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09/08/2015 04:30 PMIt all started with the women who met for coffee every weekday morning at table 5 when Aggie Waterman’s Village Restaurant was the gathering spot in Ivoryton. Waterman dropped by the table to talk to her friends as often as cooking and managing the restaurant allowed. One day as she looked out the window at the Ivoryton Town Green she felt discouraged.
“The Green looked awful, horrible. And I think if you don’t like something, you should get out there and do something about it,” she said.
And so the women went to work and 35 years later, they are still at it, landscaping, planting daffodils in the spring and other flowers in the barrels that dot the Green, keeping up with the weeding, tending to landscaping. Now that Waterman has closed her restaurant, the gardeners meet for coffee at Susan’s Kitchen in Deep River.
Since their start, the gardeners’ projects have also extended to beautifying several traffic islands in Ivoryton. The group was responsible for the flagpole at one corner of the Ivoryton Green and for the landscaping around it. They put up a “Welcome to Ivoryton” sign and Waterman also arranged for the historical marker in the center of town. Every town is entitled to one historical marker, she explained, but the marker was in the Village of Essex.
“We’re the only town now that has two historical signs,” she said.
Ivoryton, Waterman noted, has another distinction.
“We’re the only Ivoryton in the United States,” she said.
On Sunday, Sept. 13, the Ivoryton Library will have a celebration honoring the gardeners. There will be pictures of what the area used to look like and views of the gardeners at work over the years. Members of the group will also be on hand to answer questions about their work.
The program will begin with the dedication at 2 p.m. of a sunset red maple tree on the Town Green to the memory of longtime Ivoryton resident May Rutty. There was a tree given in Rutty’s memory in the circle that stood in front of the building where Aggie’s Village Restaurant was; the space is now the location of The Blue Hound. That tree was lost in the recent renovations to the area. After the dedication, the upcoming festivities will move to the library.
The shrubs and flowers the Ivoryton Gardeners have planted for more than three decades have not only beautified the Green, but also done it at absolutely no cost to the Town of Essex. The gardeners have always raised all the money themselves, often using donation jars out on the counter at Aggie’s restaurant. The Essex Garden Club has also donated flats of plants left over after their May market.
In addition to Aggie, the original group included Judy McCauley, Kathy Sullivan, Susan Kaufmann, Pauline Veilette, Cathy Harder, Mary Kibbe, Lee Savoie, and Jane Fuller. Over the years, other residents have joined the gardeners, among them Sue Anne Podaski, the current president (see her Person of the Week profile on page 2). Not that elections occur regularly—Podaski explained she has held the office for some 15 years, ever since the first president, Kathy Sullivan, moved out of town. Over the years, the gardeners have added to their responsibilities, taking care of landscaping at several traffic islands in town.
Once the Ivoryton Elementary School was situated on the Green, as well as a baseball field. Several of the women in the gardeners’ group had attended the school, which was torn down after Essex Elementary School was built. Sue Kaufmann has fond memories of one of her favorite moments at the old Ivoryton schoolhouse.
“I remember the day we got the slide. That was miraculous,” she said.
The school and the baseball field were gone when the gardeners started 35 years ago. The Ivoryton Green was barren. (The gazebo that is now in the park was built as an Eagle Scout project in l995.) Although Waterman knew the area needed landscaping, she also knew that she was no gardener.
“I just did what the other girls told me,” she said. “She’s a killer with flowers,” Waterman said, pointing to Kauffman, untroubled by any irony the word killer implied.
There were no detailed plans for landscaping when the group began.
“We did it by the seat of our pants,” McCauley said.
The work is more difficult for the group now than it was three decades ago. They would like to recruit some new members to continue what has been a part of their lives for so long, so far with no luck. But they hope they can convince some people at the upcoming library event that gardening to beautify public space in town is not only good citizenship but also good fun.
Program on the Ivoryton Gardeners at the Ivoryton Library
Sunday, Sept. 13 at 2 p.m. on the Ivoryton Green for tree dedication, and then continuing at the Ivoryton Library. For event information, call860-767-1252. To join the Ivoryton Gardeners, email Sue Anne Podaski at spodaski@hotmail.com. Contributions can be sent to Ivoryton Gardener’s treasurer: Susan Nilsen, 82 Main Street, Ivoryton CT 06442.