FUTURE FARMERS AT QUARTZ HILL HIGH WIN 5TH PATIO LANDSCAPING COMPETITION.Byline: Daily News Quartz Hill High School's Future Farmers of America chapter kept its lock on the Best of Show award for the Antelope Valley This article is about the Los Angeles County region. For the census-designated place in Wyoming, see Antelope Valley-Crestview, Wyoming. The Antelope Valley Fair landscaping competition. For at least the fifth consecutive year, Quartz Hill's entry was judged the best of the patios set up by high schoolers in the Alfalfa alfalfa (ălfăl`fə) or lucern (l  sûn`), perennial leguminous plant (Medicago sativa Festival Building. Mediterranean fan palms, windmill palms, Madagascar periwinkle periwinkle, in zoology periwinkle, any of a group of marine gastropod mollusks having conical, spiral shells. Periwinkles feed on algae and seaweed. , gold dust plants, heavenly bamboo heavenly bamboo see nandina domestica. and fortnight lilies filled a raised planter made from retaining wall blocks and surrounding a brick floor, all topped by a redwood patio cover designed and built by the seven teen-agers. ``Water conservation was the theme,'' said sophomore Kevin Van Ausdall, 15. ``They're all drought-tolerant plants.'' FFA FFA free fatty acids. adviser Neal Weisenberger came up with the basic design for the wall and patio, and gave advice on building the patio cover. The students picked the plants and how they should be laid out. ``We thought of what plants would look good in here,'' Van Ausdall said. ``We were going for a tropical look. Once we had a basic list together we picked out the drought-tolerant ones.'' The students spent about a week before the fair working on the patio, laying out the bricks on a bed of sand and mulch, stacking the retaining blocks into planters, and fitting in the potted plants. The material was donated by local businesses. ``It was a lot of work but it was worth it,'' said Mike Ake, a 1997 Quartz Hill graduate who remains active with the FFA chapter. Laying the floor of bricks took several tries, as did cutting the bricks to shape with a chisel. ``You'd do them like five times before you'd get a good one,'' senior Kevin Cash Kevin Forrest Cash (born on December 6, 1977 in Tampa, Florida) is a major league catcher who is currently in the Boston Red Sox system. Cash played a total of 101 games from 2002 to 2004 with the Toronto Blue Jays, and he joined the Devil Rays in 2005. said. The teens learned the skills they needed for making the patio in part by a Quartz Hill High School Quartz Hill High School is a public, co-educational high school located in Lancaster, California. Founded in 1964, it is the third oldest comprehensive high school in the Antelope Valley High School District (AVHSD). landscaping course taught by Sharon Weisenberger, their adviser's wife. But they also learned by traveling to FFA competitions against other high schools. ``You learn by experience,'' Cash said. In addition to Van Ausdall, Cash and Ake, the winning teach included Doug Waschak, Ashley Brown, Nicole Cadmus and Shannon Waschak. CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: (color) Quartz Hill students, from left, Mike Ake, Kevin Cash and Kevin Van Ausdall sit in their award-winning patio. Jeff Goldwater/Daily News |
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