Nature Walk, Garden Talk & Spring Plant Sale:

Busy Week Ahead For Town & Country Garden Club

The Town & Country Garden Club has three public events coming up within the next week.

Members of the club are making final preparing for the 5th Annual Natural Walks, which will return to Orchard Hill Nature Center on Sunday, May 6.

From 2 to 4 pm the public is invited to meander along the trails of the nature center on Huntingtown Road, the entrance of which is approximately a quarter of a mile south of Huntingtown’s intersection with Orchard Hill Road. Numerous temporary signs and markers will have been placed along the trails to identify numerous varieties of ferns, wildflowers, invasives and indigenous trees that can be found within the property.

Wooded pathways and boardwalks made the tour safe and comfortable for walking so that the experience of discovering different plants and their habitats can be safely enjoyed along the way.

New this year will be a pair of guided tours led by members of the garden club. The tours will begin at 2 and 3:30 and will include a history of the dam and waterfall in the preserve, as well as the general geology of the area. 

All ages are welcome.

For additional information, call Margareta Kotch, at 203-405-3171.

“The Merry, Merry Month Of May”

On Wednesday, May 9, the club will host speaker Colleen Plimpton and a program titled “The Merry Merry Month of May.”

Ms Plimpton will use a Power Point presentation to discuss what will be growing in gardens during this time of year. Whether one chooses to grow annuals, vegetables, perennials, grasses, vines or shrubs, there is a wealth of material to showcase in mid-spring. Ms Plimpton’s program will cover how to purchase, plant, grow, and display garden wares for the best May garden yet.

Ms Plimpton (pictured) is a well known professional garden communicator who spent the first thirty years of her career as a clinical social worker with the chronically mentally ill. She then switched careers when she trained at the New York Botanical Gardens.

She has since been enjoying tending her garden in Connecticut. She has appeared on numerous television and radio programs, writes a prize-winning newspaper column for Hearst Media Group, coaches gardening, has taught at the Botanical Gardens, lectures widely, and writes for publications such as Connecticut Gardener and Toastmaster.

Her garden has received many awards and her recent memoir, Mentors in The Garden of Life, published in 2010, was a finalist for the 2011 Connecticut Book of the Year in the Memoir category. Her next book, Growing a Movement: How a Small Group of Women Changed Horticultural History, is due next year.

The program will start at 7 pm at Newtown Senior Center, 14 Riverside Road, and is open to the public free of charge.

For information call Liz Arneth, 203-426-5359.

Spring Plant Sale

Next weekend the club will hold its annual plant sale.

The Town & Country Garden Club Spring Plant Sale will be presented on Saturday, May 12, from 9 am until 3 pm, in front of The Inn at Newtown, 19 Main Street. The sale will feature perennials, member grown perennials, bushes, shrubs, and a selection of uniquely planted concrete troughs.