Hardy Gardeners turn out for tulip planting
By Mara Rose Williams
Photo by Keith Myers
The Kansas City Star
Planting tulips on Jan. 1 is no breeze, especially when it’s 14 degrees — and feels like 2 — and it takes a pickax to chop through frozen earth.
By Mara Rose Williams
Photo by Keith Myers
The Kansas City Star
Planting tulips on Jan. 1 is no breeze, especially when it’s 14 degrees — and feels like 2 — and it takes a pickax to chop through frozen earth.
But that’s exactly what about two dozen volunteers from Kansas City Area Transportation Authority and the Southtown Council did Friday morning on the northeast corner of 18th Street and Troost Avenue.
The annual gardening project is part of the Tulips on Troost program, which began four years ago as a way to unify communities and beautify the corridor that for years was labeled the dividing line between black and white Kansas City.
The planting occurred on property owned by the ATA, which later this year will launch its Troost Max bus line past the area being beautified. Called the green line, it will feature hybrid electric buses and stations with solar-powered lighting and rain gardens, said Cindy Baker, ATA spokeswoman.Volunteers bundled in puffy parkas, wool caps, gloves and scarves jabbed shovels into the ground Friday to chip away chunks of frozen earth.
“It’s freezing out here, but I think we are doing just great as long as we keep this to 15 minutes or less,” said Jackson County Legislator Scott Burnett, one of the first to start.
Actually, it took an hour to bury all 4,000 bulbs. And 5-year-old Phoenix Thomas, who wrapped her gloved hands around a cup of hot chocolate, lasted only 20 minutes before begging her mother, Deana Thomas of Independence, to take her back to their car.
Even though transportation authority workers dug trenches before the snow fell Christmas Eve, the ground by Friday was “frozen solid, as hard as rock,” said Andrea Berkley, an ATA worker who volunteered.
Master gardeners say Jan. 1 is the last safe day to plant tulip bulbs and recommend packing a layer of mulch between the bulb and the cold soil. Friday’s planters took heed.
The goal is to eventually plant a million tulips on Troost. So far over the years, about a quarter of that number have been planted.
Berkley and her husband, Dean, a transportation authority driver, said they didn’t really mind Friday’s cold because, “anything you do with nature is worth it,” she said. “Besides, this is going to be beautiful, and come spring when we drive by here and see the beautiful tulips we’ll say, ‘Wow, we helped to do that.’ ”
To contact Mará Rose Williams, call 816-234-4419 or send e-mail to mdwilliams@kcstar.com
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