Contractor Replacing Downtown Flowers at No Cost to the City

Weather conditions contributed to widespread fungal infection

Elkins, W. Va., September 2, 2020: The city’s downtown flower display was afflicted with a fungal infection earlier this summer, and the contractor that manages the display will replant the affected baskets next week at no cost to the city.

“Earlier in the season, the plants in the downtown hanging baskets were doing really well, but the rainy weather we’ve been having recently seems to have led to a fungal outbreak among most of the baskets,” says Tammy Dolly, who manages the downtown display. “In response, we treated the affected baskets with a copper fungicide around August 12. We began to gain a little ground before the last run of rain, but that just sent them over the edge.”

Dolly reported the problem to city officials and offered to remove and compost the dead plants, then replace them with mums at her own expense. Council’s Municipal Properties Committee accepted this offer at its August 19 meeting, and replanting will proceed during the week of September 7.

“I take great pride in the flowers and look forward to caring for them each year, and I’m sincerely sorry this year’s display turned out this way,” says Dolly. “We’ve never had anything like this happen to any of our flowers anywhere, and I’m not sure what we could have done differently. We’re just happy to have a plan in place to move forward, and we will keep watering as long as we can this fall to keep the mums looking nice.”