Plantón Móvil in Saint Paul

CGEE Student Voice
by Jenni Abere


This weekend, Plantón Móvil, the plant parade and re-vegetation project on Pierce Butler, was completed. It was a rainy morning, so we had to re-locate the plant/human gathering spot to indoors. Luckily, the rain let up in time for the walk and planting.

There were several times that we planted at the site in the week before, so I was nervous that we wouldn't have enough plants, especially the large and green plants. (We had plenty of small, dried up plugs). But it turned out that we had plenty of plants, and we could have accommodated a larger crowd.

Lucia Monge (second from left) is the artist behind Plantón Móvil. She spoke about the project before our walk.

The crowd before we embarked on our parade. We decorated the shopping cart with tree trimmings (scavenged from
the Hamline facilities organics dumpster). 

Everyone had the chance to learn a little about the plants they were carrying, and introduce their plants to each other. Then we started on the parade. Since it had been a rainy morning, there weren't a lot of people out along our route. We looped through the neighborhood, and then made our way to the site.

Once there, we planted the plants, and had some snacks and tea. It worked well because we had pre dug a lot of the holes, making the planting much easier. I wasn't able to take many photos during the event because my hands were full carrying plants, and then my hands were full of dirt later on -- so I'm glad that several members of my class were dedicated to photography and video.

Planting on the site. 

There are aspects of Plantón Móvil that could be applied to any re-vegetation or planting project. Introducing ourselves and our plants to each other provided a chance to learn the names of plants, and have a relationship with them. Carrying the plants to the site instead of driving them, even just a few blocks as we did, is a great way to raise visibility and have fun as a group.