Ask the Answer Person: "I was so disappointed to see what happened to our lovely flower baskets this year"

The Answer Person says: "The Downtown Decorah Betterment Association's flower basket program was the idea of decorahnews.com owner Paul Scott--and was perfected by longtime Decorah business owner Norm Smith.  We'll hear from Paul in just a moment, but first here is some background:

This was the 26th year for the flower basket program, which is funded by the Downtown Decorah Betterment Association and the downtown Self-Supporting Municipal Improvement District--and by donations from people throughout Decorah.  The flower basket program has expanded from its early years, when the baskets were only on Water Street, to the current program where flower baskets are put up all over downtown Decorah and on College Drive.

Here's what Paul Scott has to say about this year's baskets:

'Flowers, of course, are living things--not objects like Christmas lights or wreaths.  I know from experience that flower basket program volunteers have to work much harder on the years when there are issues with the flower baskets, such as this year when there was no rain for almost all of August.