Welcome: Garden City Preservation Society

A small band of “guerrilla gardeners” who have been cleaning up neglected planting beds in public spaces around Newton Centre has — warning, pun pileup ahead — taken root, grown, and blossomed into a formal group whose goals are to restore and maintain those spaces — and hopefully more around the city.

Organized by residents Amy Surman and wife-and-husband team Georgi and Louis D’Arienzo, the aptly named Garden City Preservation Society (GCPS) is first focusing on the areas surrounding the Newton Centre “T” station.

Local lore suggests Frederick Law Olmsted, the renowned landscape architect who designed Boston’s Emerald Necklace, played a role in the landscaping of the Newton Centre “T” station. If true, the Olmsted connection may help the area garner grant money to support the site’s restoration and maintenance.

GCPS members are working with Historic Newton to research Olmsted’s possible involvement and how the planting beds may have originally appeared when the station opened in the late nineteenth century. In the meantime, they are working with a Newton resident and landscape architect (and Newton Villages steering committee member) Andrea Kelley on possible site designs and a listing of plants that would be suitable and historically appropriate.

At the group’s inaugural meeting on March 19, more than 30 people gathered to show their support. The meeting, hosted by Ward 6 Alderman Vicki Danberg, included current and former Ward 6 aldermen and the owners of Watertown’s Deluxe Town Diner who hope to open in the vacant “T” station and have pledged to support landscaping and other improvements.

The GCPS plans a large-scale effort on NewtonSERVES day April 25, and are seeking volunteers and tax-deductible donations for plants. For more information, please email Louis D’Arienzo.