He�s one of the people that is working to make this prairie an �Eden.� Bill Sawyer is the Park Keeper for the City of Eden Prairie, but a more descriptive title that he could be given is the City�s Horticulture specialist.
His job duties include a number of things including ordering flowers, designing the landscaping layout, planting, and general park upkeep such as mowing and watering. Though Bill works primarily at the Purgatory Creek Recreation Area and the downtown area, his 4 staff members are working to beautify all of the parks in Eden Prairie through planting, mowing, weeding, trimming and a number of other �behind the scenes� tasks.
Bill has a degree in Landscape Architecture. He has been working at the City of Eden Prairie for three years and did similar work at the City of Eagan for two years prior to that. For many years, he worked on his own doing landscaping projects with businesses and homeowners.
�Basically, I just like growing things. I don�t necessarily have a green thumb, but I do enjoy seeing the results,� said Bill Sawyer.
And we enjoy seeing the results too. Bill Sawyer is yet another person at the City of Eden Prairie who is working to hard behind the scenes to make this a wonderful place to live, work and dream.
Just to give you an idea of what all goes into Bill�s job, here are some statistics regarding this year�s flower planting project. At the Purgatory Creek Recreation Area alone, 207 flats of flowers were planted. That equals out to 9,936 plants. And, with the other parks and various city-owned facilities, another 206 flats of plants were planted, equaling a total of 19,824 plants overall. That�s a lot of plants! This feat was completed just one week ago.
Bill keeps the place looking good, and that’s something that our citizens place a high value on.
