As a professional landscaper, Kurt Pedersen sees opportunity where others see overgrown bushes, leggy perennials and bug blight. But when he looked around the main courtyard outside his old middle school, Timberlane, Pedersen saw double opportunities: the need to spruce up a tired-looking entryway and the chance to honor his late father, Hardy, who was the original landscaper to the 1965 school.

Teaming with the school PTO, the second generation landscaper turned his skills to the job. Out went the woody, overgrown shrubs and in went the sweetheart rosebushes, dwarf forsythia, heliotrope and hardy camellia. The mix guarantees a compact growth that won’t block views at the school’s key entry point while providing a year-round mix of color and texture. Along one of the school’s major approaches, adjacent to the school’s art rooms, Pedersen replaced grass with gravel and boulders and planted large, attractive Alaskan blue cedars and white pines. A threadbare Japanese maple, which will droop its delicate branches downward as it matures, adds a playful touch from its perch in a planter high alongside the massive and vertical Timberlane school sign.

The Timberlane PTO paid for the landscaping around the courtyard; the Pedersen family contributed the trees and boulders for the approach alongside the bus loop. Pedersen declined to disclose the cost of his contributed services and nursery stock, saying only that it is a family memorial to Hardy.

Shown in photo are Kurt Pedersen, of Hardy Landscaping, and Kim Bruno, president of the Timberlane PTO. Students are Joey Gambino, student council president, and Morgan Pedersen, whose grandfather, Hardy, is memorialized by the donation.