‘Good job doing good,’ flowers adorn downtown

By: 
Philip A. Janquart
Editor/Reporter

    If you haven’t already noticed, pots of petunias now hang in their respective spots from light poles lining Weiser’s downtown streets.
 In a couple of weeks, they will have grown over the sides of their suspended homes, draping down in cascades of color that are pleasing to the eye and a testament to community pride.
 But it’s an annual labor of love for the volunteers who water them twice a day, and that doesn’t count the time and effort it took to get the Visually Improving the Business Environment (VIBE) Program up and going 12 years ago.
 “It’s been quite a process,” said Linda Roundtree, founder of the VIBE Program and official watering volunteer.
 She and local businessman Keith Bryant, along with our own Sarah Imada, publisher at the Weiser Signal American, take time out of their busy schedules to keep the flowers looking fresh and lively.
 “The first and second year, we had to learn what the plants were capable of doing based on heat, how many to put into a pot, how long it would take them to get root-bound, how much fertilizer, and how much dead-heading, picking off the dead flowers so they can generate new ones,” she said.
 Most see the flowers and awe at the rows of color, but don’t realize the work involved in their care or the process Roundtree had to undertake to make her dream a reality.
 It all started when she and husband, Andy, were driving through Sweet Home, Ore., a community of about 10,000 located about 100 miles south of Portland.
 “We were traveling through on vacation and they had these really beautiful, hanging flower baskets, and we would go through other small towns and see them, and I thought ‘Why don’t we have them in our town?’”
 Roundtree, who just opened Station 30 Collectibles on Commercial St., started doing the legwork on how to get it done in Weiser, but quickly found it wasn’t going to be easy.
 “First, these light poles were never designed to hold weight,” she explained. “So, I met with Ken at Northwest Ironworks here in Weiser and we came up with a prototype bracket.”
 The City of Weiser sent the prototype to the light pole manufacturer, Roundtree and Ken first calculating how much weight they could actually hold.
 “You have to know math to figure all of this out,” she said. “We had to figure out swing weight, with the stabilizer rings and brackets, the mass, and the wet and dry weight.”
 They sent the prototype and their figures to the company’s engineer who called six weeks later to say they nailed it.
 “We found we could have between 38 and 40 pounds on each side of the poles,” she said. “We were pretty proud of ourselves.”
 Then it was time to do some sponsorship work, which ultimately resulted in the 34 pots that now hang from the city’s light poles. The buy-in was $225 per 35-pound pot, including an engraved plaque with the sponsor’s name.
 The price has since gone down, costing sponsors about $165 per year.
 Watering takes about two hours in the morning and another couple hours in the evening with Keith and Sarah heading up the main watering duties.
 “We use a big wand to reach the flowers, and run about three gallons through them,” Roundtree said. “They have to be watered consistently because if they get dehydrated, they have a hard time catching back up.”
 She said the effort is worth the time and trouble.
 “People will stop and say, ‘They look beautiful!’ or ‘Good job; lookin’ good! One time a couple of 10-year-old girls stopped and said, ‘Hey, good job doing a good job,’ so that’s kind of become our motto now.”
 Crews, headed by the City of Weiser’s Pat Malay, use lifts to hang the pots and the City donates the water.
 “We couldn’t do this without the City,” Roundtree said. “It’s a cooperative program between us.”
 Roundtree is currently seeking sponsors for the 10 additional pots she eventually wants to hang from other light poles.
 “It shows pride and joy in our downtown,” she said. “I can’t imagine our downtown without them.”
 

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Signal American

18 E. Idaho St.
Weiser, ID 83672
PH: (208) 549-1717
FAX: (208) 549-1718
 

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