Downtown beautification brings Greeneville residents, businesses together

By KATE COIL

TT&C Assistant Editor

A community beautification tradition is bringing Greeneville residents together to invest in their community.  

Jann Mirkov, executive director of Main Street: Greeneville, said the annual volunteer planting day brings together residents old and new, young and old to connect with each other and give back to their community by planting new flowers downtown. 

“We have a variety of age groups that help us,” Mirkov said. “They have buy-in and it’s a nice way to have the community engaged. It’s fun to see the ownership that they take. We had six youth from our Green County youth leadership group help this year. We also have some of the same people who have come year after year to help. We advertise it, so we get different people each time. Sometimes we get people who are new to the community and looking for some way to volunteer. We team first timers up with those who have volunteered before. Often times, younger members have never planted – even at home – but they are gung-ho at helping get it done." 

Heavier lifting is done by the Greeneville Public Works Department while the flowers themselves come from a farm and greenhouse just outside the town.  

“The Public Works Department help us move some of the large planters and help us with some of the soil,” she said. “Volunteers then finish up the bulk of the work. We partner with the public works department over the years, which is nice that we have an opportunity to do that. They have the manpower to get us to the point volunteers can get to planting out in the soil.” 

Downtown businesses also reap benefits from the efforts with many of the businesses purchasing the original planters still being used. To keep up appearances, the city also has self-watering planters to keep the planters looking nice throughout the summer heat. 

“The flowers soften the hardscape of the buildings, and it’s really nice for folks to see,” Mirkov said. “We tend to use a variety of colors. The self-watering planters still need the man power to fill them up, but it helps having to not water them every night in the heat of the summer. We only water probably twice a week as opposed to every night.” 

The flowers also provide a good first impression for the visitors to Greeneville’s numerous historic sites.  

“Art and flowers can set a mood like music,” she said. “People enjoy looking at the different varieties. We have very large planters at a couple of our intersections, which have quite a presence. We have a volunteer who comes to help plant who walks every morning, and said they really enjoy seeing the plants on that run. We even get people who call if they are concerned about a planter. The public keeps their eyes on things.” 

 Planting usually occurs the Saturday before Mother’s Day. Mirkov said a combination of weather, the downtown presence on Mother’s Day, and Greeneville’s Iris Festival the following weekend usually make this the ideal time to plant. 

“Mother’s Day weekend is typically when the weather shifts, and plants grow at a quicker rate when night time temperatures are in the 50s,” she said. “It seems like Mother’s Day is when we in this area can typically avoid the frost. It’s lovely because the day after we plant we usually have a lot of people downtown for church services Mother’s Day. The flowers then usually have a week to take hold before the Iris Festival.” 

The idea of bringing in community volunteers to help with downtown beautification came from late Greeneville Mayor G. Thomas Love, who served the city for nearly 50 years. Mirkov herself has been participating for 17 years, and said the day has a way of bringing together citizens and local business owners for a good cause.  

“Main Street: Greeneville is an all volunteer organization that relies on volunteers to help with all of our projects in Greeneville,” Mirkov said. “It doesn’t take us long to do all of downtown. We work on about 85 planters, and then we have some other areas we plant flowers like around a statue of President Johnson. We can typically get the planting done in two hours. We have pretty good system and some great volunteers.” 

Mirkov said the types of flowers planted downtown vary from year to year but usually have to be annuals able to survive both the heat and sun as well as the shade. This year, flowers selected for downtown planters included lantana, diamond frost, different petunia varieties, bluebells, and verbena, among others.