MOSES LAKE — Moses Lake High School FFA members and horticulture students fanned out through downtown Wednesday, shovels in hand, followed by wagons filled with flowers and water buckets. After all, those flowers that beautify downtown every summer don’t plant themselves.

They don’t raise themselves, either. The FFA participants and hort students do that, all winter long.

Senior Peyton Juarez was explaining the project - well, hold on. That ornamental grass had grown an impressive root system over the winter.

“I’m struggling a little here,” Juarez said as he tried to break it apart.

Planting flowers downtown is almost the last part of the project, which starts with a bare greenhouse and acres of dirt in midwinter. Most of the plants are destined for the FFA plant sale, with some set aside to be planted in all the flower pots downtown.

Of which there are a lot.

“I believe there are 137 of them,” said ag instructor and co-FFA advisor Tony Kern.

The students also raise the plants for the flower box surrounding the clock at the intersection of West Third Avenue and South Ash Street and the flower bed next to the Moses Lake post office. Kern said about 35 students were working on the project.

“I wanted to come and help put one of my favorite teachers at the high school,” Juarez said. “Mr. Kern is a really great guy. If you’re ever in a pinch, he’ll be there to help you.”

The students cleaned out the dead ornamental grass from last summer, added fertilizer and replanted a mix of sweet potato vines, petunias and new ornamental grass. Juarez said the students who worked on the project, and the teachers that oversee the greenhouse, had shown off their skills in 2023.

“This year when we had our plant sale, they were just magnificent,” he said. “I think it was one of the best ones by far.”

“I think we sold the most ever this year, actually,” said senior Jaxyn White.

The MLHS students start with a greenhouse - two greenhouses, actually - filled with tiny plants in individual containers. The results of their work are pots of ornamental grasses, among other things, that are so healthy it’s difficult to work with them.

“These have been growing for quite a while,” Juarez said as he tried to separate the root ball. “Since January, since we got back from Christmas break.”

There’s a plan to make the flowers look their best, which Kern explained to the assembled students.

“There are five plants that go in a pot. And the grass - which everybody knows - the grass goes in the middle,” Kern said.

The sweet potato vines come next.

“If there’s only one sweet potato vine, it’s easy. But if there are two, like there should be, they always go in opposite corners,” he continued.

The petunias are the finishing touch, and the same rule applies.

“They go in opposite corners. It does not matter which corner as long as they’re opposite corners,” Kern said.

The Downtown Moses Lake Association buys the plants for the project, and Kern emphasized the customers should get good value for their money.

“We’re all quality control down here, meaning if you see something that needs fixed, fix it,” he said. “We’re all working together, we’re all quality control.”

The students spent most of Wednesday planting; maintenance is the responsibility of the DMLA, which hires a watering crew.

“The project doesn’t really stop. We hand it off to (DMLA),” Kern said.

Cheryl Schweizer may be reached at [email protected].