Sisters is blooming for the summer

Sisters residents are digging in the dirt to make the town look its best this summer season. With the Sisters Garden Club, local businesses, the city public works department and others, it’s a team effort to have the town’s gardens in bloom.

Since 1989, the Sisters Garden Club has worked on the town’s public garden spaces. Club members maintain four spots: what is called the Log Cabin Garden in front of Papandrea’s Pizzeria, the point garden across the street, the gazebo in Village Green, and the library.

“This time of year is busiest, of course, because things are growing,” said club president Mary Crow.

She said about half the club’s 75 members work on the gardens through the year. They keep a mix of permanent plantings, annuals and wild flowers growing.

“It’s not just the Garden Club, it’s businesses that help by donating and giving discounts,” said Crow.

The City of Sisters participates by irrigating and by removing piles of weeds and clippings.

The club raises money in several ways including their annual garden tour. It donates some of that money to foster the gardening spirit in town and it keeps about $1,000 to use on the four gardens it maintains in Sisters.

“It’s one of the main ways we get to know each other — we pull weeds and chat,” said Crow.

She said it’s wonderful to be working in the gardens and have residents and tourists stop and thank them.

Individual businesses in town also maintain gardens that add to Sisters’ appeal. At Wild Dusty Rose, owner Patti Capps has a colorful plot in front of her store on Cascade. In her seven years at the store, she has noticed deer nibbling at the back of her building but “they don’t seem to make it to the front” where the main highway may be too busy.

Capps gardens with a mix of annuals and perennials. She relies on time-released fertilizer each year to make her garden grow. She gets “good comments” from visitors on her efforts.

Garden Club members will be out this week planting annuals.