 Mississippi Mills Community in Blooms
by Lori Ray
The judges have awarded Mississippi Mills as a 4 Bloom Community. In their final report, they commented numerous times on the good work by the volunteers of the Pakenham Horticultural Society.
"The Pakenham Horticultural Society takes upon itself to keep the village beautiful and tidy. Congratulations to the community on the Pakenham Beautification Project. It is rare to come across a small community that is so organized that it has a living document plan for keeping their outdoor spaces beautiful and welcoming. The General Store, built in 1840 is surrounded by 24 barrel planters that are planted and maintained by the Horticultural Society"
 
 
Annual Report, Beautification - Fern Martin, Chairperson
Our first year of being part of the Mississippi Mills Communities in Bloom program has been most successful.
First of all people like Elise Perron, Judy McGrath, Carol and Brian Bean, Rhonda Tees, Ken Souliere, Toby Barratt and Doreen Blair continued to make sure the Bridge Park was maintained, the barrels were planted and the gardens weeded at the arena.
Sheila Wark alerted us to the condition of the plants at the Cenotaph and took leadership to fix that.
Rhonda Tees created a document for CiB that was most inspirational and gave us a guide as to future projects. One was to plant sugar maple and red oak trees at the entrance to Pakenham as well as at the Cedar Hill corner and the Blakeney Rd/Kinburn Side Rd corner. Paul L’Arrivee, Ritchie and Margie Argue, Bob and Sherryl Smith and their granddaughters, Judy and myself all took part in this exercise and got a lot of exercise. We also planted a Serviceberry in the Bridge Park. We diligently watered the trees all summer.
Paul Ralph donated and planted a beautiful Blue Spruce tree in the Bridge Park which has become the community Christmas tree. We placed solar lights on it in December and sang “Oh Christmas Tree”.
Sharon Whyte, Toby, Judy and I planted daffodils near the Cedar Hill corner with plans to continue daffodil planting along County Road 29 every fall.
The highlight of the year was the visit by the CiB judges. But before they arrived, Judy, Garwood Tripp, Paul, Elise, Doreen, Margie and Bonnie MacFarlane mulched, pruned, weeded and tidied and got the village looking pretty spiffy. They even dug out grass and weeds in the sidewalk!! All of this effort resulted in Pakenham getting special mention as a particularly beautiful part of Mississippi Mills. We paid for Judy to go to the CiB Awards event in Toronto where she received the kudos.
With the CiB exercise we learned that many people pick up and dispose of sidewalk garbage on a regular basis – resulting in a tidy village. But this is not true of our rural roads. The Pakenham Civitans do a great job of garbage pickup spring and fall – covering one km along each of the four entrances to the village. The Cedar Hill neighbourhood do an extensive pick up in the spring. But beyond that our rural ditches often contain an embarrassing accumulation of coffee cups, water bottles, dirty diapers, etc. It will be a challenge to find a solution to this problem. (2012-01-08) |
