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Garden beautifies and protects stream

By Sarah M. Corigliano

Assistant Managing Editor



EAST LONGMEADOW In addition to beautifying a normally forgettable part of the park, a team of gardeners and landscape designers recently helped preserve the environment at Heritage Park on North Main Street.

According to George Kingston, chairman of the Conservation Commission of East Longmeadow, a garden was recently planted along a stream that feeds into Heritage Park's pond which will protect the stream.

The garden is located next to a small bridge on the pavilion side of the pond where the brook runs into the pond.

"This garden was designed and installed to demonstrate how native plantings can be used to create a buffer garden along streams that both protect the stream and look good," Kingston explained in an e-mail to The Reminder. "The garden utilizes a variety of native plants and cultivars (varieties of plant species developed from natural plant species) of native plants."

Kingston said the plants vary from those which require dry environments to those which require very wet soil.

"Planting native species along stream banks and in the inner and outer riparian (100 and 200 foot zones along streams) is a permitted activity under the Wetlands and Rivers Act," he explained. However, he said individual homeowners should consult the Conservation Commission before beginning similar, extensive work on their property to prevent damage to wetland resource areas.

Kingston said the garden at Heritage Park is part of a demonstration project in cooperation with the Massachusetts Riverways Program, the Pecousic Brook Stream Team and the East Longmeadow Conservation Commission. There is another demonstration garden at St. Mark's Episcopal Church on Porter Road.

"The larger project includes individual consultations with homeowners whose property borders streams," Kingston added.

He said the Heritage Park garden was designed by Treefrog Landscapes of Northampton and installed with the assistance of members of East Longmeadow's Conservation Commission, the Pecousic Brook Stream Team, and the Western Massachusetts Master Gardener Association. It was paid for with grant funds provided by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. The only other town in the state to receive the grant was Scituate.