As soon as weather conditions allow, flower beds along Main Street, in the roundabout on 1500 South, at Bountiful Town Square, on the 400 North island, in the city parks and at a few other locations in Bountiful will become seasonally green and eventually full of color. Parks Department personnel will begin to plant flowers they’ve been planning for, growing and nurturing in the department’s greenhouse for months.

Parks Department Director Brock Hill plans to plant at least 15,000-20,000 flowers starting in mid-May. They will be largely drought tolerant as the state continues to suffer through the most severe drought in its history.

“This year has been a little different,” he said. “We’ve tried plugs – seeded plants – but also used just seeds and propagated them ourselves. We actually start in December, and within a couple of weeks if they are a seed, they actually start to grow rather quickly. We have warming beds and that helps propagate and push the flowers to produce. From there, a combination of nutrients and the climate in the greenhouse helps them take off.”

Hills’ plan is to have everything ready to go into the ground starting on May 15, about a week after Mother’s Day. Hill said the primary crop for this year are annuals, but more and more perennials will be planted, along with drought-resistant flowers.

“You’ll start seeing more of that in our flower beds this year,” he said. “They bloom for a short period of time, and even when the flowers stop the plants continue to grow and be green. They go dormant in the winter and come back in the spring.”

Crews will plant wave petunias that spread and take up lots of space, and require just light watering, as well as pansies, sweet potato, zinnias and lantana bandana peach, a very colorful flower that holds up in the heat.

Plans for this year began last August, when Hill said seed orders needed to be submitted. Most of the plants are acquired locally, with a few coming from out of state, but Hill said “we support the Utah growers as much as we can.” For the first two or three weeks, the new plants require a lot of water, but once established, do well with lighter watering.

“It’s a huge undertaking,” he said. “This year we’ve scaled back from years past when we’ve planted as many as 30,000 flowers.” Added to the drought conditions is a smaller seasonal staff. Hill has had as many as 30 temporary workers helping in the past, but last year had just 18 and “we barely got by. We’re still hiring through the city website (bountifulutah.gov) for those interested in a summer job.” λ