Church of the Ascension earns Oceanside Garden Club Award

'Serenity Garden' offers a peaceful haven in downtown Rockville Centre

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The Church of the Ascension in Rockville Centre won the Oceanside Garden Club’s annual Beautification Award this past spring, which is given for “exceptional” gardening that “enhances the beauty of the community throughout the year.”

The Oceanside Garden Club, founded in 1941 with the slogan, “Flowers, like friendship, must be cultivated,” is a group of locals dedicated to beautifying Oceanside, Rockville Centre and Baldwin, the communities that their roughly 30 members call home.

After the front of the church was renovated a year and a half ago, so was its outdoor space. Given how recent the changes have been, Churchwarden Marge Clayton said that the award came as a total surprise. “We’ve only gone through spring, summer, winter, and now the spring again, so you can’t say we have longevity,” she said.

The garden is strongly linked to the church community, and maintaining it is a team effort. Though the church’s property committee is in charge of the space, the parish has bought into it, according to Clayton. “It really is something that has caught their attention,” she said.

After Easter, the flowers used inside as decorations for mass were planted in the garden to live out the rest of the spring. Much of the weeding is done by volunteer parishioners, Clayton said, adding that Father Kevin Morris, who has led the church for the last five years, plays an active role in the garden’s design.

The space is configured to appeal to more than just visual beauty. Clayton said that Morris often thinks about scent as well, requesting lavender and other fragrant herbs for specific spots in the garden. A benched area, which Ascension added this past spring, is set back far enough away from North Village Avenue to muffle the sounds of the road, and visitors can hear the birds that perch in the garden’s trees and hop along the grass, pecking at the ground.

“It has become a mini pocket park for the downtown area, especially from the people that get their coffee over there,” Clayton said, gesturing toward the nearby Dunkin’ Donuts and Kookaburra Coffee Company. “It’s about serenity. It’s about finding a small place where you can unwind, to feel at peace, to gather your thoughts.”

Clayton said that Sean Kelley, of Atlantic Nursery and Garden Shop in Freeport, helps the church select the flora, calling the business “our guiding light.”

“Marge Clayton has been a pleasure to work with,” Kelley said. “We just wanted to dress it up, make it look inviting. We listened to their ideas and just made it happen.”

When asked about the importance of gardens to a community, Clayton said, “I think it’s infallible. It gives them a way of focusing on something that’s so extraordinary. It just adds a dimension to life that you wouldn’t get any other way.”

Clayton said she’s proud of the garden, and that she personally takes comfort there. “I’m very much a flower person, and I think we’re finding that the more people go by here, the more they realize that they’re flower people too.”