Plants Promote Pride Downtown
Beautifying the downtown district of your community can be beneficial. It promotes pride and encourages visitors to walk by and enjoy the flowers. See how the community of Goodland, KS added beautiful planters to their main street.
Produced by the Department of Communications at Kansas State University. For more information, visit our website at: http://www.kansasgreenyards.org
Transcript:
Plants Promote Pride Downtown
Downtown beautification is important to a community. It’s nice to be able to share with other communities how we’ve been able to add these beautiful planters to the main street in Goodland, Kansas.
These planters were paid for by donations and grants. Shine On Sherman County is a group that was formed to beautify downtown, and they decided to use planters. They’re made from concrete that are dyed all the way through. They’re five feet wide and low, because Goodland has a lot of wind. It will keep the plants lower out of the wind, but they’re large enough for a good impact.
We have one on each of the four corners. We started off with two intersections, so that was eight planters. We used Supertunia Vista Bubblegum petunias that are pink. They’re very hardy, and they have survived the summer well. There are about twelve to fifteen Supertunia Vista Bubblegums per pot, and there are three Purple Fountain Grass in the center of each pot.
We watered them daily during the first month to get them established. Now, they are watered every other day. A lot of the potting soil was donated by individuals and community members. They donated funds along with the grants that were written.
People have just loved them. I’ve had people tell me when they go out on their evening walks, that now they walk downtown, because it’s such a pleasant place to walk. And, we’re just so excited about the impact that it’s had, and that it’s carried over into some other flowerbeds in town.
For more information, visit your local extension office, or visit our website. This feature story prepared with Marilyn Imel, Kansas State University Research and Extension, Master Gardener.
