Garden Club Strives To Turn Lewisboro Golden

LEWISBORO - The Lewisboro Garden Club wants to turn the town’s roadsides golden…with daffodils.

Every year the club seeks to beautify the town’s roadways by encouraging businesses and homeowners to line their properties with the bright yellow flowers. In the fall, the club coordinates mass plantings of daffodils along public roadsides, and it continues to seek to plant thousands more.

“[Club member] George Scott saw this happening in other towns and thought, why can’t we do it here?” said club President Jay Luzzi.

Luzzi said the club needs the support of community organizations, residents and businesses to pull off the beautification effort. So far, volunteers and club members have planted over 14,000 daffodils since the project began nearly five years ago.

Every spring, passersby can observe the explosion of color the daffodils provide at places such as Onatru Farm, Cyrus Russell Community House, the Parks & Recreation office, the Lewisboro Library, the Town House, and at the junctions of Route 35 and Spring Street and Route 35 and Mark Mead Road.

“Lewisboro has an incongruous shape; it’s an odd shape,” Luzzi said. “There aren’t too many things that unite it. We thought, with the daffodils, you’ll know you are in Lewisboro.”

The Garden Club sells a variety of daffodil bulbs to help residents and businesses get on board with the project and to raise money for the planting. Orders placed throughout the summer (you can place them up through Sept. 26) will arrive in time for October planting. The bulbs are top-size and produce larger flowers the first year of blooming and are a favorite of the Garden Club.

“We do a massive planting every year of 4,000 to 5,000 bulbs” Luzzi said. “We decide on the various high-profile locations and we get the students and the Scouts and Brownies involved. The money we raise through the sale of the bulbs, along with some donations, supports it all.”

Order forms are available at various businesses throughout town, community events, and at the Town House. For more information or to receive an order form, write to the Lewisboro Garden Club at PO Box 389, South Salem, NY 10590, or e-mail LewisboroGardenClub@hotmail.com.

“We hope to have a website up later this year and they will help things go more smoothly,” Luzzi said.

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