This past Saturday, volunteers fanned out across town to help beautify Bristol this spring. In partnership with the Bristol Garden Club, the Town of Bristol received a $2,000 grant from the National Scenic Byway Foundation and American Park Network to plant daffodils in town. The “Love Our Byways” micro-grant is sponsored by Toyota Motor North America. The Bristol project is one of 25 selected from across the country.

The Delightful Daffodil Project is a community effort, conceived of by the Garden Club, to enhance the natural beauty of the town by promoting the planting of thousands of daffodils each fall. The goal is to ultimately create a pathway of 1,000,000 golden daffodils winding through town. Daffodils, which naturalize easily and become more numerous each year, are intended to draw more attention to Bristol’s official “national byway” with each spring season, and create a flush of cheerful color at sites along the route and around town.

“It was a fabulous community event, with 61 volunteers and more at Linden Place,” said Pam Delaney of the Bristol Garden Club, one of the organizers of the event. “We had nice representation from the town; it could not have gone better.”

In addition to the national grant, the effort was given a big boost by June Stuart Veader, representing Veader Auto Group/Toyota, who presented organizers with a matching grant at the Saturday morning kickoff event at Roger Williams University.

Linden Place, delighted to receive 500 bulbs specifically for its campus, was well-represented at the event. After checking in with Pam Delaney and her crew, and armed with special red T-shirts, gardening gloves, and bulbs, the next stop was Linden Place.

Master gardener Garry Holmstrom had already marked the perfect locations for the highest visibility from the street. Bulbs were counted out, and the digging began.

“Bristol is honored to have earned the designation of an American Scenic Byway,” said Holmstrom, “and Linden Place is blessed to have so many wonderful volunteers who were really excited about the project and the designation and wanted to be part of his day. We thank our volunteers for their passion, and the garden club and the town for their generosity.”

Elsewhere in town, volunteers planted 4,000 bulbs in 90 minutes, an effort that Delaney said was helped tremendously by the diligence of the town’s public works department. “Thanks to town workers who did a wonderful job prepping the sites,” she said. “It made the planting very easy.”

The remaining 1,000 bulbs will be planted in October, and the club will be obtaining more to sell to residents to plant on their private property.