Quincy volunteers ready to plant flowers throughout city

QUINCY — In the next few weeks, thousands of red geraniums will flood the town, each one planted by one of a handful of dedicated volunteers.

Norma Culp is one of those volunteers. She is part of the city's volunteer beautification committee, a group that tends to the numerous flower beds along the city's roadsides.

Culp and a handful of other dedicated volunteers have been spending the winter providing loving care to the geraniums, which currently fill a greenhouse at Quincy High School. Fields of other perennial flowers are already starting to bloom in Quincy, and Culp says the beautification committee plans on planting the geraniums the first few weeks in May.

"But it still depends on the weatherman," Culp said, "He's the boss."

The committee has been a part of Quincy for several years, and Culp says members used to plant flowers like Irises along city streets. Culp has been part of the committee for more than a decade, and first fostered a love of gardening while growing up on the farm. She first got the geraniums from a motel in East Wenatchee which she said first got the red flowers growing in Quincy. "When I started planting, people said I want to help," Culp says, "It's been great for our community."

The geraniums will be planted amongst beds of daisies and lupins and other flowers, "Everything we've planted that's going to stay year round," Culp says.

The group will also plant Cannas, and those plants will reach a height of six feet before the growing season has ended. In the fall, Culp and the others will pull up the Cannas, and keep them in storage for the winter months.

In these months before planting, the group meets once a week. The spend their time potting and weeding, until all their tasks are done.

"If we have a good crew, we can get quite a bit done," Culp says.

The gardeners get a little extra help from the county work crew who will dig holes while the group plants.

Quincy Mayor Dick Zimbelman says he gets more comments on flowers from other towns than he does on anything else. Zimbelman says folks from other cities often comment on the flowers, saying there aren't any places with flowers like Quincy.

"To my knowledge, there is nobody else," he says. Zimbelman says the city has donated compost and water to the group from time to time, but the group gets most of their help from private donations.

"You can't believe the cooperation we've had from our community," Culp says, "it's just awesome."

The committee has so much money donated over the years, that Culp says the city was able to build Memorial Park about five years ago, which honors the men and women who have served in uniform.

Right now Culp and other volunteers are just waiting for the right conditions before planting. Volunteer Judy Bryant admits she is new to gardening, but is learning quite a bit from Culp.

"She uses every part of the plant," Bryant says of Culp, "nothing is wasted."

Bryant spends part of her time in the greenhouse helping to pot plants or looking for bugs, and whatever else needs to be done at the greenhouse.

"We do what Norma tells us," Bryant laughs.