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Self-watering first step in modern blooming city

Trail Coun. Carol Dobie is focusing on youth involvement in gardening city beds
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Trail council agreed to purchase 90 self-watering baskets and 200 self-watering planters. (Trail Times file photo)

Self-watering planters are just a drop in the bucket of what Coun. Carol Dobie would like to see in modernized City of Trail gardens.

She says it’s time to update the volunteer workforce as well.

The story begins with Trail council’s approval for the purchase of 90 self-watering planters and 200 self-watering hanging baskets for the price of $40,000. Volunteers from Trail Community in Bloom have long championed the city for updated planters, and this week, council finally agreed to replace the existing stock.

Considering the yearly cost to water the old planters and baskets during Communities in Bloom season - upwards of $27,000 annually - as well as the massive volume of water required - overhauling the blooming streetscapes is expected to be a money-saver over time.

The new “Desert Planters” are said to reduce water consumption up to 80 per cent compared with manually watered planters, and decrease labour costs related to less weed growth and less required maintenance.

“It is anticipated that this drastic reduction in watering frequency will yield a $15,000 to $20,000 annual savings,” summarized Director of Public Works, Chris McIsaac. “Providing a short two-to-three-year payback on initial investment.”

Instead of daily watering, the self‐watering hanging baskets would only need to be replenished biweekly or weekly, and the curbside planters, weekly.

Over $240,000 has been spent for watering since 2004, says Trail CiB’s Dan Rodlie.

“Since we began, we have struggled with watering issues for our pots and baskets,” he reported to council. “Trail is one of the few cities in our area that does not have a built-in watering system, even on new installations.”

Over the years, Trail CiB tried several ideas for watering such as water reservoirs installed on lamp standards, adopting pots to businesses for watering, using volunteers for watering, and contracted watering.

“Some years were better than others, but costs kept creeping up, ” Rodlie pointed out.

“Looking at the 2017 expenditures, we paid out over $55,000 to contractors … ” he explained. “They performed tasks such as weeding, watering and assisting in moving pots and hanging baskets. We may still need help with a few of these tasks such as moving the heavy pots and baskets, but the majority we could do ourselves, and more.”

After considering Rodlie’s report, council unanimously agreed to purchase the self-watering receptacles during Monday’s Governance and Operations Committee meeting.

“I’m glad the city has decided to do this because it’s not only going to cut down on watering costs,” Dobie began. “But it’s putting us in parallel with what other cities are doing, in other words, we are keeping up, and that’s what we want to be able to do.”

Another pressing matter that needs to be addressed, sooner rather than later she says, is the dynamics of the volunteer-based Communities in Bloom (CiB) program. For 16 years, the Trail CiB group has given countless hours of backbreaking work to grow beautiful gardens and foster community pride in the Silver City.

“I have talked to them about this,” Dobie shared. “And that is to be looking at some further changes in the way Community in Bloom works, because the average age for the volunteers is now 70-plus.”

Dobie was talking about succession planning - a must for any organization to keep afloat.

“(We can’t) continue to expect these people that are now involved, and have been there for many, many years, to (keep going),” she said.

“We want to try to encourage more young people to get involved.”

She mentioned a planting session from last season as an example, though volunteers have been doing this for years.

The day began very early in the city yards and ended just before dusk, instead of in the dark, because volunteers worked through lunch and only took short breaks.

That was just one day and one site.

“That’s in order to have these things done,” Dobie said. “So I am hoping that we can keep that same parallel in terms of moving forward with ‘modernization’ of planters, and have young people start to realize it’s time for them to step up to the plate.”

So far the group is on that track towards engaging teenaged volunteers, like Take A Hike and high school students, but there’s much further to go.

Last year, Trail CiB was recognized for those beginning efforts with a Scotts Youth Involvement Award, given to them during the national awards ceremony in Ottawa.

That’s a great first step, now Dobie is determined to keep up the momentum.

“One of the things I’ve got on my bucket list is to talk with more youth,” she said. “I’m going to make my famous chocolate cupcakes and go meet with them (East Trail youth centre) and talk about getting young people involved and being able to contribute to their community, taking ownership of things.”

Trail CiB will supply the soil, fertilizer and plants, and the young hands can decide what to do, whether it’s planting a vegetable garden, flowers, or both.

“With modernization we need to look at different ways of doing things,” Dobie added. “And we want young people to step up and contribute to that.”

Self-watering planter
Self-watering planter


Sheri Regnier

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