Longview Farm

Early in the spring of 2002 Mason Ridge Garden Club was given the opportunity to put their gardening skills to the ultimate test. We decided, as a group, to renovate the gardens at Longview Farm Park. The plants, shrubs and trees had been neglected for quite some time. Weeds, poison ivy, ticks and mosquitoes were everywhere. Was it a task we really wanted to take on?

The first day that the club viewed the grounds of the park, moans and groans were impossible to stifle. Some members thought it might be more than we could handle. Luckily, we had others that decided that this would be the ultimate challenge. The group discussed the plan of attack and chose to begin in the courtyard behind the house. It was an absolute mess. Most of the rosebushes were dead. Two oak leaf hydrangeas were so overgrown, they hid a set of French doors behind them. A family of robins had set up house inside an overgrown trellis. We got to watch the babies grow up and were there the day they learned to fly. An added bonus! We trimmed, weeded, and replanted the flowerbeds. We filled in the hot tub with soil and planted it with perennials from the front yard. One of our members, Linda, has a tiller and we were able to prepare all the new beds for planting.

We found surprises around every corner. One day we unearthed a few conch shells while planting a flowerbed. Another day we found hundreds of baby frogs hopping around. Imagine Betsy’s surprise when she dug up a rat trap with "Caution, Poison!" stickers all over it. The best surprises were of the horticultural variety. We found plants that none of us, including two master gardeners, could identify. We poured over books and did some networking and eventually were able to identify everything. We placed markers on all the deer resistant plants. We check the plants weekly, and so far we’ve been lucky where the deer are concerned. Click here for a listing of the plants at Longview Farm Park.

The more we worked, the more we wanted to work. Sometimes we were up there three mornings a week. We even had non-garden club members help out. Town & Country hauled untold amounts of yard waste, delivered mulch, and provided gallons of weed killer. It was a group effort and one that we are immensely proud of. Every one of us came away with a feeling of satisfaction and unanimously agree that it is the most rewarding project we have accomplished to date. We have developed a sense of community and feel very protective of "our" gardens at Longview Farm Park. So, the next time you’re visiting the park, take time to visit the gardens around the house. We hope you’ll like what we’ve done.

On July 22, 2002, Mason Ridge Garden Club was issued an official proclamation, by the City of Town & Country, for their efforts at Longview Farm Park.

Many thanks to Cindy Gilberg, of Gilberg Perennial Farms, for generously donating plant materials to Longview Farm Park.

For a historical overview of Longview Farm click here.

The Town and Country Conservation Commission website has additional information on the city's three parks.