Around Town
Wildflower Meadow Returns to 123 and Parade Hill Road
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The NewCanaanite.com Summer Internship Program is sponsored by Carriage Barn Arts Center. After facing a few difficult years, the wildflower meadow over on Route 123 has graced the town with one of its most spectacular blooms in years. Mose Saccary, highway superintendent in the Department of Public Works, and his team are the green-thumbed masterminds behind the gorgeous display at the Parade Hill Road intersection, going out and planting new annuals each year to bring a little bit more color to New Canaanites’ morning commutes.
Saccary described his original thought process for planting the meadow, saying “it was an area that was looking unsightly, and maintenance, you know, it had to be mowed and stuff, and the way it’s set up, it just looked like a good place to put a wildflower field in.”
While the DPW effort has been going on since 2014, it hasn’t always fetched the desired result. In 2016, Saccary and his team were puzzled as to the lack of flowers blooming despite their work.
It’s not just luck that this year’s bloom is notably more impressive than past years. Saccary attributes part of its success to the suggestion of one of his employees, Jeff Mannella, to double the amount of seed in the field.
“It came back very nice,” Saccary said.
Although it may have been his idea, maintaining the meadow is far from a one-man job.
“It’s a group effort,” Saccary said. “We actually do everything together here.”
Those with a keen eye will have noticed that the flowers present in the meadow are different every year.