Community Corner

Heritage Park: Please Don't Pick The Smiley Face Flowers

Planted in the fall, a spring bloom brought back a Heritage Park tradition but people picking the flowers destroy the display.

Article posted by Rich Arleo, written by Lon Cohen

Fred Drewes, a volunteer at Heritage Park, has a message for the public: please don't pick the flowers.

The flower smiley face seen on the hillside at Heritage Park is missing a twinkle in one of its eyes thanks to some residents who took the liberty of plucking the daffodils. Even though there are thousands of them, Drewes said that the flowers - planted last year for a spring bloom - are being picked by children playing in the park and then cast aside.

"This momentary joy has demised the joy of others smiling at the face," he said in an email to Patch.According to Drewes, back in the fall of 2004 volunteers planted 7,500 crocus that formed the first blooming smiley face. Over the the next two years the crocus came back.

“The crocus bulbs started to weaken and the smiley started to fade,” he said. The workers continued the tradition by mowing a grass sculpture of a smiley face into the hillside.

Last fall volunteers sold t-shirts and collected donations for the smiley face so that they could then plant thousands of flowers in october so the 50-foot wide blooming face could appear once again.

"The goal of the face was bring a new joy to our part," Drewes said. "Another goal was to create a landscape element people young and old inter-act with. All that has been achieved. It would be best if the flowers were left for all to enjoy."


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