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The club is donating $38,095 to the town to help beautify the front of the park. The donated funds are proceeds from the club’s annual flower show, which has held in October 2013 at the Darien Community Association.
“We’re a not-for-profit, so anything we do raise is given back to the town of Darien. And so our board came up with a charter of using the funds from the show to beautify and enhance and repair storm damage in the town of Darien and its parks and beaches,” said Debbie Bussey of the Garden Club.
The club has contracted a landscaper to remove 26 dead tree stumps from the front of the park, and replace them with about 40 trees.
“When we looked at Cherry Lawn, we found the front part of the park is sort of in need of some beautification,” said Emily D’Andrea of the Garden Club. “The back part is in really good shape, there’s a lot of very mature trees there, but in the front a lot of the trees that were planted early on have died, and what’s happened is most of those trees were cut down and stumps were left.”
Many of the trees planted will be cherry trees, which used to be plentiful in the park and gave it its name. The plan will include weeping cherry trees lining the front entryway of the park. There will also be a garden with several indigenous plants as drivers enter the park.
“When you drive in, it’ll open up and it will be a very natural, beautiful space there,” D’Andrea said. Along Brookside Road there will be several kwanzan cherry trees, as well as kousa dogwoods and flowering dogwoods.
“I think when people drive by they will just see a profusion of color in the spring,” said D’Andrea.
The park also used to have several sugar maples, of which the club will plant six or seven in the park.
“This would be great for use for a couple generations from now,” said Bussey.
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