Park Brings Joy to the Neighborhood

by Fran Gustman, editor,
HortResources Newsletter

“What a joy it is to come out every morning and look out onto this park! It was well worth the wait,” said one Puddingstone Garden neighbor.  On September 25, neighbors and friends celebrated a three-year effort to rejuvenate this small park in Roxbury, once part of the 19th century estate of Grove Hall in the southeast section of Boston.  The combined efforts of many people and organizations replaced a vandalized infestation of knotweed and barberry with a well-groomed, green pocket.

COG designer Janis Porter turned neighborhood requests into reality.  A high priority was to keep the park clean and safe. To open the view into and within the park, she called for clearing out underbrush and limbing up oaks. Her design added walkways and closed off an opening to the park near a liquor store. The City of Boston provided much labor and hardscaping and the now-shaded sitting area with old-fashioned park benches of scrolled iron and wood slats; the central armrest unobtrusively makes the bench too uncomfortable to attract overnight sleepers. A wrought iron fence adds to the well-looked-after appearance of the park. Now that the tangles have been cleared away, the park’s namesake –  puddingstone – is visible in large outcroppings. 

Puddingstone Garden is designated an Urban Wilds site by the Boston Parks Department. Keeping what was usable from the older plantings – pin oaks, Siberian elm, yews, lilacs, and roses, Janis added mounds and groves of native plants: fothergilla, low-bush blueberries, birch, amelanchier, redbuds, oak-leaf hydrangeas, iteas, ‘The Fairy’ roses, winterberry, Ilex glabra, Viburnum trilobum, V. dentatum and Kalmia ‘Little Linda’. They will provide shade, erosion control, and wildlife habitat and food. Perennials add color: Iris cristata, coreopsis, and tiarella.