The Landscape Advisory Commission is sponsoring a Riverside Springs Ahead Community Work Day on May 29 to replant the public planters on Burlington, Quincy, and Riverside Roads. This is an ambitious project for which we need your help.
Commissioner Terri Lynne-Culloden presented a beautiful landscape plan to the Village Board at its March 1 meeting, where it was approved unanimously with strong support. The plan is to use existing plants within the Village, both on public lands and from private donations, to give our CBD a long overdue make over. The plan also includes removing several of the existing planters to increase ease of access to our businesses.
This is part of an ongoing effort to 1) make our CBD more attractive, 2) support our local businesses, and 3) create a sustainable downtown landscape that reduces the maintenance demands on our Public Works Department.
On March 31 we will be collecting plants to divide for the project. Here are the plants we need:
Stella D'Oro Daylily
Coneflower
Feather Reed Grass
Blackeyed Susan
Fountain Grass
Penstemon
Prairie Drop Seed
Autumn Joy Sedum
Solomon's Seal
Catmint
Liatris
Christmas Fern
Coreopsis
If you have any of the above in your garden, and they are mature enough to be divided, please let us know. We will gladly come dig them and take them to Public Works on March 31. Or, if you prefer, you can dig up what you would like to donate and we will come pick them up.
In addition to the above, we will be purchasing plants for this project. If you can, please help out with a donation (our budget for this project is $5000).
Here is the timeline for the project. We need volunteers for all of the following days. Times for the first four days are 8:00 a.m. to Noon. May 29 we will be working all day so any time you can contribute that day would be great:
March 31 -- Collect plants for division; clean beds and cover with compost
April 3 -- Divide and pot plants at Public Works
April 21 -- Amend soil in all beds, cover with weed barrier and mulch
April 24 -- Pot seedlings at Public Works
May 29 -- Riverside Springs Ahead Community Work Day! Bring our CBD alive!!!
To donate funds to the project, checks should be made out to the Village of Riverside with a note that it is for the Riverside Springs Ahead Community Work Day. You can give or send donations directly to the Village office or contact me and I will help you to direct your donation to the proper place.
To donate plants, or to volunteer for any of the above work days, please contact me at bsells@riverside.il.us or (708) 442-2670.
Please let me know if I can provide any further information. And, please SPREAD THE WORD -- you can see from the above that we are going to need lots of hands to make this project a success for our Village.
This is a BIG opportunity. We all want to help revitalize our CBD. What better way to start than to make it a beautiful place where people want to come visit, shop, and enjoy? Come June 1 we can have a freshly landscaped CBD of which we are all proud and WE CAN MAKE IT HAPPEN!
Thank you in advance for supporting this project, and thank you to Terri Lynne-Culloden and the LAC for their work in making this possible.
Ben