Master Gardener Renee Marsh, part of a team beautifying Monroe’s parks.
Amid an array of colorful and fragrant flowers they planted this summer, Renee Marsh and Robert “Mac” McFarland, placed a variety of bulbs in a flower bed at Great Hollow Lake.
The new gardens are part of a beautification effort for Monroe’s parks and municipal buildings.
“For me, as far as a park is concerned, it has to be a combination of athletics and aesthetics,” said Monroe’s director of parks and recreation, Frank Cooper.
Marsh, a master gardener from Shelton, joined Cooper’s seasonal staff July 1 to help spruce up Monroe’s lakefront property and the exterior of Town Hall. Marsh, certified by the University of Connecticut, is vice president of the Olde Ripton Garden Club in Shelton and responsible for maintaining the club’s herb garden at the Shelton Historical Society. She is also an expert on invasive plants.
Both Marsh and McFarland, a seasonal maintainer for Monroe’s Parks and Recreation Department, are experienced beekeepers.
When the horticulturists began to tackle the flower beds at Great Hollow Lake, they found overgrown junipers and evergreens, said Marsh.
Their first task was to rip out all of the existing plants from the six-foot- by 30-foot beds and amend the soil.
“It took us digging through a lot of rocks to get the soil ready,” Marsh said.
Robert “Mac” McFarland
In mapping out the new garden beds, Marsh took the flowers’ height and colors into consideration. They also had to be “sun-resistant and drought-resistant,” Marsh said.
As they talked about the makeup of the garden, Cooper asked to have roses included for their color.
“We also put in some lavender because it smells so nice,” Marsh said.
All of the new plantings were purchased locally. Scott Mason of Mason’s Farm Market in Monroe donated mums for the autumn season.
“Since we’ve initiated this process of beautification, we’ve been called by local vendors looking to be part of the transformation,” Cooper said.
Although there is currently no funding in his budget to work on the new Police Department’s building and the Edith Wheeler Memorial Library, Cooper would like to include these municipal areas in future projects.
Cooper said he didn’t realize how much the exterior of Town Hall was in need of gardening until Parks and Recreation was relocated there earlier in the year.
“In my estimation, Town Hall should be a showpiece,” Cooper said. “The whole Town Hall complex now, including the new Police Department and beautiful library, has zero landscaping.”
When she came on board, Marsh agreed.
“Everything around Town Hall was planted willy-nilly,” she said. “It was a hodgepodge of everything.”
She and McFarland began to get the overgrown plants under control and create a sense of unity and order.
“We removed everything but saved it so we could use it elsewhere,” Marsh said. “Mac likes to save every little seedling. We try to throw out as little as possible.”
Their challenge was to plant shrubs and flowers that would be attractive in all climates and require minimal pruning.
In the past couple of months, Marsh and McFarland also helped to beautify Stepney Green. Along with a crew from the Parks and Recreation Department, they assisted in getting the Green ready for last month’s Civil War commemoration sponsored by Save Our Stepney Task Force.
“The beds were overgrown, so we did some weeding,” Marsh said. “We also added some new plantings, some perennials and bulbs. The challenge with that space is that there is no water at the Green.”
Cooper said the Parks and Recreation Department is responsible for maintaining all town properties, not just its parks. Monroe’s park superintendent and crew, with many responsibilities relating to athletic fields and maintaining the town’s lawns and landscaping, do not have the time to spend on beautification projects, he added.
“Russ [Tice] has many talents, but his skills in this area haven’t been able to be recognized given the amount of responsibilities he has with taking care of the parks’ landscaping and athletic fields,” Cooper said.
Monroe’s Great Hollow Lake and Wolfe Park are busy properties and its gardens and shrubs are highly visible.
“I wanted to take the parks and town properties to a new level,” Cooper said.
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