Work begins on Garden of the Navigators

The Garden of the Navigators has set sail.

An outline of the new garden is visible in Cranberry Park in Rehoboth Beach as excavation work gets underway.

Architect Ray Zebrowski, project manager, said the garden is on schedule and will be complete before a delegation from sister-city Greve-in-Chianti, Italy, arrives in mid-June. Rehoboth Beach Sister Cities Association is building the garden at Olive and Lake avenues as a tribute to Greve, which unveiled a garden in honor of Rehoboth last year. The association is paying for the $66,000 garden and giving at as a gift to the city.

Zebrowski said the area of the garden has been excavated in preparation for planned sidewalks and a compass that pays homage to Giovanni da Verrazzano, explorer and Greve native who mapped the Delaware coast in 1524.

Zebrowski said the compass is expected to arrive Friday, April 12, shipped on three pallets, and will be installed like a jigsaw puzzle.

Still to come are a pergola, accent lighting, low-volume drip irrigation and furnishings, which will be installed over the next few weeks; landscaping will be installed by the middle of next month. Zebrowski also said silt fencing has been installed to prevent runoff from polluting Lake Gerar.