| Women Plant for Elderly each Year |
| Thursday, 31 August 2006 08:09 | |||
 Enfield garden club members Linda Connolly, left, and Marie McConnell with Mother Mary Bernard Nettle of the Little Sisters of the Poor. ENFIELD – The quartet of women stooped in the drizzle, talking and laughing as they pinched weeds peeking through the mulch under their feet in an oval-shaped garden. “God’s gardeners,” as they call themselves, were back at work and having a grand time on the grounds of St. Joseph’s Residence. Other women from their group were tending to other gardens, planters or pots scattered on the nine-acre grounds of the home for the elderly. The women, all from Enfield and all members of the Enfield Garden Club, devote about 600 hours each summer to botanical betterment at the residence run by the Little Sisters of the Poor. Last year, they were rewarded for their efforts with the Federated Garden Clubs of Connecticut’s President’s Bowl and a first-place award for landscape design from the National Garden Club’s New England Region. They said their real reward is witnessing residents’ enjoyment of the grounds from the pathways, patios and swings dotted around the property. Rewarded or not, the women said, the time they expend at St. Joseph’s is time well spent. “Usually we do come every week to work. It becomes a little social club, too,” said Marie McConnell, later, seated on a patio with the other women. “We have fun, and …” Nancy McCafferty finished her sentence: “ … we’ve become extremely close.” The group on hand this day – which also included Sylvia Egan, Marie Prior, Linda Connelly and Sandy Balaska – tended to tease each other and talk on top of one an-other, making their friendship all the more evident. Several pointed out that the other member of their group, Mary Iverson, was away on vacation. Mrs. McCafferty recalled that it all began in 1995, when her late mother resided at St. Joseph’s. One of the sisters dreamed of creating a rose garden and solicited donations for the project. Planted incorrectly, the bushes soon looked less than promising. At a loss for the reason, the sister asked for advice from Mrs. McCafferty, who knew the solution and offered to help. “So we had to dig them all out, clean the holes and replant. That help, that day, became my job,” she said with a laugh. Mrs. Egan’s mom, now 99, moved into St. Joseph’s soon after, and Sylvia, seeing Mrs. McCafferty hard at work out in the garden one day, offered a hand. Before long, the group grew and the Enfield Garden Club was born in 2001. Growing also each year is the botanical beauty of the grounds of St. Joseph’s, which had long been home to a wide variety of trees and shrubs. Armed annually with what Mrs. McConnell estimated at “at least” $1,200 to $1,300 in plants donated by Grower Direct Farms in Somers, the women em-bed such annuals and perennials as roses, geraniums, impatiens, dahlias, azaleas, begonias, purple salvia, petunias, lilies, hostas, coleus, verbena, mums, daisies and ornamental grasses, to name just a few. After preparing the beds and planting, the women are kept busy with mulching, dead-heading, weeding and watering. “They start at 7:30 in the morning, before the heat, and are here until after lunch every Tuesday,” said Mother Mary Bernard Nettle. “Everybody says what beautiful gardens we have,” she said. Spring planting requires “a good couple of weeks, every day,” Mrs. McCafferty said. The sisters thank them by providing lunch and friendship, the women said. If they were to put a dollar value on their labor, Mrs. McConnell said, it would be about $10 an hour. In 2004-05, the club donated a total of 3,800 hours to its civic projects around town, including St. Joseph’s.
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