GPIP members identified the intersection of Route 17 and Glastonbury Main Street as one of the first sites for GPIP to plant and improve. GPIP's goal is to transform the grass- and weed-covered medians into beautiful, welcoming garden spaces. Follow our progress on the median project through the updates below.

April 9, 2006

GPIP held its first formal workday of the 2006 season today. Seventeen volunteers met on the medians to rake, prune, and fertilize. Winter treated the plants kindly; there was little evidence of winter-kill, though a few Gaillardia in the North-most median bed appeared to be suffering from being drowned by runoff. The Forsythia, Scyllas, and some Daffodils are in bloom, and the Perovskia (Russian Sage) is showing fresh green. On May 7th we'll be back out on the medians with new plant material to fill in some holes, new roses for the North median, and mulch to give the entire planting a top-dressing.

Fall, 2005
Summer is when most of the median gardens' plants shine. In late May you saw the masses of spiky, soft blue bloom on gray-green plants. That's Nepeta Walkers Low which bloomed for more than a month. In June Coreopsis Moonbeam bloomed yellow, along with yellow daylilies Happy Returns, the roses started, and grasses started getting taller. In July a purple coneflower that is more delicate than the popular varieties, Echinacea tennessiensis Rocky Top, bloomed pink, perovskia (Russian sage) started coloring purple, and the black-eyed susan rudbeckia Goldsturm started blooming, along with most of the grasses. In late August Sedum Autumn Joy started to turn pink and Happy Returns bloomed again.

What were those pinkish-red roses on the South median? They are the very popular and disease-resistant shrub rose Knockout which continues to bloom all summer if spent blooms are cut off (deadheaded). On the North median we also have Hunter Red and rugosa roses.

Keeping the medians blooming required more than 60 man-hours this year. A crew of 10 volunteers spent many early morning hours weeding, adding mulch, and deadheading blooms. But the greatest impact has been the consistent mowing job provided by two local residents, Patrick Lynch and Dan Zack, which showed the gardens to their best advantage throughout the entire spring and summer.

Spring, 2005
April promises a burst of color at the median gardens. The bulb plantings will welcome passer-bys to waves of spectacular blues and yellows. The early blooming, sky blue scilla and the star-shaped blues of the chionodoxa will accent the giant yellow trumpets of the daffodils. The gardens will come into their own this year. Volunteers can enjoy following the development. Join the GPIP as a "hands-on" volunteer, or offer a tax-deductible donation as support of this beautiful project.

November 23, 2004

What were once weed-filled medians at Route 17 and Main Street are now gardens after Glastonbury Partners in Plantings most ambitious project to date. Over a three-month period volunteers worked in the highway medians to plant 3 separate beds on the two islands. Thanks to a donation of $2,000 from the Exchange Club of Glastonbury and a discount on the plants from resident Mark Sellew's Prides Corner Farms the beds are filled with more than 500 shrubs, roses, and perennials and 3,000 bulbs. The plants were chosen because most are drought-resistant, native, and can withstand the road salt from winter plowing. E.O. Quinn Landscape Contracting donated the labor to mulch the beds which should help control weeds. But volunteers will have to maintain these gardens through weeding and mowing. Not all the costs were covered by donations, so tax-deductible donations can be sent to GPIP. >> Click on the thumbnails to see larger images >>

August 30, 2004
August has been a busy time at the traffic islands with two GPIP work days preparing beds for planting.

An article submitted by GPIP ran in the June 23^rd Glastonbury Citizen describing our progress to-date.

May 19, 2004
GPIP members are planning, fundraising, and working with the State Department of Transportation (DOT) to transform this bland intersection into something beautiful. Our goal is to plant a mix of trees, shrubs, and flowers to create a pleasing scene.

Initial plans were drawn up during the winter and presented to DOT. In response to their concerns about preserving sight lines, we have reduced the number of trees in the planting. We are now working on obtaining the proper liability insurance coverage required by DOT in order to work on the traffic islands. Once this is accomplished planting will begin!