Beauty crew

WASILLA — A small but dedicated group of Wasilla city employees has been getting dirty to make Wasilla a more beautiful place to be.

Known as the “beauty crew,” the five-woman team spent a rainy Monday afternoon planting pink snapdragons alongside the Parks Highway near the Westside Center on Commercial Drive.

Crew chief Jana Griffin, a full-time public works employee, said the flower crew has been at it since June 1, sprucing up the city by planting flowers just about anywhere they can.

“Light pole baskets, highway beds, city buildings, the police station,” Griffin said.

After five weeks of nonstop work, Griffin said Monday’s plantings were among the last the crew will do this summer. Once the flowers are all planted, the crew will switch into maintenance mode.

“It usually takes us until about the Fourth of July,” she said. “It’s a long project.”

Griffin’s summer-hire crew includes Gabrielle Becker, Jessica Craver, Rachel Shepard and Shayla Johnson. On Monday, the crew first dug weeds from the roadside flower beds, then tilled the soil in preparation for planting the bright pink flowers.

All five women wore rain gear as they tried to stay somewhat dry while kneeling in the wet topsoil.

Taking a break from running the tiller, Craver said the beauty crew has been an enjoyable way to spend her summer.

“It’s pretty cool,” she said. “Working outside is nice.”

Becker, however, had a different take.

“Except for today,” she laughed as light rain continued to fall.

Griffin said the crew will continue to work maintaining the city’s flower beds and baskets thorough the end of the summer. Flowers around town must be constantly monitored to make sure they’re doing well.

“You’ve got to kind of stay on top of it all the time,” she said.

After planting the snapdragons, Griffin said the crew was heading for Lucas Road, where another bed was waiting for a fresh delivery of flowers.

Griffin said some of the flowers are ordered from private growers, though most are Valley grown in the city’s greenhouses.

“We grow most of the stuff we have,” she said.

Once the summer is over, the flowers will be taken down in anticipation of the winter.

“Come October, we’ll have them all pulled,” she said. “Then I go back into maintenance.”

Contact Matt Tunseth at 352-2265.