Allyson Halm

‘A Green Way to Manage Weeds’: Goats Arrive at Irwin Park

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A popular local park last week gained five new caprine residents, who are doing their part to eradicate invasive plants from the town’s green spaces. The goats—Chalupa, Beau, Stewie, Miss Bo Peep and Bella—arrived at a half-acre paddock in Irwin Park on Wednesday, where they “started to eat immediately,” according to Director of Public Works Tiger Mann. Their arrival went very smoothly, Mann said. Park staff erected fencing around the paddock on Tuesday and Wednesday, with assistance from local Boy Scouts, New Canaan Garden Club volunteers and staff of Green Goats, the Rhinebeck, N.Y.-based company contracted by the town to provide the goats, Mann said. The DPW and the Garden Club have been “battling it out” against Japanese knotweed, a particularly pernicious invasive plant, in Irwin Park, located on Weed Street, for several years, Mann said.

Around Town

Journey to ‘England or France’ at Updated Parterre Garden [CORRECTION]

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After months of planning and “yard work,” a newly designed formal garden at Waveny House is in place and residents say they’re enjoying it. Those visiting the town park can now use additional benches as they walk through new plantings, boxwoods and shrubbery along the northern wall of the “parterre garden,” just east of the balcony behind the mansion. “Sitting on the back patio of Waveny and looking down at the parterre, you are transported to England or France,” said New Canaan Garden Club First Vice President Manda Riggs. New Canaan resident Cassidy Little visited the garden on a recent afternoon and is looking to use it as a backdrop for a photography project. “I’m very familiar with Waveny, I run through its trails almost every day in the fall,” she said.

Government

Selectmen Approve $34,700 Contract for Outdoor Wall Repairs at Waveny House

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Town officials on Tuesday approved a $34,700 contract with a Warren, Conn.-based company to repair stone walls around Waveny House. The Board of Selectmen voted 2-0 to approve the contract with Meduri Masonry, a company that Public Works Director tiger Mann said “has done some very good work for using the past on various projects throughout town.”

“This is for wall repairs in and around the house itself,” Mann told the selectmen at their meeting, held at Town Hall. “These will be comprised of the one existing wall that is adjacent to the parterre garden that is being replaced right now, and the wall to the north of it has actually collapsed over time.”

First Selectman Kevin Moynihan and Selectman Kit Devereaux voted in favor of the contract, which includes $30,200 plus $4,500 in contingency. Selectman Nick Williams was absent. “This is a town-funded project, this is not a partnership with the [Waveny Park] Conservancy, and the funds are currently available,” Mann said.

Around Town

Selectmen Approve Contracts for Work at Waveny’s Parterre Garden

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The Board of Selectmen at its most recent meeting approved a pair of contracts in connection with the redesign of a formal garden at Waveny. The $33,035 for plant materials, labor and irrigation work at the parterre garden—just east of the balcony out back of Waveny House—is to be funded by two nonprofit organizations, the New Canaan Garden Club and Waveny Park Conservancy. First Selectman Kevin Moynihan and Selectmen Kit Devereaux and Nick Williams voted 3-0 to approve a $25,055 with South Salem, N.Y.-based Copia Home and Garden for labor and plant materials and $7,980 with Stamford-based Summer Rain for labor and materials to install irrigation. According to Parks Superintendent John Howe, $20,000 is coming from the Garden Club with the balance, and a 15 percent reserve for overruns, from the Conservancy. “This is an example of our best public-private partnerships,” Moynihan said during the meeting, held Jan.

Christa Kenin

Despite Calls To Slow Down, Town Council by 7-3 Vote Approves Redesign of ‘Parterre Garden’ at Waveny

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Thanking the volunteers who conceived of the plan and vowed to fund it—and despite opposition from some professional landscape architects—New Canaan’s legislative body on Wednesday night voted in favor of a redesign of a prominent garden at Waveny. The Town Council at its special meeting voted 7-3 in favor of what some have called a “substantial redesign” of the parterre or “upper garden” at the beloved town park, though a national organization and prominent local landscape architect cautioned against a hasty approval. During an emotionally charged meeting at Town Hall, councilmen expressed regret that the two parties holding different opinions on what is best for the garden—the New Canaan Garden Club on one side with the redesign, and Keith Simpson Associates and a Washington, D.C.-based coalition on the other, advocating for a historic restoration—could not find a middle ground. Councilman Joe Paladino said he would like to see an “expanded dialogue” between the two sides—calling the Garden Club “an agency with decades and decades” of service to the town, and Simpson himself “an individual with hundreds and hundreds of hours that have benefitted our town.”

Yet a respectful exchange of ideas did not appear to be forthcoming, and the Town Council after some discussion approved the Garden Club’s plan. Those voting in favor included Chairman John Engel, Vice Chairmen Sven Englund and Rich Townsend, Steve Karl, Christa Kenin, Cristina A. Ross and Liz Donovan.