TR PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY The Marshalltown Central Business District (MCBD) volunteer team, along with Executive Director Deb Millizer, are working to restore the downtown area’s famous petunia beds since they suddenly died during a particularly hot and humid period last month.
Residents and visitors alike were shocked and saddened when the popular petunia beds in the Marshalltown Central Business District (MCBD) suddenly began to wilt and die about a month ago—in fact, it seemed to happen overnight on a particularly hot and humid weekend.
Fortunately, MCBD Executive Director Deb Millizer, the organization’s only paid employee, and her dedicated team of over 200 volunteers have been working hard in the days and weeks since to bring them back to life, and they’ve already seen results. Millizer recalled working with MCBD Design Committee Co-Chair Jim Johnson and his son Ross to clean up the baskets last week.
“We got a ladder out. We had to completely dismantle some of them, but then we cut back as much as we could and they’re already starting to bloom again, so that’s positive,” she said. “It takes a lot of volunteers. To water for three months, you need two or three volunteers every day, so there’s a lot of volunteer work involved.”
For the past 32 years, the MCBD has worked with Isle of Green to install the petunias every year. There are now 24 beds and 96 baskets in total, which cost between $12,000 and $15,000 to install each year. As the reaction on social media shows, there was great disappointment when the plants began to die, but as many noted at the time, flowers throughout the area struggled to survive the heatwave, and they felt there was not much that could have been done to prevent it.
“We had to cut some off because they were beyond saving. We were really devastated. We were trying to think of what we could do. We couldn’t just leave them up there because some of them were looking pretty bad. So we had to cut some off, rearrange some, trim some back… Some of them are a little smaller than others, but they’ll come back. And we still have about two months of growing season left, so we didn’t want to cut them all off,” Millizer said. “We didn’t take this lightly. It really hit us. I could tell you we all had sleepless nights because these petunias were dying.”
Eventually, she had to tell her design team that, after all, they were just flowers and they had to do their best to move on without losing their sense of humor—Millizer even joked that they should hire Anderson Funeral Homes to hold a memorial service for the lost plants.
“It was hard reading the comments on social media because we don’t want to disappoint people, but at the same time it was like people noticed. They notice the flower baskets and they are important,” she said.
The petunias are now showing signs of life and returning to something resembling their former glory. The plan is to keep them in the city center until after Oktoberfest.
“Aesthetics are really important in a community, and even when it comes to economic vitality, people want to be in places that look beautiful,” Millizer said. “It’s best for people’s mental health if they’re in environments that look beautiful, and (when) we have people coming into the community for Oktoberfest, we want it to look really beautiful for that event as well.”
In addition to watering the flowerbeds, the MCBD also runs the Adopt-a-Berm program, for which all 24 spots are currently filled. And while she appreciates the efforts of the volunteers who have already come forward, Millizer could still use more.
“The secret to our sauce is you don’t have to be an expert in anything. You just have to have a passion for the community because downtown is the heart of the community,” she said. “So whatever happens here has a ripple effect. We’re trying to rebuild our Economic Vitality Committee right now as we start to rebuild Main Street.”
This committee will play a particularly important role in encouraging the public to continue shopping downtown during the reconstruction work, she added, as the current State Street project has negatively impacted several nearby businesses.
“It will be a challenge and we all have to overcome it,” Millizer said.
To learn more about volunteering, visit the MCBD office at 34 W. Main St. or visit https://www.marshalltownmainstreet.org/.
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Contact Robert Maharry
at 641-753-6611 extension 255 or
