The Main Street Program hosted Community Planting Day Saturday at downtown Levelland.
Main Street manager Tania Moody explained there were 55 participants and 21 groups that planted 44 planters. Volunteers included community members, organizations and Main Street members.
“There were about 21 different groups that participated and that included families, organizations, Main Street board members and revitalization committee volunteers,” Moody said.
Volunteers planted roughly 875 out of the 940 plants available. Moody is waiting to receive new planters to finish planting the 65 plants.
“There were 940 plants and those were to be planted in the 44 baskets. We have about 875 planted in the baskets,” Moody said. “I’m going to plant those in stand-up planters that are not on the poles and but I’m waiting on those planters.”
Community Planting Day participants were able to dedicate the planters to people and organizations. Moody explained planters were dedicated to veterans, parents, grandparents and family members.
“We had some that dedicated their planters to veterans, we had parents that had passed and we had some in honor of grandparents,” Moody said. “Mostly family members that have passed on.”
Moody explained the plants are watered by the volunteers that participated in Community Planting Day and nearby Main Street businesses.
“Some of the people that came will go and water their plants in those planters,” Moody said, “but we don’t ever just rely on that. Our first line of defense is actually our Main Street businesses that keep an eye on the planters that are close to their businesses, and they will go out and water those as an added little morning or evening chore they’ll do.”
Moody explained there are also a few volunteers that will be responsible for watering the plants throughout the summer.
“We also have some dedicated volunteers, about five or six that are really, really dedicated to making sure that they’re growing and getting plant food and getting watered every day,” Moody said. “Our team is the businesses, the people that planted them and then the five or six volunteers that we have that really keep a good daily watch on them.”
Even though there are people responsible for watering the plants, Moody encourages people visiting downtown to take a few minutes to water a planter.
“We would love any and all help. In fact, one of the things that I encourage people to do is if they’re downtown with a bottle of water or they’re out on food and food truck day and they don’t finish their water, take that water, and water the planter near you,” Moody said. “If you’re downtown and you don’t mind keeping a couple gallons of water in the back of your car and you see a planner that needs a drink, please give it one.”
The community is heavily encouraged to water the plants, but to be careful about over watering since it can kill plants.
“All we ask is that people look before they water because of course overwatering can also be detrimental to them,” Moody said, “but most of the time it’s definitely on the other side because they need lots of water to grow.”
The Levelland Main Street program was influenced by a Main Street program in an East Texas city that had hanging planter baskets downtown.
“We started this because I had a conversation with a friend who had visited a Main Street city in East Texas and she sent me a couple of pictures and said, ‘why can’t we have these in downtown Levelland?’ They were hanging baskets and they were just beautiful,” Moody said.
The organization liked the idea but wanted to ensure the planters would not cause damage to anything due to the high wind speeds in the South Plains Region.
“I said, ‘I imagine we probably can’t hang them because of the wind,’” Moody said. “After discussions with the Main Street board and the revitalization committees. They said, ‘yeah, what happens if that blows off and smacks into somebody’s car, breaks a window or whatever else.’” The organization decided to choose hayrack planters to use as an alternative. Moody explained the planters are heavy duty and would not be moved by the wind.
“We started researching what the alternatives were and we found the hayrack planters, which could be bolted onto a pole,” Moody said. “Those suckers aren’t moving. They are heavy duty, and they are not going anywhere. The nice thing about those we don’t have to take the planters in and out.”
Moody explained the organization discussed hosting Community Planting Day twice a year but decided against it due to the freezing winter temperatures.
“We thought we might plant twice a year,” Moody said, “but after we discussed the temperature, we pretty much knew our first freeze decided for us that was probably not going to happen.”
Hockley County partnered with the Main Street program to supplement the cost of the planters. The county paid for the planters on the courthouse square.
“We ended up installing the hayrack planters in 2022,” Moody said. “We got a partnership with the county where they supplemented the planter cost and supply cost for the ones on the courthouse square. Which made it doable for us with the monies that we had in our fund balance for Main Street from past sip-and-swirl monies and donations.”
Moody explained Community Planting Day aides in making downtown more beautiful.
“The main reason we wanted to do it is because it beautifies downtown,” Moody said. “It makes it feel warm and inviting and colorful and because we’re the city of mosaics, we call these mother nature’s mosaics.”
The organization created Community Planting Day to get the community engaged with downtown revitalization efforts.
“Mainly we wanted to engage the community and get the community to come down and feel like they had ownership in the Main Street District and in trying to grow and revitalize the downtown area,” Moody said.