Supervisor Bellone announced that one million more bulbs will be planted in the Town of Babylon in the next five years. One good idea has blossomed into something better.

In the past two years, the Town of Babylon planted one million tulip and daffodil bulbs along streets in the town -- and now Supervisor Steve Bellone has announced one million more to be planted in the next five years.

"We take great pride in the Town of Babylon, in our neighborhoods, in our communities and we believe it is absolutely essential that we do everything that we can to make public spaces as attractive as possible … because that's what the public deserves," said Supervisor Bellone, at a May press conference at Babylon Town Hall.

The unusual part of phase II of this program is that the Town of Babylon is planting flowers along roadways that are not owned by the Town.

Pink and red tulips, yellow daffodils and colorful wildflowers now sway in the gusty breeze from thousands of passing trucks and cars on state roads like Route 231, Route 109, Sunrise Highway and county roads such as Straight Path and Wellwood Avenue. More flowers curve their way along the cloverleafturns off major roads in the town.

"Why are we beautifying somebody else's roads that we don't even own?" asked Bellone. "My response is quite frankly because it's good for our Town, our residents. It makes our property values higher in our community … it instills pride in the place where we live."

Bellone pointed to studies in which people litter less in beautified areas. (And therefore, municipalities spend less money picking up trash.)

"We cannot just focus on picking up trash to fight this plague of litter we have on Long Island, we have got to focus on beautification as well," Bellone said.

Town employees—a 13-man crew —did the work: drilling holes, stuffing them with bulbs, piling on dirt. To fund the flowers, the Town dug into their pockets spending $25,000 a year to fund the project. Supervisor Bellone expects the same figure for each of the next five years.

"Supervisor Steve Bellone's vision inspires us to get things done and allows us to be creative," said Danny Raccomandato, grounds maintenance supervisor for the Town, who lead the crew who did the work.

"I must say, for a dreary spring, it made it nice around here," said Ruth Hill, president of the West Babylon Beautification Society. She's happy to see that her Town is beautifying the area. She recalled seeing something similar out of state. "In Boston, my husband and I were driving along and noticed that the medians were filled with these gorgeous flowers," she said. "Lo and behold, we have that now."