include Marvin Gaye: Live @ Montreux 1980and Weather Report: Live @ Montreux 1976.

Montreux After Dark in Kenny’s Alley 2007 Highlights:

- Club Crawl at Underground Atlanta
- Shot Bar in Kenny’s Alley
- Ledisi Album Release Party in the Event Loft
- Late Night Party in the Event Loft

Great Decatur Beer Tasting Festival
Oct. 20 • 1-6 p.m.
On the square
Taste hundreds of the finest local and international beers. Live music, food. Admission $30, includes special tasting glass. Proceeds benefit community projects. Limited to 5,000 people. No one under 21 and no animals allowed inside festival area. No exceptions. No coolers, please!

Oakhurst Arts & Music Festival
Saturday, Oct. 13 • 10 a.m.-7 p.m.
Harmony Park
Artists market with more than 75 artists, children’s arts activities, literary arts, and musical performances throughout the day. Free. Sponsored by South Decatur Community Development Corporation.

Stone Mountain, GA –Stone Mountain Park is a great place for families to visit this Labor Day weekend. The Park offers a wide variety of activities the whole family can enjoy together including attractions, recreational activities, dining and shopping. Families can plan to come out early and spend all day at the Park and finish with the World’s Largest Lasershow Spectacular.
This Labor Day Weekend, guests can get the best entertainment value in Atlanta by purchasing the One-Day All Attraction Pass: $24 (plus tax) for adults and $19 (plus tax) for children ages 3-11. To get the best savings for Labor Day Weekend at Stone Mountain Park, visit any participating Georgia Kroger stores. With the pass families can experience all of the Park attractions including the NEW Great Locomotive Chase Adventure Golf and Camp Highland Outpost. Other attractions to enjoy include the Summit Skyride, CrossroadsÒ, the Treehouse Challenge, The Great BarnÒ, the 4D theater, Antebellum Plantation & Farmyard, the Scarlett O’Hara Riverboat, Discovering Stone Mountain Museum at Memorial Hall, the Antique Car & Treasure Museum and the Scenic Railroad. The attraction schedule for Labor Day Weekend (August 31 – September 3) is 10:00 AM – 8:00 PM. Families can also plan to stay for the Lasershow Spectacular at 9:30 PM each night.
Stone Mountain Park’s newest attraction, the Great Locomotive Chase Adventure Golf provides fun for the entire family. Guests can take a swing on the new course, which is based on the real-life adventures of the Great Locomotive Chase. Featuring 18 holes, the new mini-golf will be open from 10:00 AM – 9:30 PM all Labor Day Weekend.
Stone Mountain Park is Georgia’s most visited attraction, drawing nearly 4 million guests each year. With over 3,200 acres of natural beauty, the Park is a unique and fun destination where families and friends can enjoy the outdoors together, while experiencing an exciting variety of attractions, entertainment and recreation. Visitors will travel back in time to the town of Crossroads®, where they’ll meet fascinating townsfolk and skilled crafters who will show them what life may have been like in an 1870s Southern town. Crossroads includes the NEW Camp Highland Outpost, the Treehouse Challenge – Atlanta’s Ultimate Kids’ Adventure, Tall Tales of the South® -Georgia’s first 4D theater, The Great Barn® - Atlanta’s largest children’s indoor play experience and live shows & entertainment. Other favorite attractions include: the Summit Skyride to the top of Stone Mountain (see the world’s largest free standing piece of exposed granite and world’s largest high relief carving,) the Scenic Railroad, the Scarlett O’Hara Paddlewheel Riverboat, the Antebellum Plantation & Farmyard, the Antique Car & Treasure Museum and Discovering Stone Mountain Museum at Memorial Hall. Guests will also enjoy the Ride the Ducks™ sightseeing adventure, the world’s largest Lasershow Spectacular, unique shopping, great dining, 2 championship golf courses, Marriott hotels, a beautiful campground and more!
Stone Mountain Park is located just 16 miles east of downtown Atlanta. To get to the park, take I-285 to exit 39B, Highway 78 East. Stone Mountain Park is exit #8 on Highway 78. For more information on Park attractions and hours of operation call 770-498-5690 or visit our website at www.stonemountainpark.com .

