“A Glimpse Of The Garden” is a seasonal miniseries focusing on the heart of a gardener’s work — a special spot, an extraordinary plant, a place of respite, or a place that evokes a heartfelt memory.

While Nancy K. Crevier usually meets with a homeowner for a private tour of their gardens, which she then shares with Bee readers through this series, this time she visited Holcombe Hill Preserve to see what The Garden Club of Newtown has been doing recently. This week's column offers a preview of what the public can find now, and expect to find in the near future. 

People who regularly visit the Newtown Forest Association (NFA) Holcombe Hill property, off Great Hill Road in Newtown, are familiar with the expansive fields covered in native flora that flow about Fairfield County’s highest point. What visitors may not be as familiar with are the four gardens surrounding the headquarters building of the NFA, at the top of the hill.

The quartet of small gardens was originally designed by Newtown landscape architect Sarah Middeleer, said Holly Kocet, civic chairperson for The Garden Club of Newtown and a member of NFA. Upkeep of the gardens eventually became too much for the NFA volunteers available, and they became overgrown with weeds.

Since June of this year, though, the gardens have been re-established through the joint efforts of the NFA and The Garden Club of Newtown.

“As a member of NFA, I was looking for a way to help,” said Ms Kocet. Observing how unkempt the hilltop gardens had become, she approached NFA President Bob Eckenrode with the idea of bringing the gardens back to life. It was an idea welcomed, Ms Kocet said.

Fellow Garden Club members were also enthusiastic about taking on the project, providing the labor of cleaning the spaces, preparing the soil, planting, mulching, and pruning. New native plants were provided by NFA to replace and supplement the plants originally planted in the gardens.

Visitors are welcome to walk up the long driveway to the buildings perched on top of the hill, where they will now see four tidy gardens wrapping about the headquarters. Deviating from the driveway, a short stroll across the lawn brings one to the first of the four gardens. Here, tiny bee balm and liatrus plants dot the newly laid mulch, with clumps of ornamental switch grass and a small cedar tree anchoring either end. A cluster of lavender and deep purple yarrow brightens the garden.

Moving on to the next section, mounds of little blue-stem grass mix with newly planted gray golden-rod, orange butterfly milkweed, and yellow flowering threadleaf tickseed coreopsis.

The third swath of garden hosts small Baptisia plants that will, like many of these indigenous plants, grow into handsome bushes, as the years go by. Pale purple flowers blossom from yet another variety of bee balm in this garden, with a serviceberry tree marking the start.

“It’s not looking like much, yet,” Ms Kocet admitted, “but it will.” Even by the end of this summer, she expects that the new plants in the gardens will have swelled to fill much more of the space.

The fourth of the series of gardens is still under construction. Project volunteers Mary Gaudet-Wilson, Cynthia Clark, Joyce DeWolfe, Carol Garbarino, and Terry Merola (the latter a Certified Master Gardener, as is Ms Kocet) will join her in determining the best way to revitalize this plot, she said. Currently, weeding and mulching has exposed a small red chokeberry growing at the foot of a lush blue spruce. The fate of a tall hemlock, gnawed by deer from the roots to head-high, is yet to be determined. A Viburnum shrub that is currently being stepped on by the spruce will need to be moved, Ms Kocet said.

Depending on the season, visitors will also find the purple-blue flowers of anise hyssop in bloom, or the nodding crimson flowers of red Columbine. Wild blue indigo is another native plant growing in the gardens, adding to the list of those planted especially to attract hummingbirds, butterflies, bees, birds, and other pollinators.

Other gardens about the foundation of the headquarters building may be part of a future rehabilitation project, Ms Kocet said.

NFA and Garden Club of Newtown members are eager to have visitors to Holcombe Hill view the refreshed gardens, and watch as the gardens grow.

“We want it to be a kind of demo garden,” she said, allowing people to see how to incorporate native plants into the home landscape.

Holcombe Hill is located at 55 Great Hill Road. A parking lot accommodates several vehicles, and it is a short walk up the hill to the headquarters. The preserve is open daily, sunrise to sunset.