UPDATE (Saturday, June 24, 2023): Due to the weather, Protect Our Pollinators has postponed today's event to Sunday, June 25. Same time and location.

Protect Our Pollinators (POP) will hold garden tours of Tammy’s Garden, along First Street within Fairfield Hills, on Saturday, June 24, 10-2 pm.

Visitors are welcome to view the 19 separate beds of native plants that the garden offers. It will be, according to organizers, “a great way to learn about native plants and to see them in a formal garden design.”

Members of Protect Our Pollinators will be on hand to answer questions.

There is no charge for this event. Visitors may receive a free native plant (limited supply). Visitors are welcome to bring a picnic lunch to enjoy at the garden.

Located within a large courtyard on the western side of Newtown Municipal Center, the garden honors the late Tammy Hazen, who worked in the Town’s Land Use Department for many years. While still working and undergoing cancer treatments, Hazen would reportedly mention what a great location the then-vacant courtyard space would be for a garden.

The garden was installed in 2019 as a tribute to the beloved Newtown resident, who died in December 2015. Individuals and local foundations generously donated money and plants for her garden. Volunteers put nearly 500 plants into the ground at the rear of the building that once served as a state hospital cafeteria.

Employees of Newtown Parks & Recreation were also key in starting the garden, using machinery to prep garden beds and move some of the larger trees and bushes into place. The initial garden included small shrubs, more than 330 perennial plants, and multiple ferns, grasses, and bulbs.

POP Co-Founder Mary Wilson has previously told The Newtown Bee that Hazen’s “big smile and loving heart touched everyone who knew her. Tammy loved gardens, butterflies, and other pollinators, and had wanted to join POP.”

The space was formally dedicated in 2020.

The garden has native trees (white oaks, basswoods, hackberries, and serviceberries), as well as many native shrubs, including winterberry, blackhaw viburnum, red and black chokeberry, red twig dogwood, and American cranberrybush viburnum.

Native perennials include butterfly weed, penstemon, blue-eyed grass, cardinal flower, asters, and mountain mint. Little bluestem and purple love grass are two native grasses in the garden.

In 2021 POP member Joan Cominski led an initiative to install professional-looking plant identification markers in the garden. She oversaw the process of ordering them and their installation in late June of that year.

Early last year The Newtown Board of Realtors donated a pair of iron benches for the public garden. The benches were installed by early spring.

POP made a conscious effort to use native plants in Tammy’s Garden, Wilson noted during a June 2022 event, because they are best suited to support the needs of local pollinators, insects, and bird populations.

Today, Hazen’s legacy lives on through the flourishing garden that consists of native plants and attracts a wide range of pollinators, such as butterflies and bees.

According to Wilson, the garden is maintained by POP members, as well as several garden club members and master gardeners who volunteer their time and talents.

To find Tammy’s Garden, enter Fairfield Hills from Wasserman Way and then take the second right, onto First Street. The garden is on the left, with ample parking across the street.

Rain date is Sunday, June 25. Visit propollinators.org on Saturday if the weather is questionable.