Atlanta reverses its population stagnation
City has become a growth magnet

By MARY LOU PICKEL, STEVE VISSER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 08/10/07
Lucile Lansing became part of the Atlanta surge five weeks ago when she moved from Sacramento to a condo in Atlantic Station.

For the second straight year, more people have moved into Atlanta than moved out, making the city one of the hottest areas in a booming metro region. Buckhead and Midtown are sprouting condo towers and enclaves from West End to Kirkwood have seen massive gentrification.

Ben Gray/ AJC
(ENLARGE)
Condos and apartments are in various states of completion along North Highland Avenue in Atlanta.

Ben Gray/AJC
(ENLARGE)
The Midtown skyline forms a backdrop for the Block Lofts in the Poncey Highlands neighborhood.

The City of Atlanta lost almost 80,000 residents between 1970 and 2000, but has added almost 50,000 since then.
– Henry County remained the eighth-fastest growing county in the country, added 8,800 people.
– Fulton County had the most growth, adding 33,400 residents, followed by Gwinnett with 20,600.
RELATED LINK:
• More Atlanta news
The city grew by another 12,600 people in the 12-month period ending in April, the largest single increase in 30 years, according to the Atlanta Regional Commission.

The metro area’s 10 counties are booming, too, surpassing the 4 million population mark, according to the estimates released by the ARC on Thursday.

Atlantic Station, a former steel mill site, is the textbook example of the trend in Atlanta. It supports condos, homes and retail shopping from groceries to furniture along with bars and a movie theater.

Lansing chose Atlantic Station over Duluth, where her grandchildren live, because of the convenience, the diversity and public transit.

“It takes me everywhere I want to go, from IKEA to the symphony,” the 65-year-old woman said. “This is an up-and-coming city within a city.”

More and more people in the metro region are moving into Atlanta because they’re tired of commuting to work and for entertainment and cultural events, said Steve Corver, commissioner of Atlanta’s department of planning and community development.

“They’re looking for communities where you can literally walk to anything you want —- the park, the museum, the grocery store, Georgia Tech,” Cover said. “Younger people, young couples, empty nesters, that’s the trend that we’re seeing.”

Henry County’s growth rate remained the eighth-fastest in the country, as it has been since 2000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Henry added 8,800 people.

Fulton County added the most people in the last year —-33,400—- fueled by Atlanta’s growth. Gwinnett was No. 2, adding 20,600 residents.

But growth is slower than in the 1990s, when Gwinnett added more than 23,000 people annually.

“We needed to catch our breath and these numbers show we have done so,” said Gwinnett County Commissioner Lorraine Green. “It’s a natural slowing of the growth process. We’re taking a much more pro-active approach to saving greenspace and planning for the future.”

Many of Atlanta’s new residents are moving into new housing. The city issued 10,779 housing building permits in 2006 —-more than any of the 10 counties. Gwinnett came in second at 8,956, according to ARC numbers.

Much of the new intown housing is condominiums, an alternative to life in the suburbs, said Sonya Moste, director of marketing and public relations for the Atlanta Development Authority, the city’s economic development arm.

“Look at Atlantic Station. You can just look at the cranes,” she said. “In the past, people had to move to the suburbs because there wasn’t enough housing, and affordable housing in Atlanta.”

The city’s boom struck the ARC’s number crunchers, said Mike Alexander, chief of the ARC’s research division.

“We thought, ‘Oh my God! The city of Atlanta is doing something!’ ”

In the 1970s and 1980s, Atlanta lost population as people gravitated toward the suburbs. The city population stayed flat in the 1990s.

