Hidden Springs & Hidden Estates Neighborhood
Message from the President, Donna Fontaine
Summer 2025
Dear Hidden Springs/Estates residents,
Welcome to Summer and Hurricane Season!
Unfortunately, it is that time of year again. Hurricane season starts June 1st and ends November 30th. Please start thinking about your preparations: lanterns, candles, water, trimming trees, shoring up fences, stocking up on canned items and making sure you have enough for your pets. It's turning out to be a very hot May, and usually with warmer summers, comes warmer oceans and possible hurricanes.
Now to get into what is happening in Hidden Springs/Estates. Firstly, the HOA Board would like to give a shoutout to Denise, one of our board members. She was instrumental in contacting the county to install our new street signs, stop signs and yield signs. Our street signs throughout our subdivision were old, faded and moldy. It took the county more than a year from the initial contact to installation, but Denise was persistent, and they finally came out mid-May. So, thank you, Denise! (Please see pictures.)
I know I go over this ad nauseam, but in case you forgot, your contributions are very important to our neighborhood and keeping it attractive and safe. We have three entrances to maintain with lighting, landscaping, water, walls, sprinklers, weed control, pressure washing -- on and on.Our most recent expense was hiring a landscape company to extract all the Crape Myrtles and Ligustrum trees in the brick planters along Dr. Phillips Boulevard. There were 11 planters that had these trees in them. We had to professionally remove the trees because the roots were pushing against the walls and there was a concern the walls would start to fall apart in places. Due to lack of contributions, none of our walls are covered by insurance. We’ve included pictures of the workers removing the trees.
Now that the trees are removed, there is a need to pressure wash where the trees were covering the back walls. You can see in the pictures after extraction there is green mold and white scale all along the Dr. Phillips Boulevard walls. (See photos.)The brick walls along Dr. Phillips and the Pine Springs entrance also need pressure washing. The coping along DP Boulevard is full of white scale.Also, in the pictures you can see the stucco wall -- that is the wall starting at Pin Oak, heading towards Fresh Market -- the white coping is all black with mold. The HOA Board would like to get that pressure washed. Eventually, there will be a need to paint and fill in the cracks of that stucco wall, but that will have to wait.We are also planning to pressure wash all three islands: Pin Oak, Pine Springs and Conroy/Hidden Springs Boulevard. The Conroy/Hidden Springs Boulevard entrance is full of green mold and white scale.This is a very large job. I would estimate we have at least half a mile of wall, possibly more.
The final project, which will happen in June, is the trimming of the 10 palm trees in preparation for hurricane season. Pin Oak and Pine Springs each have five palm trees.The only other thing I wanted to mention are septic tanks. Septic tanks should be drained every three years. I personally have ours drained every two years. With the possibility of storms during hurricane season, septic tanks that aren't drained properly have a higher chance of backing up. There is nothing worse than sewage backing up into your home. So, you may want to think about that for the upcoming rainy season.I hope this helps keep you informed of what is going on in the Hidden Springs/Estates neighborhood. As always, please reach out to any of our board members for any questions.
Sincerely,
Donna Fontaine
HOA President