By Leslie Williams
Staff writer

African irises at the base of a crape myrtle with a dark pink canopy splash color on the neutral grounds in Lakeview. Cream-colored oleanders encircle an elegant cypress. Deep-red knock-out roses hug the trunk of a live oak.

Canal Boulevard -- the gateway into this mostly upscale neighborhood -- twinkles with color and life, the antithesis of the public green space left gray and silt-covered by the flood that followed Hurricane Katrina.

A visitor might conclude Mother Nature had healed itself. A child might credit magic.

Hundreds of volunteers, a strong neighborhood association, the Boy Scouts, West Point cadets and corporate donors, though, know the secret of the transformation.

The celebrated makeover of Lakeview's public green space began with a New Orleans man who lost his home and a garden that took 20 years to perfect.

After the storm, Al Petrie's home on Vicksburg Street soaked in 6 1/2 feet of water for more than three weeks. When he returned to Lakeview in October 2006, he settled into a townhouse with no garden to tend to.

As chairman of the Lakeview Civic Improvement Association's Green Spaces Committee, Petrie had provided oversight of the neutral grounds pre-Katrina, coordinating maintenance and occasional minor planting initiatives with the city. Post-Katrina -- after concluding that the disfigured, dreary, neglected earth tugged downward on the very soul of the neighborhood -- restoring the public green space became personal for Petrie.

"The thing that made Lakeview Lakeview was our trees, our well-maintained lawns, yards and public green spaces. It was the reason people lived here. We want it to be the reason they come back," he said. "This is our legacy."

Lakeview is bounded by the 17th Street Canal, Robert E. Lee Boulevard, Orleans Avenue and City Park Avenue.

Grass-roots overhaul

After observing the sluggish planning process for rebuilding New Orleans, Petrie ascertained that the city did not consider the neutral grounds a priority. It dawned on him that neither he nor the neighborhood association "could wait on government to fix this."

Petrie started with a small project, organizing a one-block overhaul of neutral grounds on Harrison Avenue: a $20,000 project carried out from July through November 2006 with about 150 volunteers. The Robert Lupo family provided some of the money to landscape the block between Canal Boulevard and Vicksburg Street.

"It took us one week just to clear it," Petrie said. "We dug up lots of dead plants carefully so we wouldn't damage the sprinkler system. We removed a huge amount of weeds and debris."

With $15,000 in contributions from Shell Oil Co., volunteers from the company and neighborhood residents later installed hundreds of plants, including azaleas, sasanquas, roses and four magnolia trees.

Soon a determined triad formed to guide a vast overhaul of green spaces in the neighborhood: Joining forces with Petrie were Connie Uddo, director of the homecoming center at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Lakeview, and Glenn Stoudt, a Lakeview Civic Improvement Association board member.

In less than a year, the trio -- with help from nearly 1,000 volunteers and $104,000 in donations -- resurrected the natural beauty along 2.6 miles of Canal Boulevard neutral grounds from City Park Avenue to Robert E. Lee.

Petrie and Stoudt have coordinated and supervised projects, while Uddo has provided most of the volunteers.

Projects blooming

After the success on Harrison Avenue between Vicksburg Street and Canal Boulevard, the trio guided to completion one revitalization effort after another:

--Sunken Gardens: A $10,000 project was launched in January with 150 volunteers to resurrect the sunken green space in the 5900 block of Canal Boulevard between Brooks and Polk streets. At least a dozen trees and hundreds of flowers and shrubs were planted, and the sprinkler system was repaired. Eagle Scout Tyler Scifres coordinated the removal of all the dead flora and prepared the plant beds.

--5800 block of Canal Boulevard: In February about 100 volunteers cleared one block of neutral ground between Interstate 610 and Brooks Street in a project organized in part by Eagle Scout Louis Lacour.

--Canal Boulevard from Harrison Avenue to City Park Avenue, excluding the Sunken Gardens: The most massive of all the projects relied on about 400 volunteers and landscaping design assistance from the University of New Orleans. Eleven cadets and two lieutenant colonels from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., were among the volunteers doing the dirty work for the $70,000 project, which was financed partly by a $50,000 donation from Shell. The March 9-17 effort had three stump grinders operating seven days a week. More than 1,500 trees, shrubs and flowers were planted. Large posts, pieces of concrete and other debris were removed. A New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board underpass pumping station on the neutral ground was sanded and painted by a youth group from Faith Bible Church in Arkansas.

--Canal Boulevard from Harrison Avenue to Robert E. Lee Boulevard: The $14,000 project from March 24 through the end of May was aided by 200 volunteers, including workers from Jesuit High School, the First Baptist Church, Isidore Newman School and Youth Rebuilding New Orleans. Twelve large oaks as well as 16 large Canary Island palms were planted.

"By May we were totally exhausted but inspired, Uddo said. "I think it just lifted people tremendously.

"It made people feel like we were turning the corner, another step toward wholeness," she said. "They were happy to see something green and beautiful again. People driving by were honking, shaking their fist in the air, like: 'Right on!'¤"

Thousands of flowers, shrubs and trees have been planted on the public green spaces in Lakeview, Stoudt said. Petrie said he purposefully chose plants that added lots of color to the scenery.

"The impact has been enormous," Stoudt said. "It's been key to the psychological recovery, if not the physical one."

Looking ahead

And there's more to come.

Petrie, Uddo and Stoudt are developing a plan to overhaul Argonne and Milne boulevards from I-610 to Robert E. Lee, as well as Harrison from West End Boulevard to Canal Boulevard. The $25,000 project might start near the end of October, Petrie said. The group is raising money to buy mostly trees and some shrubs. Businesses or individuals interested in making a monetary or in-kind donation toward the project can send e-mail to apetrie@lakeviewcivic.org or contact the civic association at 324-2270.

The next initiative will be a program to plant more trees in Lakeview between the sidewalk and street, Petrie said. The planting of large trees, 10 to 12 feet high, will be coordinated with the civic association's block captains, he said.

In the meantime, construction workers are preparing the foundation for Petrie's new house on the site of his destroyed home in the 6400 block of Vicksburg. He thinks it will be a year before the house is completed.

By then all the neutral grounds in Lakeview, he hopes, will be restored. And by then Petrie might begin re-creating the family garden, which is named after his deceased mother and father.

"The feedback from the community has been phenomenal," he said. "I can't believe how much we got done. We feel we can do anything now."

Leslie Williams can be reached at lwilliams@timespicayune.com or at (504) 826-3358.