By Shelley Swift | Daily Reporter
GREENFIELD — Grab your garden gloves: Greenfield in Bloom’s annual downtown day of planting is taking place today — as a crew of volunteers plants colorful flowers in the concrete planters and hanging baskets around town — but there’s more work to be done on Wednesday, May 13.
Paul Norton, a master gardener and seasonal employee for the Greenfield Parks Department, has spearheaded an effort to replace the problematic soil in the city’s 38 sidewalk flower beds, filling them with a canopy of colorful blooms.
That sidewalk beautification effort will take place starting at 9 a.m. Wednesday. Volunteers will plant 4,200 plants — 90 plants in each of the city’s 8-by-3-foot sidewalk beds — within the four-block grid along State and Main streets at the heart of town.
To pay for the flowers, Norton collected $34 each from 33 downtown business owners and organizations, including downtown firefighters, the Greenfield Area Chamber of Commerce and Greenfield Main Street.
“Almost every business downtown chipped in,” said Norton, who is thrilled to be giving the sidewalk beds a long-awaited overhaul.
Loretta Canter, co-owner of Ella June’s boutique on Main Street, is thrilled to see colorful blooms coming back to town.
“I think we should always have gorgeous flowers all over downtown,” said Canter, who helped Norton select the colors for this year’s planting.
“We just want to do all we can to get the downtown looking nice so people will want to come,” she said.
She and Norton think the colorful spring planting is a great way to help welcome people back to the downtown area after weeks of social distancing.
“The influx of thousands of vinca flowers, along with many hanging lamp post baskets and sidewalk concrete planters, will be a very welcome scene as we make the transition from COVID-19 restrictions to becoming a vibrant downtown area once again,” said Norton, whose job is tending to the city’s flowers and plants.
This year’s sidewalk bed beautification project is a collaborative effort between Greenfield in Bloom and the tree-focused Regreening Greenfield, as well as the City of Greenfield’s parks and street departments.
While Greenfield in Bloom spearheads the annual day of planting, Regreening Greenfield chipped in $630 this year to purchase top soil to replace the hard clay soil in the ground-level beds.
“They paid for the soil, which is the highest grade you can buy anywhere,” said Norton.
For years he’s struggled to get flowers to thrive in the downtown beds, a problem he eventually traced back to the clay-like soil after consulting a Purdue University soil expert.
The soil should only need to be replaced one time, said Norton, providing a rich base for growing colorful annuals year after year.
“We took up five inches of bad soil and replaced it with new soil. We want to make sure that those garden beds will sustain any kind of plant we want to put in them,” said Norton, who chose brightly-colored vincas as the flowers to be planted this year.
The flowers he has on hold nearly fill a commercial greenhouse, he said.
Norton is looking forward to both the annual day of planting and the sidewalk beautification effort, where volunteers will be getting their hands dirty for a good cause.
“With all the help we have lined up for Wednesday, we should get all 4,200 plants in the ground in two hours,” he said.
