Back in the early spring, I sent Felder Rushing an email asking him to suggest plants that would work in the harsh environment of a downtown. Felder, whose gardening column runs in The Sunday Dispatch, is host of the popular Gestalt Gardener on Mississippi Public Radio.
Locals may remember some years back Felder showing up for a public appearance at the Hitching Lot Farmers’ Market driving his trademark pickup with a flower garden growing in its bed.
On his show this gonzo gardening guru entertains questions from devoted listeners that range from how to keep raccoons out of the sweet potatoes to the care and feeding of heirloom roses.
Years ago ginkgo trees were planted throughout downtown in square cutouts in the sidewalks. The city has put Knock-Out roses in some of the cutouts; others, including the one in front of The Dispatch, were left unplanted.
Among Felder’s suggestions was ruellia or Mexican petunia, a vigorous two-to-three-foot tall plant that greets each day with lovely purple petunia-like booms. Yes, perfect. By noon the bloom is gone, but it returns the next morning shrugging off the impossible growing conditions of no water and intense heat.
As my mother, a lifelong gardener, would put it, these plants sing for their supper.
We have Mexican petunia in our backyard, so I dug them up, cut off the top to facilitate root development and planted them in about as hostile environment as one could hope for.
The plants flourished and each morning downtown pedestrians passing The Dispatch are greeted by a purple chorus of purple blooms.
There have been unintended consequences. That little three-foot by four-foot patch of ground works like a lint trap in a dryer catching bits of sidewalk litter –cigarette butts, candy wrappers, occasionally a beer can — I’ve come to accept this as being part of downtown, or rather living in Lowndes County, Mississippi.
A recent road trip north through Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York drove home this sad reality. There was almost no litter along the routes I traveled. Coming from a place where there is hardly a road without litter, it seemed, well, odd.
The most conspicuous reminder of litter on that trip was signs threatening $500 fines for littering. I can’t say if it was the threat of a fine or a different mindset, but something is going on in those places that’s not happening here.
In the two weeks I was away, my petunia patch lint screen collected all manner of debris, including dog poop, a plastic bottle, fast-food wrappers, even an empty “Value Pak” of Trojan Ultra-Thins.
This is not my first tirade about litter, and unless some public official reads this and is moved to do something, I don’t think another newspaper column on the subject is going to do much good.
As has been written before, our litter-cluttered byways are a resounding indictment of this community, its businesses and the people who live here.
“Trashy town, trashy people,” the motorist mumbles to herself and keeps driving.
It’s not just the city. The county has its share of squalor. Look under any bridge, boat landing or seldom-trafficked road and chances are you’ll see fresh bags of garbage, building debris and broken appliances.
Apparently, our elected leaders are unwilling to administer the tough-love necessary to get at the problem. Nobody ever complains about it, they say; why stir the pot?
In the meantime we deface our environment, advertising our indifference, affirming negative stereotypes the larger world has about our state.
Birney Imes III is the immediate past publisher of The Dispatch.
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