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Community Corner

Warren Woman's Commitment to Gardening Grows Into Arboretum

A lifetime love of gardening makes Wagner Farm Arboretum's president well-suited to the job.

Suzanne Smith loves the oasis that is her yard. 

Her 2-acre property in Warren is abloom in warmer months with zinnias, honeysuckle, bee balm and other fragrant foliage that regularly attract butterflies and hummingbirds. There are elephant ears, potted herbs, a garden of native plants and lots of hanging baskets with flowering plants.

"I've gardened for years and years," said Smith, a 25-year resident of Warren who lives with her husband, Lee Hansen, and her 91-year-old father, Emerson Smith.  "My whole family gardens. My father gardens, my grandfather gardens, my brothers garden. I think it's in the blood."

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It is this passion for greenery Smith brings to her role as president of the Wagner Farm Aboretum, Gardens and Learning Center on Mountain Avenue.

When developers started making noises about buying the Wagner Farm, a once-thriving dairy operation from 1917-1987, Smith and her neighbors organized and made some noise of their own, attending every township meeting on the matter and making it clear they preferred an alternative use for the site. 

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On May 31, 2001, the township bought the 92.6-acre property to preserve as open space.  The next month, an ad hoc committee was formed to recommend ways to turn Wagner Farm into something accessible to all residents. At the committee's head was Suzanne Smith.

"We met once a week for an entire year," she said. "And we threw every idea we could think of up on the wall—including a golf course. We finally came up with the idea of an arboretum."

The Wagner Farm Arboretum was incorporated on June 11, 2004, its twin silos serving as a distinctive backdrop. 

Since then, a Community Garden has sprouted, with leased plots (10x20 feet) available, along with the Giving Garden and the "Growing to Give" program, through which local elementary school children grow vegetable plant seedlings in their classrooms and transplant them to the Giving Garden, with the resulting produce donated to needy families.

There also is a Children's Garden, open dawn to dusk to the public.

"One day last summer, I was weeding the patches in the front here," Smith said. "And I hear all this children's laughter and I think 'what is that?' So I go back into the Children's Garden and a teacher had brought her entire class up.  They were spending some time in the garden and taking pictures."

The old barn—damaged beyond repair two winters ago—will be taken down and replaced by a smaller building.  Future plans call for a formal garden with a large pavilion to host meetings, classes and small weddings, raised beds for gardeners with disabilities, a separate garden comprised of plants native to New Jersey, and a series of marked, natural trails.

Smith also envisions a large greenhouse and a butterfly conservatory in future years.  But all in good time.

"We're all volunteers here," says the retired AT&T manager.  "The only person who gets paid is the landscape guy who mows the lawn."

Meantime, Smith and her team of volunteers are preparing for Brite Nites, a Halloween celebration that debuted last October to much acclaim.

"We actually surprised ourselves. It was fabulous," says Smith.

This year's Brite Nites—to be held the last two weekends of October—will again feature a winding path, expanded to include a large replica of the Eiffel Tower and other structures, and lit with roughly 1,000 jack-o-lanterns, 400 more than last year (Many of the pumpkins are reuseable craft pumpkins; others are carved by area families and organizations). There will be a pumpkin carving contest, prior to the event, for children and adults 

And the spooky Haunted House returns, albeit without the family who pulled it off last year and have since moved out-of-state.

"We've actually hired someone this year to do the Haunted House, which will be a little different because it will be a bit more theatrical," Smith said, with a chuckle. "This will have a lot more live bodies in it."

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