Glancing out the tall windows across from her desk in the Municipal Center Land Use offices while she was still working and undergoing cancer treatments, Tammy Hazen was occasionally heard mentioning what a great location the vacant courtyard space just outside would be for a garden.

On June 3, six-and-a-half years after her passing, family, acquaintances, and numerous co-workers who also regarded Hazen as their dear friend gathered to dedicate a beautiful pollinator garden that has slowly taken shape in her memory, right under that same window.

The garden was formally launched in October 2019, when members of Protect Our Pollinators (POP), joined by additional volunteers, put nearly 500 plants into the ground in the courtyard at the rear of the former state hospital cafeteria.

Employees of Newtown Parks & Recreation were also key in starting the garden, using machinery to prep garden beds and move some of the larger trees and bushes into place. The initial garden included small shrubs, more than 330 perennial plants, and multiple ferns, grasses, and bulbs.

Since then, individuals and local foundations generously donated money and plants for additional plantings; memorial benches have been added; and POP member Joan Cominski led an initiative to put up professional-looking plant identification markers in the garden. She oversaw the process of ordering them and their installation last June.

It was important to POP because, as this year’s dedication organizer Mary Gaudet-Wilson explained, “Marking the native plants with their common and botanical names seemed like a good way to develop interest and provide information to the public about attractive native plantings.”

The garden has ten native trees (two white oaks, four basswoods, two hackberries, and two serviceberries), as well as many native shrubs, including winterberry, blackhaw viburnum, red and black chokeberry, red twig dogwood, and American cranberrybush viburnum.

Some of the native perennials include butterfly weed, penstemon, blue-eyed grass, cardinal flower, asters, mountain mint, and many others. Little bluestem and purple love grass are two native grasses in the garden.

POP made a conscious effort to use native plants in Tammy’s Garden, because they are best suited to support the needs of local pollinators, insects, and bird populations.

Heartfelt Remarks

As she welcomed visitors June 3, Wilson noted that Tammy’s husband Carl, her daughter Sara Miller, brother David Tuttle, nephew Alex Tuttle, his companion Amanda Ravenge, and Tammy’s best childhood friend Sylvia Aulenti had all turned out for the occasion.

First Selectman Dan Rosenthal, State Rep Mitch Bolinsky, Health District staffers including Director Donna Culbert and Maureen Schaedler, Cominski, and Parks & Rec Director Amy Mangold, were joined by “angel donors” Dan and Robin Thomson, and Tripp Killin whose Jeniam Foundation helped with funding, garden designer Sarah Middeleer, Fire Marshal Administrative Assistant Nancy Schreiner, and First Selectman’s Executive Assistant Susan Marcinek.

“As we became friends, Tammy shared with me her love of butterflies, birds, and flowers,” Wilson recalled, adding that until her final weeks Hazen would say if she recovered, she wanted to join the POP organization. “After she passed we wanted to do a memorial garden for her.

“As I think of Tammy, I think of that big, beautiful smile that radiated kindness and understanding toward everyone who met her,” Wilson continued. “Her very positive outlook, her empathy, and her bright, cheery demeanor were what we saw and appreciated about her. But as she faced life’s challenges, we came to understand she had an amazing resiliency and great strength of character — and I think this garden reflects all the good things about her.”

Rosenthal reflected on the three years since plans for the garden were launched, and thanked the POP volunteers, donors, and Parks & Rec staff who helped complete the project. While he said he did not know Hazen, the first selectman learned about how beloved she was.

“The resiliency you mentioned stuck with me,” Rosenthal said. “We’re all drawn to the beauty and resiliency of nature, winter drags on, and then suddenly everything starts coming back up. So how fitting that this garden is here in what was a pretty sterile space. What was a 1930s-era renovated mental health space, we now have gardens and flowers to admire. And that’s a nice way to remember Tammy, and it’s nice that community members came together to make it happen.”

Bolinsky first met Hazen when he was on the Newtown Economic Development Commission, “and she was a great hugger, a wonderful human being, and long after I stopped doing town stuff, I looked forward to coming into the Municipal Center and seeing Tammy. This is beautiful, so thank you.”

‘She Was A Blessing’

David Tuttle said Tammy would always talk about everyone who worked with her and came into the land use office, “and she would say she was blessed to work here. And she was a blessing in my life — she was like a mother to me, even though she was my big sister. And she treated my son, Alex, the same way.”

Aulenti met Hazen in Sunday School and reconnected when they joined the same kindergarten class; she talked about how their friendship blossomed, and how at one point, Hazen saw a small dog shivering outside on its dog house during a snow storm, “so, Tammy ran into the yard, unclipped the dog, and took it home. And for its senior years, that dog had a very good home.”

Describing Tammy’s Garden as “more like a park,” Aulenti said she was looking forward to coming back to visit to see how the plants and trees were developing.

Miller thanked everybody for their support of her mom over the years. “She loved every one of you so much, and there are not a lot of work places like that,” she said.

Showing off a grouping of tattoos, Miller said each represented one of her mother’s favorite flowers. Quoting from the Book of Matthew, Miller remembered how, even when her mom was in the depths of her cancer treatment, “she was carrying a lot, and she would carry more for you.”

“I remember she is everywhere, and if I’m still enough I can feel her,” Miller said. “So my hope for everyone here is that you find some stillness every day and feel the ones who aren’t here anymore. This is such a beautiful thing for a really beautiful person.”

Editor John Voket can be reached at john@thebee.com.