‘Both Classic and Modern’: New Canaan Garden Club Pursues New Planting Plan for ‘Parterre’ Garden at Waveny

One of New Canaan’s most venerable nonprofit organizations is seeking town approvals to improve a conspicuous area just behind Waveny House by re-planting it and adding benches for park users to enjoy. The New Canaan Garden Club since last year has sought to introduce a low-maintenance, deer-proof boxwood design for the parterre garden east of the balcony behind Waveny House—an area that currently is a “pass-through” for visitors, according to the organization’s president, Ellen Zumbach, but could be far more. “It is the entrance in a lot of ways to the park and the intention was to take you through and down the stairs and have a wonderful experience in your park,” Zumbach told members of the Parks & Recreation Commission at their Oct. 11 meeting, held at Lapham Community Center. “But I also felt that if we opened up the parterres so that it allowed for air and movement around them, that they could take their time getting down the stairs and enjoy what is an incredible view of the fields from the north and west wall.”

Zumbach and Tori Frazer of Club’s Waveny Walled Garden Committee presented a design to the commission to replace what currently are boxwood plantings with annuals in the middle, with additional plantings around the perimeter of a brick wall there.