The focus was on Main Street at the Wareham Garden Club's first meeting of the year on Thursday.

William F. Madden, President of GAF Engineering Inc. discussed his firm's collaboration with the town's Community Economic Development Authority (CEDA) on a project to beautify Main Street in downtown Wareham.

The project, which is scheduled to begin next March and is funded entirely by grants, will expand sidewalks, add greenery and benches, and redesign crosswalks to make Main Street more pedestrian friendly.

The club also awarded the winners of their annual 2010 Barrel Competition.  The club provided planters (originally donated by A.D. Makepeace) and a small stipend to gardeners who designed floral (and some vegetable!) displays.

Gini Tavares was awarded first prize for her entry, which can be seen outside the West Wareham Post Office.

"Before I started, people were putting nip bottles and cigarettes in the planter," Tavares said after the awards.  "But once we put in flowers, it stopped and people really respected the [planter]."

Other winners were Linda Randall, for her second-place planter in front of Heather's hair salon in the Decas Building and Joan Prescott, who incorporated a tomato plant (no, they aren't ripe yet) into her display outside of Gone Hollywood.

Michael and Vicky Pagel and Laura Lynn Smith were awarded commendations for their planters outside of Legacy Insurance and the Wareham Post Office, respectively.

It was the third year of the program, and competition chair Rita Madden said that it was a great success...despite some challenges.

"We had one barrel vandalized, and one barrel with mites," she said.  "But we're not going to stop!"