Community leaders say it’s also a way of gradually reshaping the town’s reputation, perhaps even making it a bit of an Instagrammable destination. As part of its plan to revitalize the dreary Silver Lane corridor , East Hartford this spring opened its first pollinator garden in little-used DePietro Park — and is ready to begin the vastly more ambitious job of creating a sunflower maze there. Establishing a sprawling meadow of sunflowers on what has long been just a grass field bordering a high-traffic intersection is a strategy for beautifying the neighborhood.
“We’re going to continue to make this park into East Hartford’s version of Elizabeth Park,” Mayor Connor Martin told the town council in mid-June. When Martin announced the idea last winter, he acknowledged that it would be a big change for East Hartford, which has long been associated more with heavy industry than botanical gardens. But the town had a farming and gardening history long before it hosted jet engine factories and commercial warehouses, and residents and visitors alike deserve to see more natural beauty, he said.
And a sunflower maze could help put DePietro on a par with widely popular parks like Elizabeth in West Hartford and Wickham in Hartford, he said. “It’s creating another experience that you come to East Hartford for. From the road, imagine a sea of yellow flowers.
We know Elizabeth Park is known for its rose garden, Wickham Park is just known for so much. What if East Hartford is.
