By Evelyn Alemanni

How do you start improving your town? Where would you go for input? Ideas? Plans?



As an America in Bloom judge for 8 years, I have met a lot of remarkable individuals, seen some amazing communities, experienced terrific community spirit, and admired ingenious ways to make the best of challenging situations. What I saw and learned was way too good to keep to myself. Even sharing these goodies with the towns I judged didn't seem to do justice.
Soooo..... I gathered all the America in Bloom evaluations even written. (That's 171 to be exact.) Then I read each one, highlighter in hand, scouring them for the best and brightest ideas. For a few years, these ideas were available on the AIB website for anyone to download. Many of them are still there.

Then last year, I was obsessed to turn this wonderful information into an informative book, unlike any other on the market. It was updated to include all the AIB participants, and includes color photos of their accomplishments in the eight evaluation criteria. The result is 240 pages, full color, with more than 2000 ideas that you can easily implement right where you live.

Simply titled, "Best Ideas", the book has become an invaluable resource for communities and has been nominated for the prestigious American Horticultural Society national book award.

Buy it for your community. Put a copy in the library and give it as a gift to the mayor and chamber of commerce.

You can buy the book online at http://americainbloom.org/resources/Best-Ideas-Books.aspx.