Tag Archives: Boothbay

Autumn at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens – Part 2

Posted on by
2

Finally, I’m getting to finish up my visit to Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay Harbor, the continuation of Part 1 that I published in January. (Who knew winter would get so busy?) So let’s keep wandering and head for a little while down Haney Hill, below, which connects the formal parts of the garden above with the magnificent forests below.

There’s a small pond at the top with a Japanese feel……

…. enhanced by the ‘Ice Dance’ Japanese sedge (Carex morrowii). I left the sign in this photo to illustrate how careful CMBG is at providing descriptions almost everywhere, something many botanical gardens forget to do since it requires attention to detail and resources.

A lookout allows visitors to contemplate the rich, mixed forest below here.

And, unlike many public gardens, CBMG also pays attention to ecology and educating visitors.

The path is flanked with naturalistic plantings, mostly native, including many choice conifers.

Since it was October 14th the leaves of many native trees and shrubs had started to change colour, including the sourgum (Oxydendrum arboreum) below.

… and the hobblebush viburnum (V. lantanoides) was a pretty burgundy.

I am familiar with a lot of goldenrods, but hadn’t seen Short’s goldenrod before. This is Solidago shortii ‘Solar Cascade’.

I went as far down as the Henry Richard sculpture ‘Glass Orb’, but since we had a long drive ahead of us later, I retraced my steps back up.

I had left Doug in the Vayo Meditation Garden, a quietly beautiful space on the hillside.

It wasn’t until a few weeks later that I learned the name of the tall perennial with the yellow pom-pom flowers blooming so late in the season. It’s Boltonia asteroides ‘Nally’s Lime Dot”, which was named for the late John Nally, the man who designed the famous flower garden at Wave Hill in the Bronx. Here’s my 2016 blog on Wave Hill.

Then we headed back to the main garden campus above, stopping at the Rose Arbor which features a number of vines and elaborate plantings.

Though it was late in the season and the plants had declined a little, I could appreciate the various containers used liberally throughout CMBG.

I liked the way pink-flowered Asarina scandens had been used as a trailer in the pot below.

Walking through the garden, there were reminders of summer in the seedheads amidst flowering grasses.

‘Sedum ‘T-Rex’ was putting on a spectacular show!

And native little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) had taken on its reddish autumn cast.

Possumhaw (Viburnum nudum ‘Longwood’) had also turned a deep rose-red for fall.

I thought I had photographed most of the trees with prominent exfoliating bark in my career, but no! Here is Chinese hazelnut (Corylus fargesii).

I peeked quickly into the Burpee Vegetable Garden but I really wanted to visit…..

… the spectacular Bibby & Harold Alfond Children’s Garden. The entrance, below, featured fun boulders called “Spraying Whales” by sculptor Carole Hanson shooting surprise jets of water at visitors…..

….and I thought of how much fun this would be for little kids in summer.

Opened in July 2010, the garden was made possible by a gift from the Harold Alfond Foundation. Mr. Alfond made his fortune mainly in shoes, first the Dexter brand, then brand names for other firms. I liked this speech given at the opening by the foundation chairman:

“In the summer of 2007- the last summer of his remarkable life, Harold Alfond visited the original gardens at the suggestion of his good friend Larry Pugh. Harold was 93. Together with son Ted and his wife Barbara, Harold saw the beauty of this place then and imagined what more it could be for the state he loved and its children. Harold’s life passion was athletics and children. Bibby Alfond’s passion was children and gardens. And so at the age of 93, with Bibby no longer at his side, Harold was drawn to the vision of what we see here today as he reflected on how his life had been enriched by Bibby and her gardens – gardens which had graced their summer home for decades. Moved by the memory of Bibby and her passion, and with Harold’s sentiments in our hearts, we knew the Children’s Garden was deserving of foundation support. And we felt pride and perfect balance when it was agreed the garden would be named the Bibby and Harold Alfond Children’s Garden. And not vice versa.”

The Chairman went on to quote from a famous children’s book by a Maine author illustrated on the sign: “As Miss Rumphius’ father admonished her to do, you have done ‘something to make the world more beautiful’.”

