A colorful quilt of flowers

Drivers heading into Washington will once again be greeted by some new plantings courtesy of the Washington State Department of Transportation and the Master Gardener Program through Washington State University Extension.

The two groups have teamed up for roughly the last eight years to plant flowers at the “Welcome to Washington” sign northbound on Interstate 5 near the exit for Fourth Plain Boulevard.

Volunteers from the Master Gardener program spent three-plus hours Saturday morning planting this year’s design, which is a quilt-like one, according to Cheryl Cazenave with the Master Gardener program.

In previous years, the gardeners have planted flowers with a more specific design in mind, like planting them in the shape of a mountain or fish. This year, the opted to try something different.

“When you’re trying to do something specific, like a mountain, it’s hard to read at 60 miles an hour,” Cazenave said. “This year, we wanted a tremendous amount of color.”

The gardeners used five different colored sunpatiens — electric orange, coral, lilac, white and magenta — for this year’s design. Cazenave said they typically use about 2,500 plants at the sign, and all the flowers used for the display are grown by the master gardeners at the 78th Street Heritage Farm.

Cazenave said there were about 14 members of the program out Saturday planting, which is usually the amount they like to have for the sign planting event.

“That way, there’s not too many of us,” she said. “We want to all start at the top of the sign and work our way down, or else you’re standing on flowers.”