Last volunteers in city's Adopt an Island program are retiring

NASHUA – This spring and summer, a little corner of the city will lack its usual color and creativity.

Marie Fisher has “retired” from volunteering to tend to a colorful garden on a small, city-owned lot.

For more than a decade, Fisher and her husband, Roland, tended a flower garden on a 20- by 12-foot corner lot at the intersection of Manchester Street and Henri A. Burque Drive.

The Fishers kept up the garden long after the program that first attracted them died out – the parks and recreation Adopt an Island program.

Each spring, the Fishers would transplant hundreds of seedlings they had grown. The planting took the two of them three or four hours to finish, Marie Fisher said.

Then came the subsequent hours of weeding and generally tending to the plot.

And the Fishers didn’t just plant flowers. The corner lot became their canvas, the marigolds, ageratums and petunias their paint.

A Volkswagen Beetle appeared one year, an ocean wave another. There have been smiley faces and patriotic flags, all created by the strategic planting of flowers of various hues.

Motorists passing by would beep and wave in appreciation. That’s one of the things Marie Fisher said she’ll miss.

“All good things must come to an end,” Marie Fisher wrote in a letter to the editor of The Telegraph, announcing her retirement.

“Realistically, though, growing, nurturing, planting and tending the over 600 plants required is a huge commitment and one that I feel I can no longer make,” she wrote.

The Fishers own Reliance Autocare on Amherst Street. Marie tends to a garden at the business and grew the plants for the city lot in the greenhouse out back.

Surely there are many other people like the Fishers in Nashua, devoting their time over so many years to make a corner of the city beautiful by planting and caring for a flower garden?

“Absolutely not,” said Nancy Mellin, business coordinator and beautification project manager for the city Parks and Recreation Department.

In fact, the Adopt an Island program was discontinued because of a lack of interest, Mellin said.

The program began with the Fishers and two other participants. One dropped out after the first year, and another kept at it for a couple of years. Only the Fishers kept coming back each year.

“It’s absolutely a loss,” Mellin said of the Fishers’ retirement from tending to the flower garden. “When I got a letter from her saying she was quitting, I thought, ‘oh, no!’ ” Mellin said.

Marie Fisher said she and her husband chose that particular intersection because it’s near their home. She never even knew it was called Kelley Square until two years ago, Fisher said.

“To me, it was always the intersection of Manchester Street and Henri Burque Drive,” she said.

“There was never anything there. It was always full of weeds and not very attractive,” she said.

While Mellin said it would be wonderful if someone stepped forward to adopt that conspicuous corner lot, Fisher doubts that will happen.

“Frankly, probably no one would do it because it’s so much work,” she said.

Fisher said she appreciates the help she received from the Parks and Recreation Department, which provided topsoil and watered the flowers throughout the summer.

She admits she’ll “feel a little sad” when she passes by the intersection lot and finds it full of weeds.

“But on the other hand, I certainly will have more time for other things,” she said.

Not all traces of the Fishers’ work will disappear, however.

The couple planted a row of perennial barberry bushes that will continue to add some color and serve as a memento of their years of loving care.

Patrick Meighan can be reached at 594-6518 or pmeighan@nashuatelegraph.com.

Surely there are many other people like the Fishers in Nashua, devoting their time over so many years to make a corner of the city beautiful by planting and caring for a flower garden?

“Absolutely not,” said Nancy Mellin, business coordinator and beautification project manager for the city Parks and Recreation Department.

In fact, the Adopt an Island program was discontinued because of a lack of interest, Mellin said.

The program began with the Fishers and two other participants. One dropped out after the first year, and another kept at it for a couple of years. Only the Fishers kept coming back each year.

“It’s absolutely a loss,” Mellin said of the Fishers’ retirement from tending to the flower garden. “When I got a letter from her saying she was quitting, I thought, ‘oh, no!’ ” Mellin said.

Marie Fisher said she and her husband chose that particular intersection because it’s near their home. She never even knew it was called Kelley Square until two years ago, Fisher said.

“To me, it was always the intersection of Manchester Street and Henri Burque Drive,” she said.

“There was never anything there. It was always full of weeds and not very attractive,” she said.

While Mellin said it would be wonderful if someone stepped forward to adopt that conspicuous corner lot, Fisher doubts that will happen.

“Frankly, probably no one would do it because it’s so much work,” she said.

Fisher said she appreciates the help she received from the Parks and Recreation Department, which provided topsoil and watered the flowers throughout the summer.

She admits she’ll “feel a little sad” when she passes by the intersection lot and finds it full of weeds.

“But on the other hand, I certainly will have more time for other things,” she said.

Not all traces of the Fishers’ work will disappear, however.

The couple planted a row of perennial barberry bushes that will continue to add some color and serve as a memento of their years of loving care.