I especially loved seeing Miss Rumphius on the sign because it’s a favourite children’s book of mine, a 1982 award-winner by Maine author Barbara Cooney. Here I am reading it to my granddaughter Emma. As an aside, CMBG is careful to note that visitors should endeavor to grow Maine’s native sundial lupines (Lupinus perennis), rather than the non-native and invasive west coast lupines (L. polyphyllus) in the book.

Designed by landscape architect Herb Schaal of AECOM, Inc. who has designed over 20 unique children’s gardens in the U.S., the garden is full of surprises and abundant references to other Maine children’s books, including ‘Blueberries for Sal‘. My grandkids would adore the maze, below.

The Keeper’s Cottage features a green roof and a pretty windowbox. And it’s clearly on the radar of this little one.

I spotted the Liatris seedheads and thought how wonderful this garden would be in mid-summer, since it was still looking spectacular in October.

Who doesn’t know about Beatrix Potter’s “Mr. McGregor’s Garden” and that wascally wabbit? The greenhouse behind is actively used during the season.

Perhaps the beans and beets had already been harvested? In any case, this garden was full of colour.

Millstone seats with built-in planters! What a great idea for little kids.

There were attractive containers in the Children’s Garden too.

Colourful coleus was in flower beneath a rain-chain. The unusual silver trailing plant is Arctotis auriculata.

One container featured a dark-leaved mimosa, Albizia julibrissin ‘Summer Chocolate’.

A flower bed was full of colourful plants, including many choice succulents……

… such as Mangave ‘Lavender Lady’.

A chicken coop is part of the fun.

And the Story Barn is filled with enticing books for kids and sweet little stools for reading.

As I headed out towards the exit, a young visitor was engaged in a fun activity at the Boat Pond.

I’ve seen and photographed many children’s gardens, including New York Botanical Garden, the Huntington Garden in Pasadena and Denver Botanic Gardens (also a Herb Schaal design), among others, and this one was the best and most creative by far. It was a fitting way to end our visit to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens.

Autumn at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens – Part 1

Posted on by
Reply

When my husband said his college golf mates had picked Maine for the annual get-together in 2023, I was pretty excited. I do enjoy seeing these seven couples each year and like them all, but there’s also always an opportunity to add on some garden visits. In Santa Barbara in 2014, it was Seaside Gardens in Carpinteria and Santa Barbara Botanical Garden, plus San Francisco Botanical Garden and UC Berkeley Botanical Garden. In 2016 when we met in Sun Valley, I visited both Sawtooth Botanical Garden in Ketchum and Idaho Botanical Garden in Boise. A 2017 visit to Sarasota, Florida meant I got to see wonderful Marie Selby Botanical Garden. In 2018 the site was Portland and Bend and we drove down from Vancouver, so I stopped at Seattle’s Bellevue Botanic Garden and the Soest Garden at the Urban Center for Horticulture at the University of Washington, as well as the Japanese Garden and the Lan Su Chinese Garden in Portland. This is us – the “golf widows” at the Japanese Garden.

In 2019, the golfers gathered in Marin County CA, so I got to Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek and Filoli in Woodside. Following the Covid years, May 2022 saw us visiting Stone Harbor, NJ – and I managed stops at Garden in the Woods in Framingham MA and New England Botanical Garden in Boylston MA on the way there, and my favourite Chanticleer Garden in Wayne PA on the way home. Our wonderful October 2023 hosts live in Kennebunk, Maine, so I planned our driving trip from Toronto via Quebec so I could visit the Montreal Botanical Garden enroute. Then we drove south to Boston so I could finally realize a dream to spend lots of time at the Arnold Arboretum. After our golf visit wound up in Kennebunkport, we bade farewell to the group and drove up the coast for an overnight stay in Boothbay Harbor so I could finally see the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. Here’s the map showing the center of the garden; at 295 acres it stretches well out beyond the main features, below.

Even before we paid to enter, I was in love with the ethos of the garden as shown below in the long parking lot border featuring native roses in fruit, asters, mountain mint (Pycnanthemum muticum) and little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium)!

Islands featuring more formal designs with winter interest plants greet visitors in front of The Lyn And Daniel Lerner Visitor Center.

