Almaden Resident

Community

Photograph by Kevin White

La Plante Plants: Leland High School student Josh La Plante places a plant on the grounds of the Crown Boulevard post office where dry shrubs once stood. Josh organized the post office landscaping job by raising funds and enlisting local help as part of his Eagle Scout project.

Almaden Scout provides 'curb appeal' with new plantings for the post office

By Anne Gelhaus

When his mom first proposed relandscaping the Almaden Valley post office for his Eagle Scout project, Josh LaPlante thought it would be pretty easy. Now, more than a year later, he knows better.

"Once we started looking into it, it got bigger and bigger--a lot bigger than we would have liked, but that's OK," said Josh, a Leland High School sophomore.

The first step was getting approval from the post office to rip out the old landscaping, much of which was dried out and dying, and replace it with more sustainable plant life. Even though the manager of the Crown Boulevard post office liked Josh's idea, it took him a while to get the go-ahead from San Jose's postmaster.

"We started the process in March 2005 and got approval in May 2006," said Josh's dad, Jeff LaPlante. "That's pretty fast for government."

In the meantime, Josh worked on getting donations of money and materials for the project, which required about $3,000 worth of plants and planting supplies--everything from mulch to pyracantha to bark chips to agapanthas. The Almaden Valley Community Association chipped in $1,500; the Almaden Valley Nursery donated plants, and other merchants, friends and family members kicked in the rest.

Josh, his dad and a few friends set to work on the project on July 27. Despite the fact that some would-be volunteers had failed to show to help pull out the old plants and prepare the three islands in front of the post office for planting, Josh said he intended to keep to his original four-day schedule.

Josh worked with two professional landscaping companies to develop a design for his project, which involved planting two crepe myrtles and some flowering ground cover on two of the islands and filling in the existing pyracantha on the third.

"A lot of the plants are low-maintenance; they don't need too much water," Josh said. "Fortunately, the post office had a new irrigation system put in because the old one was really bad."

Besides earning his Eagle Scout rank, Josh also used the landscaping project to rack up community service hours he needs to graduate from high school. Still, he said he would have preferred something less involved.

"Usually, Eagle Scout projects aren't this big," Josh added.