Decatur’s infamous roadside planters are hitting the auction block

The 143 planters are bidding their final farewell in a city-sponsored “I Planter Decatur” auction. Some, which were dented or vandalized, were sold this week on eBay. Now, additional planters in new condition will be auctioned off from 2 p.m.-4 p.m. Saturday at Decatur Public Works.

The planters, which the city installed in 2019, were intended to be a colorful, creative safety measure — narrowing the street from four lanes to two and shielding pedestrians from traffic.

The red, orange, blue and pink colors were pulled from the Decatur city logo. But they were always meant to be temporary. A $1.9 million permanent barrier is set to replace them this summer.

Though they were meant as a fun way to calm traffic, the planters didn’t exactly bloom in popularity.

“When the planters were installed, my first thought was how tacky they were,” Connie Pike, a retired speech pathologist who has lived in Decatur for five years, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“Over time, the situation became worse, with the plants that died or were overcome with weeds, planters off-kilter and fading in the sun. It was a joke around Decatur and an embarrassment to me. I felt that it degraded the quality of the area,” she added.

Planted with small trees and wildflowers to “soften the streetscape,” as Assistant City Manager of Public Works Cara Scharer put it, the boxes were meant to beautify. Instead, they became a source of debates, memes and ridicule. And they dinged more than a few car bumpers.

“Maintenance definitely became more complicated than originally anticipated, and there have been a lot of lessons learned,” Scharer said.

Pike is relieved to see them go, but thought the idea that anyone would want to buy one was laughable. She posted on the city’s Facebook page that Decatur should instead pay people to take the planters off their hands.

“I would not want one in my yard, for sure,” Pike said. “It will be a happy day when I don’t have to drive by them anymore.”

Not everyone hated them.

“I mean, they’re better than concrete jersey barriers,” said Don Rigger, a 40-year resident who lives near the avenue.

He’s not interested in purchasing one, but he supports the auction as a way to keep plastic out of the landfill.

Hannah Rogers, who’s lived in Decatur for more than 15 years and works at Emory University, approached the city before the auction asking to buy the planters. She wound up bidding on a teal planter and said she’d be willing to go as high as $100 before the online auction closed Thursday.

Scharer said such requests inspired the sale.

Brendan Gardes, a sustainability consultant who has lived in the city for more than a decade, bid on a blue planter.

“I like the idea of having one of the damaged ones, because I think that proves the point of why they were put there in the first place,” he said.

Most of the planter boxes start at $50. It’s another point of controversy.

“If you were to buy a brand new planter, it would cost at least that much,” Gardes said.

Gardes, like many Decatur residents, sports a planter city logo bumper sticker designed by Decatur artist Huckleberry Starnes. Residents dubbed Starnes “the planter guy” — a nickname he despises.

He recently read that the late rocker Ozzy Osbourne had joked that his epitaph would be his birth, his death and “bit the head off a bat.”

Said Starnes: “I feel like that will be my eulogy: Longtime resident of Decatur. Also, the planter guy.”