Look at this! Can you say “chartreuse love”? I see Salvia mexicana, a chartreuse taro, purple angelonia, lime-green nicotiana and dwarf papyrus.

The Heafitz Wetland Bridge near the entrance takes visitors over a piece of natural Maine forest with vernal pools and marshy ground.

Interpretive signage teaches visitors that the habitat below supports native species like the spotted salamander.

Earlier in the week, I had seen a yellow bird in the marshy growth at the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge in Kennebunk, so I was delighted to learn its name – common yellowthroat – here.

Though the Butterfly Garden greenhouse was closed for the year, the flowerbeds outside still had lots of bloom.

With no early frost, the Dahlia Garden was still looking fabulous.

This is Dahlia ‘Hollyhill Black Beauty’.

Children were running through the Willow Tunnel, the first of many features that illustrate the attention CMBG designers paid to creating family-friendly gardens and niches, a strategy that attracts younger demographics and family memberships.

Ecological education is a primary objective here as well.

Water features like this beautiful pond with its mirrored edge play a big role in the garden, including….

….educating visitors about native aquatic species like the Eastern pondhawk dragonfly.

Panicle hydrangeas (H. paniculata) have a long season of interest, including turning colour in autumn, as these shrubs are doing in the pond border

I was impressed with the diversity of plants in mid-October, like Vernonia lettermannii ‘Iron Lady’. Like all ironweeds, it’s very attractive to butterflies such as the painted lady, below.

Winterberry (Ilex verticillata) is showy in autumn, with fruit that persists into winter until it finally becomes a meal for birds.

Across the large pond stood one of the garden’s five popular trolls or “Guardians of the Seeds”, created by Danish scultor/recycler Thomas Dambo. This one is named RØSKVA, which means “trunks”. As the garden notes: “she is the heaviest, hardest, and strongest of the trolls. Every day, Røskva climbs towards the sky, and every year she grows taller and wider. If a troll forgets something, they can always ask Røskva—she counts the seasons and remembers everything that happens around her.” The other trolls Lilja, Berk, Søren and Gro are in the forest surrounding the main gardens, and each has a role to play.

I loved this little girl engaging with Røskva (and giving an idea of scale).

Little touches, like these bumble bee topiaries incorporating diverse sedum species, add interest to a visitor’s journey through the garden.

Since we had driven up from Kennebunkport that morning, we were more than ready for lunch and found a table on the Great Lawn.

Then it was off to the Lerner Garden of the Five Senses.

Tasting, touching, smelling, looking and listening… everything a good garden needs to engage the senses.

I was enchanted by these vertical planters showing the possibilities for sun and shade in a restricted space! The silvery, sunny side, below, features Dichrondra ‘Silver Falls’, Helichrysum ‘Icicles’, Artemisia ‘Sea Salt’ and Lavandula ‘Elegance Purple’ (the lavender out of bloom in October.).

The shady side is no less beautiful. It features Australian sword fern (Nephrolepis exaltata) and its cultivar ‘Cotton Candy’, the Rex begonias ‘Escargot’, ‘Iron Cross’ and ‘Fireworks’, the Bolivian begonias ‘Angel Falls Soft Pink’ and the trailing begonia ‘Fragrant Falls’.

There were other possibilities for raised gardening, including these cool, galvanized planters with windowbox-style inserts.

Of course, with good planning and construction there’s no need to bend over to grow vegetables, and the Lerner Garden shows the productive possibilities of raised beds.

The sound of splashing water permeates the Lerner Garden, courtesy of the fountain in its handsome upper pond, whose water flows over the edge and recirculates to a lower pond.

Here, there’s a fascinating sculpture reflected perfectly in the water. It also vibrates in a breeze, creating its own unique music.

George Sherwood’s kinetic ‘Flock of Birds’ sculpture was gleaming in the October sunshine.

Rocks — smooth river rock, cobbles and cut boulders — are used extensively in the gardens. These ones offer a variety of sensory textures.

We left the Lerner Garden via a cool, shady planting under trees.

But there was still much to see at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. Stay tuned for Part Two including the Arbor Garden, the Haney Hillside Garden, the Vayo Meditation Garden and the amazing Bibby and Harold Alfond Children’s Garden!