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.
The wildflower meadow at Irwin Park in New Canaan is taking root and starting to bloom. Credit: Michael Dinan
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.
The wildflower meadow at Irwin Park in New Canaan is taking root and starting to bloom. Credit: Michael Dinan
“With each rain, I think, each week it will look different and better as different things come up. We’ve added some milkweed and butterfly weed, too, because we do want the monarch butterflies to come back. I think it’s striking.”
So does Irwin neighbor Stephanie Radman, who said she and her family frequent the Weed Street park nearly every day, rain or shine.
“We have very much enjoyed watching the wildflower meadow blossom over the past few weeks,” she said.
She added: “Being a daily visitor to Irwin, I have met many other people who also frequent the park regularly. I can say that everyone is very excited about the new wildflower meadow. It certainly is a super addition to the already gorgeous park.”
Which is a big part of what the Garden Club does—in the past few years alone, club members saw to the planting of 5,000 daffodils on the great lawn out front of the main house, planted a copper beech and several dogwoods near the entrance to the park and planted an additional dogwood grove deeper into it, near the wildflower meadow.
The meadow itself is expected to change year-to-year, Stewart said, and the club will add some sand to the soil, which is “pretty hard because of a lack of rain.” If the wildflowers do as well as they appear to be doing, additional areas of the park will get similar meadows, Stewart said.
Saccary said the hot, dry spring has slowed the growth of wildflowers, and credited the meadows to a joint effort of the parks department, DPW and Garden Club.
“They make people happy,” Saccary said of the wildflowers. “Wildflowers make people happy and they’re good for everybody—birds, bees, pleasant to the eye—and you don’t have to maintain them. It’s pretty good.”