Around Town

Beautification League, Garden Club Create Large Wreaths That Adorn Major Buildings through the Holidays

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More than two dozen volunteers from a pair of the town’s longest-serving and most hands-on nonprofit organizations gathered at the New Canaan Nature Center on Thursday to create the giant wreaths that adorn major buildings in town through the holidays. Officials say the New Canaan Beautification League and New Canaan Garden Club have collaborated for some 50 years to create the wreaths—an effort that’s also supported by the town in that public works supplies evergreen cuttings and mounts the creations each year. “It’s a tradition. This is really a tradition,” Beautification League President Faith Kerchoff said from the bustling, sunlit Sturgess Room, which smelled sweetly of the wide variety of evergreens used for the wreaths, including holly, arborvitae, spruce, boxwood, pine, cedar and juniper. Buildings that will get large wreaths include New Canaan Library, the Railroad Station, Police Department, Outback and Town Hall.

Government

New Water Fountain for Humans, Dogs Planned for Irwin Park

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Visitors to Irwin Park and their leashed, four-legged friends soon will be able to refresh themselves while walking the Flexi-pave path that skirts the edge of the Weed Street property, officials say. Concerned about park-goers using a its hose to get a drink of water, the Garden Club of New Canaan is leading an effort to install a water fountain with two spouts—one waist-high for people and another down below for dogs—along the path that leads to Gores Pavilion, according to John Howe, parks superintendent in the Department of Public Works. “We could easily run water from the garage there and we’re working on getting quotes” for the Garden Club, Howe said at the Sept. 9 meeting of the Park & Recreation Commission. “It will be a handicapped-accessible fountain similar to the one at [Spencer’s Run], with a dog bowl, and we can turn off the water in the winter,” Howe said.

Around Town

Garden Club’s Newly Planted Wildflower Meadow Blooms in Irwin Park

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Visitors to Irwin Park have yet another spot along the Flexi-pave path that circles the property where they can stop and ogle a beautiful planting. The wildflower meadow that the New Canaan Garden Club planned last fall for a prominent area below Gores Pavilion has taken root and started blooming its reds, blues, pinks and yellows. Inspired by the Mose Saccary-planned (and Murphy Pennoyer-fertilized) wildflower meadow at Route 123 and Parade Hill Road—in fact, relying heavily on the formula developed by Saccary, highway superintendent in the New Canaan Department of Public Works—the colorful area at Irwin is blooming with baby’s breath and poppies. “It looks great,” said Katie Stewart, a club member who serves on its Irwin Park Committee. “With each rain, I think, each week it will look different and better as different things come up.

Around Town

New Canaan Garden Club Plans Dogwood Grove for Irwin Park

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Just as the nonprofit group unveiled plans to plant a vibrant wildflower meadow at Irwin Park, the New Canaan Garden received approval from town officials to kickstart a dogwood grove at the Weed Street park. Things will start off with four dogwoods going in just off of the Flexi-pave footpath toward the northwest corner of Irwin (near enough to Wahackme) and “will not interfere with the playing fields,” club member Katie Stewart told the Park & Recreation Commission at the group’s regular meeting Oct. 8. “It’s timely because they should be planted right now, and the long-range plan would be to do a total of 12, so there would be this wonderful bloom all at once,” Stewart said. The commission unanimously approved the effort.

Around Town

Wildflower Power: New Canaan Garden Club Plans a ‘Mose Meadow’ for Irwin Park

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New Canaanites will recall how the town received a wonderful gift of pink, yellow, purple and blue this past summer. By the end of July, cars were pulling over on Parade Hill Road to photograph the wildflower meadow (see slideshow above) planted in a disused patch of land off of Route 123. A creation of DPW Highway Superintendent Mose Saccary (a Center School alumnus) and his crew, the suddenly and dramatically transformed roadside parcel earned high praise from New Canaan’s experts in lovely plants. This week, some of those same experts—notably, Caroline Garrity, president of the New Canaan Garden Club and Katie Stewart, a member—received permission from parks officials to create what hopefully will be a similarly spectacular and deeply appreciated wildflower meadow at Irwin Park. “Mose has tried different things there [at Route 123 and Parade Hill Road], and this summer he had great success,” Stewart told the Park & Recreation Commission Wednesday at the group’s regular meeting, held in the Douglas Room at Lapham Community Center.