That trend started to turn around after 2000. The ARC noted a significant trend during its measurement period last year —- from April 2005 to April 2006, when the city gained 9.500 people, according to ARC estimates. It topped that feat this year, suggesting the city’s turnaround was on solid footing, with the gain of 12,600.

“That’s a monumental change,” Alexander said.

The construction activity is all over, not just Midtown and Buckhead, but also older neighborhoods that were once stagnant, like Reynoldstown, Cabbagetown and sections of East Atlanta, he said.

Moste, the marketing director for the Atlanta Development Authority, summed it up as a burgeoning population means a burgeoning economy.

“It’s the population that creates the vitality and the vibrancy of a city,” she said. “You want people on the street.”

AJC reporter Juanita Cousins contributed to this article.

CITY OF ATLANTA

The core of the metro area lost almost 80,000 residents from 1970 to 2000, but has added almost 50,000 since.

Current market conditions have caused loan program availability to decrease. In many cases well known national, regional and local lenders have withdrawn from the marketplace.

While the national media outlets are reporting the facts, they often miss the underlying story. Here are some of the questions I know people are asking -

¨ What’s really happening with major lenders - have we seen the last of the 100% financing options?
o “100% financing is likely to be available only to those borrowers with very strong credit, which will impact affordability in our area as potential borrowers diminish. That means credit remediation is more important than ever for those who want to become borrowers. But in my experience consumers don’t really understand what impacts their credit scores. They don’t know there are some straightforward ways that their mortgage advisor can help to increase those all-important credit scores.”

¨ What is considered a risky loan by today’s lending standards?
o “Borrowers with credit scores below 620 have proven to bring more risk to the table than those with higher scores. That doesn’t mean they can’t get a loan - but the days of the easy subprime loan are over. Here’s what consumers with less than perfect credit in our area may want to consider: Expanded approval loans. Backed by Fannie Mae, these loans reward borrowers by lowering the interest rate after 24 consecutive months of timely payments. FHA loans. Borrowers should ask their mortgage advisor about these tried-and-true loans, which have been overshadowed in recent years by more exotic mortgage products on the market. Tougher documentation standards. Borrowers will be asked to at least state their income and in many cases they will also be required to provide the documentation to support it.”

¨ Are home values going to be affected by rising defaults?
o “Depending on the severity of the rate of loan defaults, it may have a significant impact on our local housing valuations. Consider this: Banks don’t want to hold on to properties - they want to get them off their books. That means they will sell at a discount. We saw this in the early 1990s when there was a rise in foreclosures and a subsequent decline in property values.”

Mark your calendar for August 18, 2007, for the 7th Annual Decatur Barbeque Blues & Bluegrass Festival, in Oakhurst, at Harmony Park! The festival will be held from 2:00-11:00 pm. Tickets are $5 per person, and kids 10 and under are free. Please make a note that no outside coolers will be permitted on the site.

Decatur’s 7th Annual BBQ, Blues & Bluegrass Festival is presented by three non-profit groups: the Community Center of South Decatur, the Oakhurst Neighborhood Association and the Decatur Recreation Department. All proceeds of the festival will be invested directly into the Decatur community through various programs and initiatives by these three organizations. For more information about how the community benefits, see About the BBQ, Blues and Bluegrass Festival.

When: August 18 - 2pm-11pm

Location: Harmony Park,
The festival location is a short walk from the East Lake MARTA station. Exit the south (College Ave.) side of the station and cross the parking lot to the southeast corner, the intersection of Park Place and East Lake Drive. Follow East Lake to the festival in Harmony Park. >> map

Food : O.B.’s Barbeque, located in McDonough, Georgia, will be providing the barbeque.

Beer Trucks: For those of you who want a cold beer, this year’s selection includes Sweetwater, Peroni, Miller Lite, and Sierra Nevada.

Entry Fee: Adults $5, children under 10 admitted FREE!

No Coolers Allowed!