Donations Will Keep Laurel Street Blooming

The 82 hanging flower baskets on Laurel Street in downtown San Carlos will get a boost on Saturday, Aug. 25, from Cowabunga Creamery. The popular ice cream store at 784 Laurel Street will give the project one dollar for each product purchased that day for every customer who also brings along a plant or donates five or more dollars for the hanging baskets. Hours will be from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Currently, former Mayor Tom Davids maintains the hanging baskets, tending and replacing plants as necessary. The City of San Carlos provides water and initially provided hangers for the plants. But when budget cuts threatened continuing them, volunteer Virginia Martin, wife of former San Carlos city planner Neal Martin and a master gardener, maintained them for almost two years. When Martin retired from the project, Davids, representing San Carlos Together, took over. The city continues to provide water, but basket liners, soil, fertilizer and flowers are up to volunteers.

Davids has long been a crusader of flowers blooming on Laurel Street. Some 20 years ago, he installed plant holders for six-inch pots at eye level on the light poles and planted small seasonal flowers several times a year. It was a tiny step toward downtown beautification. 

“We’re not quite up to Victoria yet,” he says, “but we’re getting there.”

For anyone wishing to donate a plant at Cowabunga, suggested plants that thrive include bacoba, hanging geraniums, pelargoniums, trailing petunias, lobelia, alyssum and lobelia. For those who wish to donate directly, send checks to San Carlos Together, P.O. Box 74, San Carlos, CA 94070, and specify “Hanging Baskets.”