A new group of Petal Pals has taken to tidying up the flower gardens by the pool.
Kelli Boomgarden and others started a new group of Petal Pals last fall. They kept the Petal Pals name to honor the work the original group has done. Once spring came, they started getting together a few days a week to weed and thin out overgrown plants in the flowerbeds by the pool.
“We put in a ton of work to begin with. We were down here for like four days a week a couple hours every night just to get a good start. Now we’re just trying to do a little here and there and water it,” Boomgarden said.
They have been putting it on Facebook when they work on the flowerbeds and the community has been showing up to help weed and move flowers.
“Whoever shows up, shows up. We have people who come pretty much regularly, but we’ve been getting some new people. People drive by and stop,” Boomgarden said.
The group has been busy cleaning out a lot of weeds in the beds along the sidewalk that leads from the park to the pool. Two of the beds along the parking lot will be removed. They are transplanting some of those plants to the other beds.
“A lot of people brought plants from their homes so it means a lot to them. We’re going to try to move at least one or two plants so we have a little bit of everything over here,” Boomgarden said.
Volunteer Cheryl Williams noted the project has been a community effort.
“We’re all novices at flower gardening, but we’ve had other people here who have lots of knowledge. It’s been a community effort helping us learn what will survive, what’s something going to look like,” Williams said. “That’s been nice. It’s been a team effort for sure.”
In addition to cleaning up the existing flowerbeds, they also planted some annuals in flower boxes in the same area. Thanks to help from the city and one of their members, they were able to purchase flowers from Flowers by Bob and Cliff Avenue Greenhouse.
They noted the city has been good to work with. The city was bringing the mulch in for the flowerbeds.
Anyone who wants to stop and help keep up the flowerbeds can stop anytime to pick some weeds. They can also find the Petal Pals on Facebook.
“We plan for it to be an ongoing project just like the previous group did,” Williams said.