Daily Archives: February 23, 2010

Friday, August 20, 10:00 am – 1:00 pm – Northeast Harbor Gardens

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Since you already are up in Maine for the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller garden tour with Bonnie Drexler (see post below), stay a day and visit Northeast Harbor with Bonnie and The New England Wild Flower Society.  This tour, described below, is limited to 20 participants, and costs $30 for NEWFS members and $36 for nonmembers.  Register at www.newfs.org.

The Asticou Azalea Garden and the Thuya Garden are linked by location as well as history. These complementary gardens were created by Charles Savage, a local innkeeper and self-taught landscape designer, who rescued plants from designer Beatrix Farrands’ abandoned estate in Bar Harbor to create the gardens along the north edge of Northeast Harbor. At the Asticou Azalea Garden, rhododendrons, mountain laurels, heathers and azaleas were planted to transform a swamp into a stroll garden with an Asian flavor. The water gardens of the Katsura Imperial Villa in Kyoto, Japan supplied the inspiration for Savages’s flowing Asian design.

Farrand’s plants were also used to create Thuya Garden, where an overgrown apple orchard stood before. We climb a trail winding up the slopes of Eliot Mountain under towering spruce and cedar trees. Rustic cedar shelters provide rest stops with views of Northeast Harbor below. At the top, we enter the formal garden through a pair of carved wooden gates (below) featuring fiddlehead ferns, lady’s slipper orchids, frogs, iris, and owls among others. The two main formal borders are planted with drifts of perennials that range from warm to cool hues as you stroll by. A shallow reflecting pool, a hidden summer house, and giant garden urns punctuate the garden’s floral displays.

Thursday, August 19, 9:00 am – 2:30 pm – Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden and Wild Gardens of Acadia

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Advance notice: a spectacular day field trip has been planned by The New England Wild Flower Society in Seal Harbor and Bar Harbor, Maine on Thursday, August 19, from 9 – 2:30, led by Bonnie Drexler.  Participation is limited to twenty, so register quickly at www.newfs.org.  The cost  is $60 for NEWFS members and $72 for nonmembers, and this event is sure to sell out.

Two of Mt. Desert Island’s most evocative gardens open their gates  this day.

Noted garden designer Beatrix Farrand designed a stunning garden for David and Abby Alrich Rockefeller in the late 1920’s. Today, this garden (pictured below) continues to weave an enchanting spell over its visitors, combining Asian art and architecture with vibrant displays of annuals and perennials. Enter another world as you pass through the circular Moon Gate to come upon a sunken lawn, surrounded by lavish English border gardens at their peak of summer color. Stroll the woodland “Spirit Path,” flanked by Korean tombstone figures, all the while enclosed by a rose-colored serpentine wall, capped with yellow tiles from China’s Forbidden City. Native shrubs, groundcovers, mosses and ferns shine alongside the ancient stone sculptures, some from the 14th century. Meet with the horticulture staff for a behind the scenes understanding of the Garden.

Following lunch (on your own at the nearby Jordan Pond House),  you will tour the Wild Gardens of Acadia, where we explore a microcosm of Mount Desert Island’s natural habitats. Only plants indigenous to Mt. Desert Island find a home here on this small, but intensely planted site. Over 300 native plant species are arranged by habitat setting. The plant communities include mixed woods, roadside, meadow, mountain, heath, seaside, brookside, bird thicket, coniferous woods, bog, marsh, and pond with corresponding native plants and birdlife. Maintained by the Bar Harbor Garden Club, this jewel of a native plant garden won the Homer Lucas Landscape Award from New England Wild Flower Society in 1998.