Troy-Bilt's Barbara Hastings has made me aware of a special event coming up on March 2. Troy-Bilt, a national sponsor of Keep America Beautiful's "Great American Cleanup" program, is leading the way in an extreme landscape makeover of the Town Green in Biloxi, Mississippi. At the center of the project will be the reconstruction of a Biloxi landmark: the Town Green's Shoo-Fly Gazebo (pictured at right). Destroyed in Hurricane Katrina, the beloved gazebo will be faithfully recreated. Another part of the landscaping project involves the installation of an inspirational reading garden....

"The Reading Garden is a new enhancement Troy-Bilt is creating for Biloxi, an oasis of calm and reflection, for reading and quiet moments, something people in Biloxi especially need in the continuing aftermath of Hurricane Katrina," says Hastings, marketing manager of Troy-Bilt. Seven or eight different plant varieties will be planted to create these quiet nooks, including azalea and holly.

While the Reading Garden will serve as an inspiration, Biloxi residents may be even more excited about the re-building of the famous Shoo-Fly Gazebo. "Shoo-fly gazebos are a longtime part of life in Biloxi and the Gulf Coast," observes Hastings. "A shoo-fly is designed as a place where people can go to capture Gulf breezes while warding off, or 'shooing' pesky insects, hence the name." Of Biloxi's famous gazebo, Hastings remarks, "Just about every weekend, there were weddings. On weekdays, local people would have lunch or just relax, school kids would have lunch or outdoor classes there."

Hastings notes that the original gazebo was built around a several-hundred-year-old live oak tree in Biloxi on the Town Green. That tree remains; however, she reports that the venerable tree suffered from the storm surge and concomitant soil salinization and may not survive. "So the Shoo-Fly will not be rebuilt on the exact spot, but on another area on the Town Green with a live oak tree," according to Hastings

The March 2 Biloxi event is just the beginning. Troy-Bilt, a leading lawn and garden equipment company, will later continue its Great American Cleanup roadtrip, installing reading gardens in eight other U.S. cities: Atlanta, Charlotte, Louisville, Dallas, Chicago, Cleveland, Baltimore and New York.