FARGO – In the bedroom community of North River, just a few miles north of Fargo, it’s not unusual to find beautiful homes with well-manicured lawns and beautiful, blooming gardens. But what is a little out of the ordinary is finding a lawn worth saluting.
But that’s just what Dave Rice has done in his yard for the past 17 years. Every year since 2000, Rice has proudly planted an American flag flower bed complete with seven rows of red, white and purple petunias (he hasn’t found a blue petunia he likes).
“I don’t know exactly why I did it. I guess I just had an itch to try it. I had never seen one anywhere else, but I always liked the (International) Peace Gardens,” he says.
He built his first flower bed in 1999 and had the first flowers blooming by the next summer. The original flag bed was 10-by-16 with 13 rows of flowers to represent the 13 stripes. But he found the size too unwieldy.
“It was just so big with so many flowers, it just ended up looking like a bunch of red and white polka dots,” he says.
By 2012 he decided to downsize and improve the flower bed. It’s now 8-by-12 and slightly elevated in the back to better show off the flag. It contains seven rows of flowers, three of which are blue in the upper lefthand corner.
VFW Commander Dave Rice planted a flower bed shaped like an American Flag behind his home. Michael Vosburg / Forum Photo Editor
Every year, the project starts in late March or early April when he plants more than 575 petunia seedlings in his house. Rice says not all of them survive, but those that do end up in the flag bed. If he has leftovers, he puts them in any of the dozen or so planters near the onions, strawberries or countless flowers that make up his spacious backyard on the banks of the Red River.
Rice says he spends a lot of time tending to his garden since his retirement from North Dakota State University as a computer specialist in 2008.
“I tell people I spend my time on the ‘three Gs’ – gardening, granddaughters and golf, not necessarily in that order,” he says.
But Rice does a lot more than that. The Vietnam veteran is the current commander of the Fargo VFW, past commander of the Fargo American Legion and past state commander of the North Dakota American Legion. He’s been an integral part of the WDAY Honor Flight Committee since 2007 and has served as a bus captain on several Honor Flight trips.
“I guess I’ve always been pretty patriotic. After Vietnam and 42 years in the Navy Reserves there was just something in my blood,” he says.
He’s toyed with the idea of making the flag bed a little easier to do every year, but it doesn’t seem to fly.
“I’ve tried perennials. But I’ve had no luck starting them from seed, and the bed is right out in the open so it’s pretty unprotected, so they don’t seem to survive,” he says.
So he’s left planting the annuals every year. But like the Old Glory Francis Scott Key wrote about all those years ago, this botanical star-spangled banner will yet wave for years to come.
“I’m pretty sure it’s going to last longer than I will,” he says with a laugh.
Tracy Briggs has more than 35 years of experience, in broadcast, print, and digital journalism. She is an Emmy-nominated documentary producer/host and has won numerous awards from the Minnesota Newspaper Association and the North Dakota Newspaper Association. You can reach Tracy at tracy.briggs@forumcomm.com.
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