There are more than two dozen flowerbeds across the city. This one is at the corner of Dunmore Road and Southview Drive. (CHAT News Photo/Teagan Rasche)

By Chris Brown

Splash of colour

City’s flowerbed expert praised for ‘fantastic job’

Jun 11, 2021 | 4:35 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – Stopped at a red light on Dunmore Road or walking through many of the city’s parks an eye-catching and colourful flowerbed is can often be easy to spot.

They are largely the vision/creation of one person, the city’s horticultural services team leader Sandy Bixby.

“(She) is the one that is responsible for going through different flower species, different plant species to see what would work best in specific locations,” says City of Medicine Hat parks manager Dave Genio. “As well she also takes a look at new species that are available for us to try and see if they would be available and work here in Medicine Hat. Through that, depending on the location she’ll take a look at that, make some decisions on regards to the design, the colour schemes and yeah she does a fantastic job.”

There are more than two dozen locations around Medicine Hat, in parks and boulevards as well as public spaces like the library and cemetery.

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The process starts each fall, planning and placing orders for seeds and seedlings that are planted and grown during the winter in the city’s greenhouse. Perennials are also transplanted and kept in the greenhouse over winter so they can be planted back outside the next year.

In the spring there’s a small team available to take care of the planting.

Some of the beds are sponsored by businesses and organizations. One longtime bed sponsor is the Medicine Hat Kiwanis Club.

The club’s Ken Sauer says it an inviting situation at the corner of Dunmore Road and Carry Drive.

“We’re very, very proud of that,” he says. “It’s an inviting situation and I think that’s the best thing I can say. Sometimes when you come into a municipality there’s weeds on the pavement or there’s debris on the side roads type of thing. And what we have here instead is a very attractive entrance into the city.”

Sauer says the flowerbeds add an “extra flavour to a welcoming city.”

Whether sponsored beds or the city’s own, getting down in the dirt is something the parks department is always happy to do.

“Especially you look at the downtown corridor when the flowers are planted and everything down there it is nice to see,” says Genio. “It kind of gives them a viewpoint of something different.”

Splashes of colour that add a little extra to the city and its parks.