BRIGHTENING MAIN
Nancy Vaillancourt gives one of the eight large planters on Main Street a once-over on a recent evening. The pots are transitioning from summer flowers to more fall blooms, as well as paying tribute to the annual Blooming Prairie Cancer Group’s fundraising auctions with shades of pink. Staff photo by Kay Fate
For nearly 10 years, there have been large planters on eight corners of Blooming Prairie’s Main Street, filled with bright flowers throughout the summer before changing to a fall theme as school starts.
This week, many of them sport bedazzled flamingos and other nods to the BP Cancer Group’s annual fundraising auctions.
While the pots were originally purchased by the Blooming Prairie Chamber of Commerce, and the flowers funded by the city’s beautification project funds, it’s been all volunteers for the last couple of years.
When Laura Larson learned there wouldn’t be money available for the flowers in 2024, she approached Pat Misgen, the city’s resident green thumb.
Her yard is filled with native flowers and grasses; she also tends the pollinator garden outside the Blooming Prairie Branch Library.
“Laura said, ‘if you don’t do the planters, they’re going to just sit there,’ and she said she’d help me,” Misgen said. “Then Nancy offered to join the team.”
That’s Nancy Vaillancourt, the former longtime branch manager of the BPBL.
Misgen worked with Lorrie Rugg, a master gardener from Owatonna, to find the best plants to use; the group then looked for sponsors.
This year, there are eight – and there was a waiting list.
The planters are sponsored by MBT Bank; the Blossoming Community Foundation; Jennifer Walsh Real Estate; the BP Fire Department; the BP Area Chamber of Commerce; Christina Davis and family; Jeff and Suzy Kramer; and an anonymous donor in memory of Frank Vorlicek.
Walsh planted the flowers in her pot herself, after the team laid them out.
The sponsors all donated $200, “so we had $1,600 to work with,” Misgen said, “and I thought, we should be able to do a nice pot. We did all that – then we still had money left for our fall decorations.”
Sponsors and donations are always welcome, she said, as are “gardeners out there who’d like to help. Some days I add water, and some days I don’t have to really do anything, so I deadhead. It’s pretty simple.”
The planters are starting to show wear, though, getting a bit chipped, but the beautification will continue.
“It’s Blooming Prairie, right?” Vaillancourt said. “There have to be flowers on Main Street.”