In 2013, the yard in front of the Catonsville Post Office was not a sight to see, according to Vickie Miller of Catonsville.
It was just grass and bushes with weeds, she said.
"Everything was overgrown, basically," she said. "And no pizazz."
That's when Miller and her fellow members of the Bent Twig Garden Club stepped in.
The group can be seen volunteering while wearing their club shirts, that read "Life is great... Gardening makes it better," a play on the "Life is great in 21228" slogan shared around Catonsville, based on the area's ZIP code.
"It should be a point of pride to the community," said Carol Stauffer of Catonsville. "And we're just a little concerned that it's not."
Now, every other week, the 27 members of the garden club, ages 30 to 85, maintain the plants at the post office to continue to beautify the site.
Dan Bougher of Top Turf Landscaping, whose great-great-grandfather was the first postmaster at the Catonsville Post Office, donates time to trim the bushes.
On a recent morning, a driver passed by the club as they were working on Frederick Road and yelled that the flowers looked nice. It's a regular occurrence, members said.
The work at the post office is something manager of customer service Justin Moore appreciates. He's been at the Catonsville post office since March.
"The post office is part of their community," he said. "It's a very positive thing to see members of the community come together to support making something like that happen."
But the pleasure the group gets doesn't come just in words.
"It's a visual reward," Stauffer said, referring to the perennials and annuals lined up along the post office's sign, including plenty of the state flower, the Black-Eyed Susan and the club's flower, the Daylily.
The post office project is just one the club takes part in around the community.
In Catonsville, the group works on beautifying the garden at Christian Temple and the maintaining the planters at the entrance of the Catonsville branch of the Baltimore County Public Library and the Edmondson Avenue entrance of the No. 8 Streetcar Path of the Catonsville Heritage Trail.