Ingeborg Perndorfer; and Pete Mindrich. On ladder: Stephen Powers and Jack Kelleher. Caroline O’Connor
By Bridget O’Connor
RED BANK – Shortly before Memorial Day Weekend rolls around, members of Red Bank RiverCenter’s horticulture program place about 25 flowerpots and 58 hayracks filled with colorful flowers along Broad, Monmouth and River streets, beautifying Red Bank for the sunny days ahead.
Ingeborg Perndorfer, a Red Bank resident and landlord, is in charge of the horticulture program. As a volunteer, she has built a team to help her in the effort to brighten up Red Bank. “There are so many people and tasks involved in this project,” she said.
The project takes a village: It includes the Red Bank Borough DPW for daily watering, the Navesink Garden Club for weekly maintenance of the flowers, and volunteers from the Red Bank Environmental Commission. Prep starts all the way back in November when Todd Thompson from Guaranteed Plants garden center orders the flowers, hay-racks and pots to ensure all desired materials for the project are available.
Most of the flowerpots are sponsored by merchants to be placed outside their storefront. Perndorfer’s team of volunteers plants and waters the flowers so the merchants do not have to maintain the pots. The committee places stones at the bottom of each pot to make it heavy and adds soil, plants and fertilizer. Service includes watering and maintenance all season long.
Among the flowers enhancing borough streets are red and pink dragon wing begonias, euphorbia “Diamond Frost,” variegated purple heart setcreasea, “Lemon Coral” sedum and variegated spider plants.
At 4 a.m. one morning shortly before Memorial Day, Perndorfer goes out with DPW’s Carl Ashton and his watering truck to show him the route he will be following to water the plants every day until the end of summer.
Perndorfer is an avid supporter of the community. As a resident, and founder and owner of the Language School in Red Bank, she took the initiative to brighten up the town.
“I come from Austria where there are flowers everywhere,” she said. When she first came to Red Bank, she thought it “used to look like a desert.”
Now Red Bank looks much more inviting with its “streetscape and benches and flowers,” she said. The horticulture program at Red Bank helps achieve this. Find the flowerpots and hayracks along Broad, Monmouth and River streets throughout the summer.
The article originally appeared in the May 27 – June 2, 2021 print edition of The Two River Times.
