Improvement Club History
Article, 2005

Annandale Improvement Club
News article- Annandale Advocate
August 2, 2005

It’s not about glitter and glamour; it’s not about outdoing your neighbor.   It’s about creating a place people want to visit.   That’s the opinion of the Annandale Beautification Committee.   

The hanging flower baskets that started appearing on Main Street every spring three or four years ago were the start of a movement that continues today, though often behind the scenes.

  Throughout the spring and summer, more than a dozen volunteers spend hours bringing color and beauty to the community by planting flowers around town.  Then they spend hours more watering and caring for them.   According to beautification committee member Patty VanDorp, beautifying your hometown with floral and landscaping displays has become a standard rather than the exception.   Like Red Wing  “People go to Red Wing just to see the flowers,” she said. “They have 320 baskets. We have 24, but we want ours to look like theirs.”   

In the past few years the group has made a noticeable impact on the look of the city.   Besides the baskets that hang from the canopies over Main Street businesses, circular concrete planters overflowing with colorful blossoms now dot the sidewalks and alleys, and ground plantings adorn the edges of several city parking lots, buildings and the Annandale sign on the east side of town.   Their flowers are started early in the season by Bernie Weber at her greenhouse, called Weber’s Folly, on the southwest side of town.   During the fall and winter months, committee members and other volunteers make sure different plants inhabit the cement planters.   “In the winter we put spruce tips and red twig dogwood in the rings,” VanDorp said. “When it snows, it looks like a winter wonderland.”  

Making the city attractive isn’t a new idea for Annandale residents, and an organized effort has been evolving for the last 15 years or so, since the Highway 55 beautification project, VanDorp said.   For years the effort was maintained almost solely by Betty Hawkinson. She watered city flowers on her own time until she just couldn’t do it any more.   Around that time, community members decided it might be a good idea to create something a little more formal.   Last fall, the beautification committee started having formal meetings, and next year, for the first time, it will be a line in the city council’s budget.   

At one point the committee even had a consultant come in to give members pointers to help them feel more confident about doing the job on their own, VanDorp said.   “We think it’s important for Annandale because we are a lakes area with lots of visitors as well as year round people,” committee member Laurel Miller said. “We want (Annandale) to be a place for people to want to come in from the lake to visit.”  Today the group is a city committee with the support of the Annandale Improvement Club and other volunteers.  Recently the committee has become recipients of a Minnesota Horticulture Society grant program called the Minnesota Green Project.   Unlike other grants, the program doesn’t give money; it gives plants, “which is as good as gold for us,” Miller said.  The plants are leftovers from the North Hennepin Technical College horticulture program.  This year the beautification committee used the plants to fill in some space at St. Ignatius Catholic Church, but plants are available for other projects as well.  

All the city needs is more people to join the effort, VanDorp said.  Unfortunately, the volunteer base in Annandale is much smaller than it is in other communities.  What the committee would like to see is more help from individuals and organizations to take the program to the next level, the competitive level.   America In Bloom is a national contest that strives to improve the visual appeal of neighborhoods, encourage involvement and emphasize environmental awareness.  The city of Buffalo was scheduled to compete in the event this year.   “It (beautifying your city) is a huge movement,” VanDorp said.   “It demonstrates vitality and civic pride. It shows that you are an active community.”  

For more information, or to find out how to volunteer, visit the beautification committee’s web site at www.annandale.mn.us/beautification/index.htm.