Three businesses were honored by the Overland Park, Kan. City Council for their outstanding landscaping efforts.
Every year, the Legacy of Greenery Committee accepts nominations for outstanding landscaping efforts by commercial developments, businesses and public entities.
All nominations were reviewed based on initial design, continued maintenance and preservation of existing landscaping features.
Honorees this year were:
Culinary Center, 7917 Foster - The Culinary Center has spruced up a drab alley in Downtown Overland Park by filling several planters with herbs and flowers and adding a decorative bench, window boxes and terra-cotta wall planters. The center has cleverly taken an asphalt, brick and concrete environment and softened it with greenery and color.
Mimi's Café, 8301 W. 135th St. - The country cottage motif and expanse of flowers and other plant material draws in customers to Mimi's Cafe. The landscaping surrounding the restaurant near Highway 69 offers a wide variety of ornamental grasses, colorful annuals, daylilies, roses, evergreens, shrubs and trees all accented by a decorative bark mulch.
The vibrant New Orleans-style colors adorn the building through awnings, shutters and other window treatments and around the patio area with table umbrellas. There also are ornate benches, window boxes and planters filled with more flowers, and up-lighting, which effectively highlights the building and landscape during the evenings. Finally, the entire landscape is kept neat and precisely maintained which serves to welcome customers all year long.
Sprint Campus, 6391 Sprint Pkwy. - Tree lined streets, expanses of prairie grasses and native plant materials offer a unique blend of urban and rural landscaping. More than 6,000 trees are planted over 185 acres on the Sprint campus, which also utilizes re-claimed irrigation water through on-site detention lakes and wetlands to maintain the landscape and a bulk organic composting program to recycle its organic landscape waste.