Normally seen planting flowers around town or helping students at the high school greenhouse, members of Dowagiac’s Town and Country Garden Club tackled a different kind of outdoor project Saturday.

Several members of the local gardening club put on their green roadwork vests, grabbed some gloves and a couple trash bags and went to work, cleaning up the roadside of M-62 that morning. Splitting into separate teams, the ladies picked up litter scattered across a 2-mile stretch of the roadway.

The club has been helping to spruce up the local highway for the past four years as part of the Michigan Department of Transportation’s “Adopt-A-Highway” program, said member Dee Herman. The club maintains the lawns surrounding their adopted portion of the highway, between Garret and Brush Lake roads, three times a year, with around six to eight members participating in the cleanup on a regular basis.

“There’s a real feeling of accomplishment when you see how the highway looks after you’ve cleaned it up,” said member Dianna Walsworth, who pitched in to help Saturday. “It’s also a good way for us to spend some time together.”

It’s one of several activities the club coordinates every year, including planting of flowers and other plants inside the planters downtown every spring, fall and winter. The club also maintains two small gardens, nearby the Beckwith Theater and Dowagiac District Library, in town, and also assists students with the Greenhouse Club at Dowagiac Union High School.

The members will be doing their spring flower plantings beginning at 10 a.m. May 14.