Monroe's Master Gardener Beautifies Town Properties

Flowerbeds in front of the pavilion on the Great Hollow Lake side of Wolfe Park have fall plantings of mums in red, white, yellow and purple, along with roses, lavender and ornamental grasses.

On a nearby table, the town's Master Gardener Renee Marsh and Robert McFarland, a seasonal maintainer for Parks & Recreation, pored over an assortment of bulbs in the Tuesday afternoon sunshine.

"We put in daffodils and alliums," Marsh said. "The alliums will bloom in June."

All of the bulbs were for flowers that will bloom in the spring.

"That's a thing with gardening," McFarland said. "You're always thinking a season ahead."

Parks & Recreation Dir. Frank Cooper wanted a Master Gardener to spruce up all town-owned properties with flowers, ornamentals and other plantings and hired Marsh in July.

"The park has always been a place people have enjoyed," Cooper said. "I haven't been here long, but I noticed we hadn't been paying enough attention to the niceties of the park."

Cooper said Russ Tice, the park maintenance supervisor, and his staff have their hands full with all of the playing fields at the park, in addition to upkeep of lawns and landscaping of town properties.

"They have the skills, but not the time," Cooper said. "Maintaining what we have, they do it to an estate level, where everything is just so and they do it excellently. But I wanted to take the park and other town properties to another level."

He was approached by someone interested in being a master gardener as a seasonal, part-time position in the spring, but when that fell through, Cooper turned to the state and found Marsh through the UConn Master Gardening Program.

Marsh of Shelton used to work in Information Technology, before studying to be a certified Master Gardener.

"This is kind of my second career," said Marsh. "I've always been a gardener and I'm a beekeeper."

Marsh, a member of the Shelton Gardening Club of three years, is currently its vice president.

"You're outdoors. You're in touch with the environment," Marsh said of gardening. "When I put in beautiful gardening beds and shrubs and have people enjoy it, that's what I enjoy most."

Stepney Green, Town Hall ...

Tice, McFarland and Marsh updated plantings around the gazebo and around the flagpole on the historic Stepney Green, planted flowerbeds in front of Monroe Town Hall and added dogwoods to the campus.

"There's a lot that still needs to be done, obviously," Cooper said. "I feel Parks & Recreation, by charter, is responsible for this, so people can appreciate the town they live in and not be embarrassed by how anything looks. We're responsible to maintain it and we're going to do so."

Cooper said the mums at Wolfe Park were donated by Mason's Farm Market in Monroe. And Marsh said Parks & Recreation tries to keep native plants with pollinating ones for bees and butterflies and shrubs producing berries that birds feed on.

Marsh comes up with the landscaping plans, but Cooper said its a collaborative effort. "We've got the space," he said. "We've got the folks now. We just have to figure out how to do it."

Deer Will Eat Anything

"Gardening is not immediate gratification by any means," said McFarland, who attended horticulture classes at Naugatuck Community College.

Marsh said, "We have challenges. You have to think of how to maintain it. How to water it, prune it and whether deer will eat it. We try to plant things that are deer resistant, but if deer are hungry they'll eat anything."

She said they have had to move plants around, because some grow better in the sun and others in the shade.

As Cooper, Marsh and McFarland talked around the table a group of park visitors stopped to admire the nearby flowerbeds and to snap a family photo with the colorful mums in the background.

"That's what it's all about," Cooper said with a smile. "It's the park."