DOWNTOWN YOUNGSTOWN Volunteer group will plant bulbs for spring blooms

New plantings will add color to downtown between March and the annual June cleanup.
By ROGER G. SMITH
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Tulips and daffodils will be ready to pop when spring is sprung on downtown.
On Saturday, a group that usually does its flowered handiwork in the late spring will instead prepare for March and April with a fall planting.
Streetscape volunteers will plant nearly 5,000 bulbs along Federal Plaza and the monument in the center of downtown, said Scott Schulick, who heads the Downtown Revitalization Committee's visual improvements group.
Normally, fresh flowers appear downtown in late May or early June. The work is courtesy of the DRC's Streetscape program and its volunteers, part of the group's annual cleanup.
That perks up the central business district's looks between June and October. Streetscape, however, has wanted to bridge the aesthetic gap between the end of winter and start of summer.
"Our goals are to expand beyond what we had been doing," Schulick said.
Money: This year there was about $1,500 left from the roughly $20,000 raised for Streetscape 2001. That left enough room to buy bulbs that will bloom in early spring and add some color to downtown between March and the annual June cleanup.
About 10 committee members will plant the bulbs. Several clients of Community Corrections Association and Mahoning County Green Team volunteers will join them. Anyone who wants to help can meet the group at 8 a.m. Saturday on Federal Plaza near BW-3 restaurant.
The planting is an extension of some of Streetscape's other activities.
Cleanup: Also for the coming spring, the group recently took out the begonias that filled the flower bunkers it maintains on Champion and Boardman streets. Violas were planted in their place.
The group recently cleaned up the John Young memorial across from the downtown fire station.
Streetscape also is talking with other downtown groups about improving the look of a major corridor between the city center and the suburbs.
rgsmith@vindy.com