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Beau regaining bloom
Message was posted: 10:53 Aug 12th, 2006

User: libblesp Rank: Casino Gold: 58782CG Contributor rating: 128760 Status: Offline

Casino news source: The Sun Herald - http://www.sunherald.com Beau regaining bloom Flowers pleasing, but enduring Live oaks the prize By TOM WILEMON BILOXI - Plants, flowers arrive at Beau Rivage Beau Rivage is bringing in the flowers for its Aug. 29 reopening. Workers are planting 15,000 marigolds, 5,000 impatiens and 2,000 white caladiums in front of the city's largest casino resort. "The yellow and orange marigolds are happy colors," said Teresa Malone, the casino's horticulturist. "To me, that says summer. It also says fall is rapidly approaching." The flowers may be pretty, but Malone takes more pride in the 27 Live oaks. They were the only landscaping surviving the high winds and salt-water drenching from Hurricane Katrina. Keeping them alive after the hurricane through several months of drought was a logistical challenge. "We did not have an irrigation system or running water," she said. "We had to use 200-gallon water trucks. We went 15 miles out to the golf course (in the Vancleave area) and brought the water back every day, five to six trips a day." An arborist from Florida with expertise in treating hurricane-damaged trees was called in to prescribe fungicide and fertilizer treatments. "We lost two oaks that were in front of the parking garage," Malone said. "Debris landed on them and split them in the middle and broke branches off. There was no saving them." The large oaks are transplants. Beau Rivage hired a firm to scout for established trees in people's yards, purchase them and move them to the construction site before the casino opened in 1999. Beau Rivage purchased its new landscaping for the reopening from Natchez Trace Greenhouse in Kosciusko. When the Beau reopens, it will have 2,500 new plantings in its atrium and 500 floral arrangements. Malone declined to specify what plants are being used, saying she'd rather keep that a secret for opening day.