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BELHAVEN – Slade Landscaping of Bath has won the design contest held by Small Town Main Street for the Caboose Public Garden project. 

The landscaping design contest was announced at the Board of Aldermen meeting on Jan. 11 and opened up to landscaping companies throughout the county. The budget for the project is $8,000 and an additional $500 was provided to the winners of the contest. 

Slade Landscaping’s winning design includes a picnic table that will be available for public use within the park along with benches and utilizes bricks laid in decorative patterns to imitate railroad tracks and a railroad crossing to match the theme of the park. Greenery will include low maintenance shrubs and the original turf already on the property. 

The design will also include a brick path leading from the street to the caboose, which is due to be repainted during the month of June. Small Town Main Street is hopeful that the new paint job will last 40 to 45 years. 

“We’ve since had a meeting and fine tuned the details of the project. The project will be in coordination with the repainting of the caboose,” said Yvonne Deruiz, the Small Town Main Street Program Manager. The landscaping project will begin after the caboose has been professionally refurbished in June with an expected completion date of July 4th.