You have to admire members of the Marquette Beautification & Restoration Committee for working on Petunia Pandemonium this year.

If ever there was a time to take a year off from planting the rights of way in Marquette with colorful flowers, this was it, what with the COVID-19 pandemic keeping most people indoors for months until very recently.

But undaunted, MBRC members were seen last week, digging along South Front Street and the associated roundabout.

A somewhat more modest Petunia Pandemonium? Yes. But Petunia Pandemonium none the less.

“Financially, we had to cancel our major fundraiser (the annual garden tour) this year,” Barb Kelly, MBRC vice president and Petunia Pandemonium chairwoman, said for a Mining Journal story on the matter.

And, the usual group of Bothwell Middle School students weren’t there to help.

But local greenhouses were opened recently and sufficient volunteers were at hand to undertake a scaled down Petunia Pandemonium.

“(Marquette City Manager) Mike Angeli said, ‘You know, I think our city really needs flowers,’ and I said, ‘Well, they do every year, but especially this year,'” Kelly said for the Journal story.

We couldn’t agree more. This is a very positive development for our community at a time in history when all of us could use a dollop of positivity.

We look forward to the colorful flower beds as the summer progresses.