Chestermere’s Streetscapes Committee is encouraging Chestermerians to help beautify the city this summer with Chestermere in Bloom.
“What we’re trying to do is just encourage people to act locally and get involved,” said Streetscapes Committee Chairperson Richard Plummer.
“And everybody can make a difference,” he said.
The purpose of Chestermere in Bloom is to inspire residents to beautify their front yards with a little bit of basic gardening and pride in the community.
“We’re hoping to foster a feeling of civic pride by inviting residents and businesses to beautify their outdoor spaces,” said Plummer.
Running from June to August, the program encourages people to nominate their neighbours, friends or themselves for the weekly prize draw by registering online with Chestermere in Bloom.
“Winners are randomly drawn and we give away gift certificates from various businesses in and around Chestermere,” said Plummer.
They have switched from a judged competition to the random draw to increase accessibility of the program and encourage everyone from master gardener to amateur to participate.
“Initially what we got from feedback was that it was only open to master gardeners, people with expansive front yards that you know put a lot of money and effort and that’s missing the whole point,” said Plummer.
“The whole point is just…with a little bit of effort it creates a sense of community pride and you get a big result,” he said.
Simply having a nicely mowed lawn and a couple hanging baskets in the front yard is just as good as having an expansive and masterfully landscaped yard said Plummer.
“We’re trying to get this ripple effect, you get one person on a street that has a beautiful front yard and other people see that as they’re driving home and say well what can we do,” he said.
Chestermere in Bloom is in its fifth year having evolved out of the national Communities in Bloom program.
Plummer said that they decided to create their own program after deciding they weren’t getting value for the cost of Communities in Bloom.
“The first year we did it we paid money to the communities in bloom, which is a national organization, we paid judges to come and we…didn’t feel there was much in that,” he said.
“So that’s why we created our own logo and pursued it this way,” he said.
Instead of having a judged competition, they have changed the focus to participation and the enjoyment of gardening.
“We want to stay away from it being a judged event or that it’s a competition,” he said, “we just want to leave it wide open and saying anything goes, let’s get out there and have some fun.”
Since branching off on their own, Plummer said that the program has evolved with each year being a little bit different.
“It’s trying to create a sort of ground swell of interest and involvement,” he said.
Last year they went with a white and red theme as part of the Canada 150 celebrations.
This year Plummer said that they’re, “just promoting a nice front yard.”
“Last year we thought some people were discouraged by having to go that way red and white,” he said.
Plummer said that the organizing committee is hoping that as the Chestermere in Bloom lawn signs start cropping up throughout the city that people will become inspired by their neighbours.
“Through that we get more people involved and realizing it’s not something huge that they have to undertake,” he said.
“A little effort can make a big difference,” said Plummer.
For more information or to nominate a garden go to http://www.chestermere.ca/436/Chestermere-in-Bloom.
Chestermere in Bloom is run by the Streetscapes Committee which is a volunteer group that receives funding from the city for beautification projects in Chestermere.
Other projects that Streetscapes has been involved with include the bulrushes, the metal boat, the annual birth forest, the rose garden with its bird houses and memorial benches and the decorative bike racks.
“We had a wind sock that lasted all of about 2 weeks,” laughed Plummer when describing the work of the committee.
They also provide the summer and winter light stand banners, Christmas snowflakes and various other Christmas lights.
