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Hidden Bay
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Before his death in 1974, Dilworth served for six years as president of the newly formed Philadelphia Board of Education.

On Thursday, the city celebrated the grand opening of the revamped Dilworth Plaza - rechristened Dilworth Park - on the west side of City Hall.

It was fitting that his name was retained for the dramatically transformed civic space. Besides reforming city government, Dilworth changed the city's landscape, most notably in the rebirth of Society Hill.

As mayor, he famously built a new house on Washington Square to demonstrate his commitment to revitalizing the colonial core of the city, which had been allowed to decline drastically.

Peter Binzen, coauthor with his son Jonathan of the just-published Richardson Dilworth: Last of the Bare-Knuckled Aristocrats, wrote that city planner Edmund N. Bacon in 1947 had put forth the idea of restoring Society Hill, which at that time was a slum of "seedy boardinghouses, rat-infested warehouses and vacant lots littered with trash."

It wasn't until Dilworth was mayor that the proposal became a reality.

Bacon was "the one that came up with the idea for Society Hill, and Dilworth pulled it off," Binzen said in an interview.

The renewal of Society Hill led eventually to the renaissance of Center City.

Dilworth also was an ardent advocate for public transportation and pushed hard to have the government buy out the privately held transit company that ran the buses, trolleys, and subways in Philadelphia.

His vision became a reality with the creation of SEPTA in the 1960s.

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Dilworth: The man behind the park

ITS NOT OFTEN a landscape architect gets another shot at a garden he designed years ago. But when horticulturist Sue Nicols was hired to come up with a fresh plant palette for an aging Capitol Hill garden, she asked Brooks Kolb to collaborate with her on the project. And it turns out that Kolb, along with his partner, Bill Talley, had renovated the garden in 1997 for an earlier owner.

Present owners Don and Marty Sands bought the 1932 brick Tudor three years ago. They remodeled it inside and out, then turned their attention to updating the garden. The couple appreciated the dramatic entry gates, as well as the maturing Japanese maples, Korean dogwoods and Hinoki cypress from the earlier renovation. Marty loves how the garden wraps around the house like a little haven. And she calls the majestic copper beech that dominates the scene a Grandfather tree.

But the corner property was pretty much all lawn and rockery. There were lots of conditions and issues to deal with, says Nicols. The place was overgrown and shady. Many plants had grown leggy, others had outlived their natural life spans and were in decline. Ivy and salal so choked the rockery you couldnt even see the rocks, and plants were dying out in the dry shade beneath the rooty old copper beech.

The Sands were looking for more color, fragrance and year-round interest. The corner property is exposed to the street, and Marty hoped for more privacy for the walking meditation she practices in the garden.

First, Kolb and Nicols needed to decide which of the old plantings to keep and what needed replacing. The two ended up saving about half of the original plantings, including a towering Scots pine. It was 12 feet when we planted it in 1997 . . . I had no idea itd grow so big, says Kolb. The hardscape and features from the 1997 renovation, including terrace, fountain, gates and arbor, were well-designed the first time and suited the garden as much today as they did 17 years ago.

What was it like for Kolb to re-imagine a garden he designed long ago? Its a wonderful chance to come back in and retool a garden, he says. He planted a necklace of new daphnes around the old fountain and left alone the huge white wisteria growing on the hefty arbor at the side of the house.

Nicols added many of her own favorite plants to the Sands garden. Intensely fragrant Daphne bholua blooms by the back door from Christmas through March, when the sweetly scented flowers of Daphne odora kick in. Yaku Princess rhododendron is compact, and smothered in May with large, water-color-pink blossoms. Nicols mixed in Korean Apricot chrysanthemums for fall color. Hellebores bloom in winter, as does the evergreen shrub Sarcococca ruscifolia with tiny white flowers that smell of vanilla, even on the coldest days.

Now sword ferns and epimedium flourish in the dry shade beneath the copper beech, and sweeps of golden Japanese forest grass (Hakonechloa macra Aureola) light up the darker corners of the garden. Garden beds are updated with plantings of small-scale grasses, like Miscanthus sinensis Morning Light and Carex Ice Dance, mixed with sedum, astrantia, day lilies and hardy geraniums.

And the owners hopes for a more colorful garden? Peach Blossom astilbes, hot orange and crimson Crocosmia Emily Mackenzie, chartreuse euphorbia and blue-flowering Ceanothus Julia Phelps create brilliant patches of color. Ivy and salal were rooted out of the rockery, replaced with campanula, snow-in-summer and Martys favorite gentian blue lithodora.

In the shadier areas of the old garden, beneath the original trees and those planted in 1997, maidenhair ferns, variegated hostas and black mondo grass carpet the ground. Theres not a blade of grass left, says Marty happily. She takes evident satisfaction in her time-travel garden, which is both freshly updated and respectful of its past.

