Garden designer Wendy Ford and City Market Manager Jim Reilly discuss the new landscape. (C) Jo Ellen Meyers Sharp
About 15 volunteers, including several youth, completed the planting at the City Market on Thursday.
We planted 25, 4-foot wide containers with dill, thyme, basil and ornamental peppers, which will add color and fragrance for the rest of summer. The pepper, called ‘Sangria,’ will have tiny fruits of blue, green and red, but they are not burn-a-hole-in-your-mouth hot.
We also put down mulch in the shrubs and flower beds, planted KnockOut roses and finished off the planting around Whistler Monument.
City Market Manager Jim Reilly said he was pleased and that it came out “a lot better” than he thought it would because he had a hard time visualizing what it would look like completed. In fall, we will work on the lawn area.
'Sangria' ornamental pepper.
Marion County Master Gardners will tend the property throughout the summer to weed, deadhead and monitor how the plants are doing.
I’d like to thank Bradfield Organics and Dammann’s Lawn & Garden Center for getting us the fertilizers to use in this demonstration project, Indianapolis Downtown Inc.’s Carol Mullins, who guided us through the logistics, Wendy Ford for her creative and colorful design, Heidenreich Greenhouses for growing great herbs for the containers, Hood’s for growing great pansies, and last, but not least, all the volunteers to made this happen. Marion County Master Gardeners and a youth group from Keep Indianapolis Beautiful had a hand in the project. So did the Indianapolis Department of Public Works, who watered the containers and a crew of community service workers who tore out all of the shrubs and ground covers in the Market Street bed.