Flower Baskets Bring Color To Town Square

A collaboration  between the Glenwood Area Chamber of Commerce’s marketing committee and the city’s public works department has brought some summer color to Town Square.
Twenty flower baskets, containing wave petunias, have been hanging from light poles around the square for about a month.

“It’s all part of the beautification of the square,” chamber spokesperson Mary Gunderson said.

“We had so many people bringing us pictures of other communities that have done things like this and they’ve asked us, ‘Why can’t Glenwood do this?”

Gunderson said Glenwood’s flower baskets on the square are patterned after a similar project in Shenandoah. Members of the marketing committee solicited donations for the baskets from merchants. The Mills County Board of Supervisors kicked in funds for baskets around the courthouse.

Gunderson said each basket, bracket and flower pot carried a price tag of $210 this year. Replacement flower pots next summer will cost around $50 each, so donations will continue to be accepted at the chamber office.

“We’d like to add some more baskets in the future, but we want to make sure the numbers are controllable,” Gunderson said.  “Eventually we’d like to go down to the YMCA and maybe even along Locust St.”

The flower baskets are self-watering, which means during the hottest days of the summer, the flowers can survive up to three or four days without being watered. The responsibility for watering the plants rests in the hands of public works employees.

“Perry Cook and the public works guys have been great. They’ve really embraced this project,” Gunderson said. “It’s been a well thought-out process. they even had Ebmeier Engineering come in and do a structural integrity study of the poles to see what the poles could handle.”

Gunderson said the chamber and city currently have a one-year agreement for the flower basket maintenance.