Downtown Sees Green Growth

Flowers are popping up all around downtown, and it's because the efforts of one group of volunteers that call themselves the Woodstock Flower League.

“It was the hottest day of the summer Tuesday, but we were planting,” said Pat Tanner, Flower League volunteer and member of the Downtown Woodstock Board and Design Committee. “I’m thrilled it’s been raining.”

Made up solely of community resident volunteers, the Woodstock Flower League has already darned Main Street with planters full of blossoming flowers along the crosswalk near and along Mill Street.

“We are very fortunate to have a strong group of volunteers,” Tanner said, “like Melissa Casteel who has been instrumental in helping us decide what to plant.”

Casteel joined Main Street Woodstock last year as a business owner and was just appointed to the Board for a three-year term, currently acting as Chairman of the Design Committee.

“We are coordinating with the city to make things happen,” Casteel said, who is a landscape architect and owner of Mondo Land Planning + Design.

The Woodstock Flower League will be delivering flower pots this week to businesses in Downtown Woodstock who have agreed to adopt the flowers with a promise of watering them.

The project is being funded by Main Street Woodstock.

Billy Peppers, Economic Development Director and President of Main Street Woodstock, has been reaching out to local businesses to discover which merchants want to adopt flowers for the project.

“Main Street has even bought watering cans for each merchant that agrees to take care of the flowers,” Tanner said.

Working with the design committee, Casteel has created a plan to add color in the form of shrubs and trees to the area.

“There’s an opportunity with Streetscapes being finished to make it even better,” Casteel explained.

The Woodstock Flower League and the Woodstock City Design Committee have growing plans to continue the beautification of the area.

“The goal is to get planters out cohesively in the central core,” Casteel said.

While the Streetscapes project installed a watering system, summer is not the time to plant, but more color will be added in the fall, Casteel said. The next step will be to look at the budget to add more flowers and shrubs, like Crape Myrtle, in the fall.

The Woodstock Flower League is also looking for a tech-savvy volunteer to help start a Facebook page for their group.

Participation has been through word-of-mouth only, but anyone interested in joining and volunteering  with the League can contact the Main Street Woodstock organization.

“We spent four hours planting but with more volunteers, we could cut that down easily,” Tanner said. 

She also shared initially the group was called the Woodstock Flower Ladies, but they decided to mirror the Gorilla Gardeners and made sure to attract both men and women to volunteer for the project.  

"We are still seeking a few good men," Tanner said.