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Garden redesign is the best of old and new

The Republican Party will mark the opening of its election headquarters next week with a reception featuring Neel Kashkari, the party's gubernatorial nominee, Newport Harbor Republican Women announced in a news release.

The grand opening event will be from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at 4940 Campus Drive, Suite B, Newport Beach. The reception will include a chance to meet GOP candidates running in the 2014 general election, including Kashkari, who lives in Laguna Beach.

Organizers plan to serve hors d'oeuvres, wine, beer and soft drinks.

The office will provide candidate materials, yard signs and information about how to volunteer by walking precincts and calling voters. The headquarters will be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. Extended hours will begin Oct. 1. The office will stay open through Election Day, Nov. 4.

For more information, call (949) 431-8624.

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No on Y group plans event

Members of the Newport Votes No on Y Committee and 2014 Newport Beach Citizens of the Year Jack and Nancy Skinner are planning a fundraiser and awareness event, "No's Unite," from 5 to 7 p.m. Wednesday at Newport Beach Vineyards & Winery, 2128 Mesa Drive.

The event is co-presented by former Chamber of Commerce Citizens of the Year Evelyn Hart, a former mayor, and Jean Watt and Bob Shelton.

The group is opposed to Measure Y, a Nov. 4 ballot measure that would allow for additional development in the Newport Center area while reducing the likelihood of additional development in Newport Coast.

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Political Landscape: Kashkari expected at GOP's Newport HQ

Clearing controversy: A leaflet that dropped around the Beecroft area to take advantage of the new laws.

Tree lopping companies have been pamphlet dropping and offering discounts for entire streets on the back of new bushfire laws that allow land-clearing in urban areas, as councils plead with the Rural Fire Service to intervene.

Mosman Council has reported that 14 trees on private property had been removed last week for improved views and another five are expected to be chopped down this week when the residents are able to engage busy contractors.

Eight trees had been removed for development applications and the council received 25 calls from the public about removing trees for development under the 10/50 laws, whichallow peoplewho are living within 350 metres of designated bushfire prone areas to clear trees on their property within 10 metres of a home and shrubs within 50 metres, without seeking approval. It makes no distinction between bushland and urban areas.

Mosman deputy mayor Roy Bendall said the council had presented evidence of the tree lopping to the RFS last week and they had been promised a "workshop".

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Mr Bendall said hefeared it was all "window dressing, trying to placate us and not face the fact that, while this policy has merit in rural and heavily vegetated areas, the sheer scale of the clearing zones is ridiculous in highly urbanised areas".

"When you have Spit Road in the clearing zone, you have to wonder if enough thought has gone into this?" Mr Bendallsaid.

Mosman Council has moved to make urgent representations to the Premier, the Minister for the Environment and the Minister for Emergency Services about the excessive clearing and the impact it is having on the character of the suburb.

Greens MP David Shoebridge said local neighbourhoods are banding together to fight the laws in a campaign "to give 10/50 the chop".

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Tree loppers touting for business under new bushfire laws

Former Israeli President Shimon Peres said the governments appropriation of West Bank land for settlement is damaging talks for a lasting diplomatic accord with the Palestinians.

We have to agree not to continue the building of new settlements while we are negotiating, Peres said in a Bloomberg Television interview in Cernobbio, Italy. You cannot quarrel and negotiate at the same time. So we have to agree on a quid-pro-quo situation.

Israel last week announced it was declaring about 1,000 acres of territory south of Bethlehem as state property, clearing the way for eventual construction of new settlements there. The seizure was condemned by the Palestinians, the U.S. and the United Nations as detrimental to the peace process.

Peress comments reflect the division in Israel over new settlements and peace talks with the Palestinians. Israeli Economy Minister Naftali Bennett last week defended the moves, adding that a Palestinian state was not working. Finance Minister Yair Lapid said the appropriation in the Gush Etzion region was taken without cabinet approval and causes damage to Israel.

The U.S. called on Israel to reverse the land seizures, and expressed concern about reports of settlement plans in east Jerusalem. Such measures are contrary to Israels stated goal of negotiating a permanent status agreement with the Palestinians, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in an e-mailed statement.

Palestinians say Israeli construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem is a war crime that violates the Fourth Geneva Convention. Israel says the settlements dont fall under the convention because the territory wasnt recognized as belonging to anyone before the 1967 war, in which Israel prevailed, and therefore isnt occupied.

To contact the reporters on this story: David Wainer in Tel Aviv at dwainer3@bloomberg.net; Flavia Rotondi in Rome at rotondi@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Dick Schumacher at dschumacher@bloomberg.net Stephen Kirkland, Vernon Wessels

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Israels Peres Says West Bank Land Appropriation Damages Talks

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