Local Ecologists Schedule 'Plant-Ins' Around Harvard Square for Sunday

A group of ecology-minded Harvard students and Cambridge residents will begin a series of "plant-ins" around Harvard Square on Sunday.

The sponsors of the venture include President Bok's Green Committee, the Harvard Square Festival of the Arts, and Ronald L. Fleming, a 1967 graduate of the School of Design and currently a local resident.

Their three targets, part of a larger plan to remove eyesores and renovate "dead spaces" in the Harvard Square area, are:

I the triangle in front of Eliot House at the Corner of Boylston St. and Memorial Drive--for the second consecutive year this area will be planted with salvia and golden snapdragons;

I the underpass between the North Yard and Memorial Hall--Harvard, which also owns this land, has given its approval to the planting of creeping evergreens at the base of the underpass walls, on both sides of the tunnel. Fleming said yesterday that he envisions the underpass walls eventually covered with dense foliage; and,

I the triangle in front of the Harvard Square Cinema, near the information booth and bicycle racks--the City will decide today whether to tear up this section and let Fleming and his cohorts plant flowering dogwood there.

Fleming has been a leader in the effort to change the face of the Square. He said yesterday that his drive had already received $500 from Harvard's Buildings and Grounds Department, and that another $2000 may be on the way.

"Our society has been woeful in its neglect of the physical, visual environment," Fleming said. "It's appalling that our eyes have become so calloused."

"We need to restore to the heart of Harvard Square a sense of delight," he added. "It could be one of the great spaces in the United States--it should be."