NUTLEY, NJ — There were more than a few former Nutley residents admiring Silas Mountsier’s two-acre garden on Sunday, Sept. 17, who said they never knew the place existed until they moved away. Similar to many of the visitors during this semi-annual public viewing of the garden, Paula Heigis, from Little Egg Harbor, had come a distance. But she knew about the Nutley garden on Rutgers Place when she was growing up in the neighborhood and she returned on that Sunday to see part of her childhood.
“I grew up on an adjacent street,” she said. “I wanted to do a trip to nostalgia. We use to play in the garden area.”
Mountsier, 88, said he remembered her and remembered her playing, pointing to a spot in the garden and smiling as though it were yesterday and he could still see the girl. Evidently enjoying themselves, they chatted about change and old neighbors. One was a Bouvier and the grandmother of the future first lady, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy.
The garden was first planted on a half-acre site in 1946 when Mountsier’s father bought the house where Mountsier still resides. In 1972, Mountsier acquired a neighboring property, doubling the size of his garden. It was again doubled in 2002 with another purchase. The garden is now a little over two acres in size.
“People don’t understand why I did this,” he said. “Why would I spend the money? I did it for my pleasure.”
The semi-annual viewing on Sunday was part of the Open Days Program sponsored by The Garden Conservancy, an organization that helps maintain public gardens and, like Mountsier’s garden, supports opening private ones for the occasional peek. Gail Chmura, president of the Rutgers Master Gardeners of Essex County, was on hand to help identify the flora.
“I lived in Nutley but didn’t know about this place until I became a master gardener,” she said.
— Photos by Daniel Jackovino
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