All are invited on Sunday, June 8th, from 2:00 until 6:00 pm. Come rain or shone to mosey through a maximum of 16 gardens. There is no charge to meet neighbors, see green thumbs at work, and possibly get ideas and answers for your own yard.

Driving around Richmond is a headache anywhere you go, but one intersection on the Northside is a real nightmare. Hermitage at Laburnum Avenue is a traffic jam just about anytime of the day. The reason? The A.P. Hill statue sits right in the middle, making it difficult to turn in any direction.

The City says 30,000 vehicles travel through the intersection everyday. There’s been an accident there every few weeks, and even some fatalities as well. Now Richmond traffic engineers have a plan to turn this intersection around. They’re considering removing these lights and making Hermitage and Laburnum a true roundabout.

Engineer Tom Flynn says the roundabout would force drivers to slow down to just over 20 miles-per-hour by expanding the circle with landscaping, building curved medians and posting yeild signs at each corner.

In the evenings, my husband and I love walking through our Bellevue neighborhood, and we try to do it most days that our schedules and the weather will allow. There are a lot of avid gardeners in our ‘hood, and in spring it seems like every nook and corner has a touch of color.

The other evening we took a back alley detour and came upon this scene. It was striking in the light of dusk as the building and the irises were backlit. I came back in the morning to see if I still found interest, and I did. It was a different light, to be sure. But there was a certain pattern that played across the path and fence that I liked enough to do this little pochade.

Richmond Braves General Manager Bruce Baldwin said Connecticut’s future is in the hands of the Richmond Metropolitan Authority, which operates The Diamond and leases it to the Braves. Yet to be determined is when The Diamond will be occupied by another professional franchise, and with which major-league organization that club is affiliated.

Connecticut wouldn’t seem as meaningful an ornament at Richmond’s ballpark without a farm team of the Atlanta Braves or Cleveland Indians playing there. Robert M. “Mike” Berry, general manager of the RMA, could not be reached for comment.

Carl Custalow, chief of the Mattaponi Reservation, confirmed yesterday that he has expressed interest in Connecticut. He hopes the artwork can be used on top of a Mattaponi Reservation fish hatchery. Custalow said he is in the process of drafting a letter to the RMA to officially inquire about Connecticut. At this time, Custalow said he didn’t have any idea what financial terms might be if the RMA wanted to remove Connecticut from The Diamond.

Chestnut Hill includes a number of large Victorian residences standing out amongst smaller Arts and Crafts, American Foursquare, and assorted revival-style homes. Carneal and Johnston, one of Richmond’s best-known architectural firms, designed a house for G. L. Beardsley that would become one of the most noteworthy in Chestnut Hill. This Colonial Revival building at 2300 2nd Avenue has far more detail than the typical Foursquare houses, which surround it. It features an inset two-story central porch with a neoclassical frontispiece, polygonal flanking bays, and a wide, “kicked hip” roof.

Soups — “He can whip up a soup in less than 30 minutes from scratch,” says Cheryl — and staples such as smothered pork chops and fried fish are customer favorites.

The folks behind The Welcome Table are passionate about families eating dinner together, gathering around the table to weigh in on the day’s activities. To encourage this fellowship, the restaurant offers family dinner packages that can be picked up and enjoyed for an entire week. The meals, which feed five to seven people, start at $100 and can be customized from the regular menu.

Hi! I’ve been reading your site for about a year now– thanks for putting it up! We’re about to buy an old house in Bellevue, and I was wondering if you had any recommendations for a really good house inspector who knows about the delights and follies of old houses. Thanks for any help you can provide!

Growing up behind the former Lakeside Volunteer Fire Department, Ed Hughes heard plenty of sirens, but rarely from an ambulance.

“A lot of times, if you got sick or something, people would carry you to the hospital in a car,” sometimes in hearses, Hughes said. “They didn’t have ambulances.”

That changed in 1958, when the Lakeside Volunteer Rescue Squad was established. Hughes, 70, is the Lakeside squad’s longest-serving active member, with 26 years of service.

“I like what I do. I feel like I’m doing something for somebody,” Hughes said.

To mark its 50th anniversary, the Lakeside Volunteer Rescue Squad plans to throw a community celebration Aug. 16-17, said its president, Tracy Giddens-Jarrett. By supporting the squad’s twice-yearly fundraising campaigns and volunteering, the community has made free, 24-hour emergency medical care possible, she said.

“We like providing care to everybody — the same kind of care no matter whether they can pay or not,” Giddens-Jarrett said. “There’s really a sense of satisfaction.”

I didn’t arrive at Lakeside Market until about 10:30. I was greeted by two friendly faces at the entrance and handed a free bright yellow mesh shopping bag displaying the Virgina grown and Lakeside Market logos. Some vendors were already sold out or selling out of produce. Everyone I spoke with was very excited about this great new shopping option and about the future of their new market. Although this market is smaller due to some restrictions, once I got up close I found plenty of wonderful things to choose from. Despite the array of vendors at South of the James my trip to Lakeside Market was well rewarded. Again I ran into some great people, and more to the point I found terrific plants and the fresh asparagus, spinach, and baby beets I had been looking for!

The best way to experience North Side is off the beaten path. Ignore the streets — the vistas exist down the alleys. It’s deep in the hidden middles of neighborhoods that the personalities really come out. It’s the backyards that keep the secret beauty. North Side isn’t like other Richmond areas, where the front is all-important. Sure, homes here have curb appeal, but it’s reserved — you really get to know the place when you’re invited in. Or when you sneak through those alleys. The Ginter Park Garden Tour facilitates some of these introductions.

If you do find your way in, you’ll recognize something nearly mythic about the place and its people. In the stories that follow are three octogenarians who have seen these neighborhoods rise up, who’ve had a hand in the gardens they’ve built, who build still. Both Jean Reeves and Wayland Rennie have identical twins. Colleen Renaye’s flower beds taught her important truths about human behavior. Bill Reeves put two ponds in the same place. It only makes sense that all of these people are the culmination of great stories — which they like to share. Just make sure you come in the back way.

The idea is to slow traffic and reduce accidents at the intersection of two major arteries, said Gary DuVal, deputy director of public works.

“There are a lot fewer conflict points,” he said “Everybody is going right and you’re not turning against traffic.”

DuVal said a growing number of traffic engineers believe it would be safer to let traffic flow constantly through the intersection using a roundabout than it now is to rely on red and green traffic lights to keep drivers from slamming into each other.

A 1998 study through the federal government’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program found a 37 percent reduction in accidents and a 51 percent reduction in injuries when roundabouts replace traffic lights.

Roundabouts aren’t like the traffic circles that are the source of so many Washington driving nightmares — even though there is a circle at the center of both types of intersection.

The difference is in the roads leading up to the circle. In the approaches to a roundabout, there typically are small triangular concrete islands that narrow the lanes and guide vehicles into the central circle.

“It lets drivers smoothly merge,” DuVal said. “It’s designed for people to travel through at about 23 mph, and you’re looking left and easily merging with other traffic going 23 mph.”

…by narrowing traffic lanes, “we’re going to be taking quite a bit of asphalt out,” he said. There will be more green space around the base of the monument.

In addition, the plan calls for reshaping the medians on Laburnum and Hermitage, so that they will curve. The city would move pedestrian crossings away from the intersection, which DuVal said should make it safer to get across the busy streets at the intersection that is also home to Linwood Holton Elementary School.