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Butterflies and hummingbirds will soon be landing in the verdant Amherstburg landscape of a young family who just hours before looked out onto an empty mud-pit of a backyard.
Dan and Megan Monk’s yard was transformed into a lush garden – complete with a soothing water feature, plenty of perennials and a sodded play space for the kids – by a team of volunteers on Saturday.
The couple received the $5,000 garden makeover, which grew to $10,000 worth of landscaping due to donations, when fellow Amherstburg firefighter Brad Renaud and his wife, Laura Renaud, a pharmacy technician, paid it forward and donated the winning prize in a contest sponsored by Landscape Ontario.
Spokesman Jay Terryberry said all nine Landscape Ontario chapters – including the Windsor chapter, which reaches from Sarnia to Windsor – awarded a makeover to a frontline worker – plus a 10th overall, province-wide winner.
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Were both feeling overwhelmed.
After a consultation with the couple last fall, Jay Rivait of Lakeshore Landscaping, came up with the design.
“Today we’re implementing the design,” Terryberry said. “All the materials have either been donated or sold to us at a reduced price. All the volunteer labour comes from members companies of Landscape Ontario.
“We’re putting in the entire backyard and doing just a little bit in the front yard to spruce it up.”
Dan, a volunteer firefighter who also works full time at the department, and Megan, who works in quality control at pharmaceuticals company Catelent Pharma Solutions, were bowled over by the effort.
“Were both feeling overwhelmed,” Dan said.
“There’s so many people (working here today),” Megan said. “It’s just crazy.”
The Monk family watched from inside their home as workers sprayed topsoil, mulched, set up the water fountain and planted an ornamental flowering pear tree donated by Maidstone Tree.
“Brad Renaud is a firefighter with me and he pitched (the makeover prize) over to me. We were just overwhelmed. It was extremely kind of him to have done that for us,” Dan said while watching the volunteers.
“Yeah and they’re doing a great job,” Dan added. “This morning it was literally a dirt pen. There was like an uneven, broken yard and then … they had the whole yard basically looking the best in the neighbourhood I suppose.
“We’re excited because we’ve got the two little ones and they’ve had nowhere to use any of their energy but inside.”
The Monks, who are parents to Freya, 5, and nine-month-old Cid, have lived in their newly constructed home in an Amherstburg subdivision for just over a year.
“Thank you to Landscape Ontario and to Brad and Laura Renaud for what they did for us,” Brad said. “And Jeremy Pillon is the one who put it all together.
“Jeremy was the one who applied for Brad and Laura to win the prize,” he said of his fellow firefighter.
jkotsis@postmedia.com
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