Our Grounds

GROUNDS  ** Please excuse us while this page is under construction **

History of Our Grounds


Our Sustainability Efforts

We began a dialogue last year on how to best use, preserve and conserve Mercy Center's property. Through our Landscape Master Planning conversations, we are looking for better ways to manage our land and create new uses that are in-keeping with ecological practices and needs of the organization.

Future possible projects include reducing the number of gardens for management purposes (lack of labor), increasing native plantings, successive flowering plants and edible plantings, increasing solitude spaces with hermitages, yurts, huts, researching alternative waste water treatment, creating a coastal erosion management plan and creating another, perhaps larger, outdoor labyrinth.

One planning project that is now entering 'action' mode is the idea of designating one of our treed areas to be a quiet/reflective space.  The area up on the hill, behind the parking lot and the statues of Mary and Bernadette have been viewed as that site.  The woods move from the parking lot and down to our entrance way (near our animal cemetery).

The idea to create more 'silent' areas outdoors came out of the examination process of how to best use our property - all of it - not just the landscaped areas.  Out of the process came the desire/need for more outdoor spaces for reflection.  Currently our beach provides such a place, but it was felt more was not only needed, but that we could accommodate such an idea.

To provide access to this area, we'll be looking to create a trail.  We are still in the early stages of developing this project, but have talked about the trail having benches (including a napping bench), interpretive signs, and possibly a short area at one of the end of the trail that could be handicapped accessible.  We will continue to examine this project and others and keep you posted as we move forward.


Current activities: 

• We removed debris which had been stockpiling for 20-40 years near our wetland.  We cleaned up 11 tons of trash and removed 5 roll-off containers of wood debris which had been mixed with the trash. 
• We follow the CT Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) Organic Land Care management standards.
• We mow our lawn to 3-inches and do not water our lawn, except for newly established patches.

We are working to reduce the amount of lawn we currently mow.  
We collect fallen leaves in landscaped areas of our property and compost them.
We collect fallen trees, brush from prunings and other landscape materials which are chipped and placed in piles for future mulch.
We actively remove invasive weeds (pictured Joel & Eliott, our volunteer Invasive Weed Removal Specialists).  Invasive weed piles are kept separate from our comoposting and mulch operations and are burned annually.  

• We are working with the USDA NRCS on identifying our invasive weeds.  Apparently we have such an extensive collection of invasive weeds, NRCS suggested we provide educational opportunities.  We currently have an Invasive Plant Walk brochure and offer a workshop, Native Alternatives to Invasive Plants workshops and walk.
• We have begun to implement a Tree Preservation Fund program to raise funds and awareness on the importance of protecting our trees. We have an interesting collection of trees including European Euonymous, Russian Olive, Hackberry, Serviceberry, Southern Magnolia, River, Paper and European Birches, Copper and Weeping Beeches, Weeping and Corkscrew Willows, Red, Sugar, Silver, Norway and King Norway Maples, Red and White Oaks, Japanese Black and White Pines, White, Norway and Blue Spruces, Tupelo and Golden Chaintrees. 

Mercy's Tree Preservation Fund
In 2005, students from the Yale Forestry and Environmental Sciences provided an inventory of our trees in the landscaped area of our property.  In addition to sharing with us what trees were on the property, they provided a rating on the health of our trees.  While most are healthy, a number of our trees were identified as stressed, very stressed or dead.  As a result, some trees were immediately removed to reduce risk to human injury and building damage (ours and our neighbors).  We now need to follow through with creating stronger healthier trees which includes pruning, fertilization and reducing soil compaction.  Soil compaction stresses trees. 
To reduce soil compaction, we have created a parking plan that identifies areas where cars can park, and where we need to minimize traffic.  We have begun scheduling regular pruning and plan to move around the property - hopefully pruning all the trees in about five years.  It is costly to prune.  We could move the process along faster as well as ensure we can follow through with the plan if funds were available.   Please contribute to Mercy's Tree Preservation Fund to protect our trees into the future.