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History of Urban Roots

The Beginning

The visionary and passionate on-air expressions of a St. Louis radio program host, and listener support on the part of a downtown residential loft developer, have motivated the St. Louis community to take a new look at public space landscape enhancement in downtown St. Louis. What started as an on-air dialog on Charlie Brennan’s KMOX morning program during the winter of 2003 between Charlie, Kevin McGowan (the developer), and Dennis Woldum (Gateway Greening Board Chair Emeritus, 2009), led to the spirited involvement of Gateway Greening and St. Louis Master Gardeners to plant flowers in streetscape planters along a two-block section of Washington Avenue in the spring of 2004. On a rainy day in May, members from these organizations volunteered their time and laborious efforts to transform Washington Avenue between Tucker Boulevard and 14th Street into a botanically embellished streetscape. Funds for acquiring the plant material were produced by Charlie’s Brennan’s on-air fundraising efforts, planting media and fertilizer were donated by Spectrum Brands, and supplemental planters were donated by Ace Hardware.

The Delegation

Soon after the Washington Avenue flower plantings began to show their colors, the thirst to learn more about urban beautification initiatives led to the formation of an informal, Chicago-bound St. Louis delegation, including: Charlie Brennan (KMOX); Kevin McGowan/and family (McGowan Development); Dennis Woldum (Gateway Greening); Gwenne Hayes-Stewart (Gateway Greening) and Bill Ruppert (Gateway Greening/Landscape and Nursery Association of Greater St. Louis). The purpose of the Chicago visit was to experience the streetscape and public space enhancements realized by the community greening leadership and vision of Mayor Richard Daley. The three-day visit included meetings with Mayor Daley’s team led by Marti-Bjornson, an American Community Gardening Association Board Member. Organizations represented at the meetings included:

Charlie’s morning program, remotely broadcast from the Chicago studios of radio station WSCR, offered listeners back in St. Louis timely updates regarding the daily observations and experiences of the St. Louis delegation.

Urban Roots Now

Inspired knowledge gained and shared by the delegation ultimately sparked the interest of others in the St. Louis community to pursue several downtown landscape enhancement projects lead by a variety of non-profit, community service organizations. Via the on-air fundraising efforts of Charlie Brennan and the volunteer project planning, coordination and implementation efforts of Gateway Greening and other volunteer and non-profit organizations, additional downtown streetscape and public spaces realized flower plantings in May of 2005.

What started as a Gateway Greening and St. Louis Master Gardener streetscape enhancement project on Washington Avenue has now blossomed into a downtown St. Louis landscape enhancement initiative named Urban Roots.

The Urban Roots initiative currently includes volunteer involvement of a variety of nonprofit organizations including:

Gateway Greening’s 2005 participation in the Urban Roots landscape enhancement initiative focused attention on creating significant landscape color displays at the two-block long Market Street landscape median (between Broadway and 7th Street) and the two landscape medians on Tucker Boulevard at the Market Street intersection. 

Gateway Greening assembled a volunteer project team lead by the participation of Gateway Greening board and staff, St. Louis Master Gardeners and Horstmann Brothers Landscape Services. Soil amendments and slow release fertilizer was donated by Spectrum Brands. Volunteer labor was provided by the project team, Spectrum Brands, AmeriCorps and St. Louis University Alpha Phi Omega. Volunteers assisted with the preparation of the existing landscape soil, installation and mulching of more than 13,000 seasonal plants, installation of a drip irrigation system at the Market Street landscape median and seasonal care of the plants. In addition to providing volunteer services to support the efforts to prepare the soil and install the plants, Horstmann Brothers Landscape Services provided contracted professional services to manage the drip irrigation system at Market Street, hand water the Tucker Boulevard landscape medians (lacking a drip irrigation system) and supplementing the plant care efforts of the St. Louis Master Gardeners. 

The choreography of the planning, design and logistic activities associated with implementing the seasonal color displays was contributed by Gateway Greening board member Bill Ruppert. The seasonal displays featured plants tolerant of St. Louis’ hot and humid summers and included plants exhibiting a variety of colors, sizes and textures. Each of the two landscape median areas featured a different planting design theme. The Market Street landscape median featured a plant collection titled “A Tropical Adventure”. “A Tropical Prairie” described the colorful collection of seasonal plants at the pair of street medians at Tucker Boulevard. 

Funding for the 2005 downtown enhancement projects was raised by Charlie Brennan, KMOX 1120AM, who lead an on-air and on-line auction of donated items.   

In 2006, the Gateway Greening team continued efforts to embellish the Market Street and Tucker Boulevard landscape medians with seasonal color displays and expanded Urban Roots involvement by addressing improved seasonal color embellishments at Kiener Plaza. 

Among improvements to Kiener Plaza included the creation of The St. Louis Planter, a unique durable and large urban scale landscape planter for St. Louis featuring the fleur-de-lis symbol. The placement of the initial 14 “Plaza Planter Edition” of The St. Louis Planter at Kiener Plaza in the spring of 2006 was made possible by the generosity of the Gateway Foundation.

Additional sponsorships assisted Gateway Greening with pursuing the design and fabrication of a mold for creating the larger “Parkway Planter Edition” of The St. Louis Planter. The first pair of Parkway St. Louis Planters was created in spring 2007 and placed at Kiener Plaza’s eastern Broadway Avenue entrance. 

Gateway Greening’s Urban Roots activities have historically been financially supported by the civic generosity of Ameren, Commerce Bank, Drury Hotels, Emerson, Laclede Gas, UMB, and the Mayor’s annual Mardi Gras Ball. In-kind support, in the form of volunteer nourishment, landscape supplies and plant material staging, is received routinely from McArthur’s Bakery, Imo’s Pizza, Hummert International, St. Louis Composting and Mike Shannon’s Restaurant.

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