Flowers will grow here again! (Benjamin R. Freed)

Members of Occupy D.C. were a bit rattled Thursday afternoon after the National Park Service and the U.S. Park Police dropped by McPherson Square to—wait for it—resow a pair of flowerbeds that have lay barren since the protest first took root last fall.

As NPS groundskeepers began tilling strips of dirt on the center sections on both the northern and southern sides of the park, Park Police officers asked protesters to move their tents and signs out of the way. At midday, with McPherson Square relatively empty, Occupy D.C. tried to scramble its members to the park to resist.

But the whole affair appears to have been quite peaceful, even if it did result in demonstrators’ tents—which are allowed to stand symbolically but remain unoccupied in accordance with NPS regulations—being consolidated to the northern side of the square.

The officers were “very polite,” said Robert Dilley, who has been with Occupy D.C. since last November. While police and grounds crews had come and gone by the time DCist arrived, Dilley said officers carried signs and tents from the side of McPherson Square bordering I Street NW to the northern end and did not confiscate any protest materials.

On the edges of the north-center and south-center patches of earth now sit strips of freshly tilled soil that will begin the renewal of McPherson Square’s landscape, which did not take well to several months of being covered by tents, tarps and protesters’ feet.

Before the occupation, McPherson Square was a lush, verdant patch in the heart of downtown Washington, the result of more than $400,000 in spending authorized by the 2009 stimulus act. Some grass remains today, but much more of the park is now topped by naked earth.

The Park Service wants to begin repairing the square, the Examiner reported yesterday, but there are two hurdles: getting the money to restore the landscaping and figuring out what to do with the protestors. Estimates of restoring McPherson Square have ranged from $8,000 to as much as $200,000.

Occupy D.C. says it has volunteered to resow the ground it trampled in the service of its longrunning protest about income inequality and other political and economic issues. But some in the movement say their offer has been met with dismissal.

“We’ve offered to reseed it at our own expense,” Dilley told DCist. “But if I were to dig a hole, that would be considered ‘breaking ground in a federal park’,” a violation of federal statutes.

Moreover, Dilley said today’s move by NPS to replant a pair of flowerbeds was a slight against Occupy D.C.’s ability to protest.

“They’re using it as a peaceful tactic to oppress our First Amendment rights,” he said. “Everyone’s concerned with 0.6 acres in downtown D.C. when these giant corporations destroy 0.6 acres in milliseconds.”