Wildflowers Of New England

John Pawlowski, one of Town and Country Garden Club of Newtown’s favorite speakers, is returning to make a third presentation at the senior center in Sandy Hook on Wednesday, March 10, at 7:30 pm. His subject will be “Wildflowers of New England.”

Mr Pawlowski is a geologist by training as well as a retired schoolteacher who has studied geology for many years.  He is presently the director of Connecticut Museum of Mining and Mineral Sciences in Kent. This is a relatively new museum that has been so successful, Mr Pawlowski is already working on an addition.

Mr Pawlowski became interested in wildflowers when he was a child and spent a great deal of time in the woods because his father was a lumberjack who ran a sawmill (which still exists in Bethel). His father taught him many things about plants as well as wildlife, having had his own life long interest in conservation.

Mr Pawlowski’s family logged land within the Tarrywile area of Danbury four times during a forty-year term, yet thanks to selective cutting, no one is aware that the forest had been touched at all.

In addition to a fascinating slide program, Mr Pawlowski will entertain his audience with stories about Native American and Colonial uses of wildflowers.

He encourages anyone who is interested in purchasing wildflowers to contact Garden in the Woods, run by the New England Wildflower Society and located in Framingham, Mass. It is a nature conservancy that uses any profits to help perpetuate the gardens.

Mr Pawlowski’s program is free of charge and the public is welcome.