The Garden Club of Mount Desert Open Garden Day held every other year on even years.

When: Saturday, July 30, 2022

Details: We will abide by local and State laws regarding the pandemic and masks/distancing. Please check back for updates. Some gardens are not wheelchair accessible and include uneven terrain. Cell phone photography only, thank you. Click here for ticket order form. Tickets are $40 in advance or $45 on day of event; more information at http://www.gardenclubofmtdesert.org.

Six gardens will be included on the tour.

Sand Point

The pink granite drive leads you through a well-tended woodland with a moss stream and ferns to the gracious shingled cottage designed by architect Keith Kroeger. Walking around the house notice the shade garden. The sweeping lawn, accented with seal sculptures, stretches towards Somes Sound. 

Sand Point is the furthest point of land sticking out into Somes Sound, which is the only natural fjord on the east coast. It is thought to be where Indian tribes camped, fished, dried skins, and wove baskets of sweet marsh grass during the summers.

This property combines natural planting and glorious container gardens. At every corner and doorway there are groupings of pots filled with beautiful combinations of annuals and perennials. Clematis vines trail up the south facing walls leading to the rose garden and the kitchen garden. Exit past teepees of nasturtiums backed with pots of sun gold cherry tomatoes.

WatersEdge

WatersEdge features a great lawn and a sweeping view of Somes Sound. When the current owner acquired the property and renovation began back in the 1990’s, it became evident that a hundred years of withstanding Maine winters, unheated, had taken its toll on the house. The decision was made to have the architect, Bill McHenry, design a new, similar Shingle Style home, incorporating many of the architectural features from the original. An adjoining property, Lilac Hill, was acquired at the same time and was restored. Gardens were designed for both properties as well as a pine needle path that follows along the outside perimeter of both.

On the right side of the cobblestone edged driveway leading to WatersEdge there is a classically styled rose garden with geometric beds of roses, featuring a marble cherub statue at the center, and a greenhouse at the opposite end.

On the left side a moss and fern garden leads to a pool house. Beyond the pool house, and hidden behind a cedar privacy hedge, is a large infinity edged swimming pool that visually blends with the Sound.

 As you approach the house, a tall, graceful American Elm welcomes visitors. An L shaped cedar hedge, opposite the entrance, visually blocks the parking and garage area, and provides a backdrop for a large border of perennials and annuals in colors that reflect the owner’s fondness for the pastel shades of a Monet painting. On the water side of the house there is a stone and grass terrace with a handsome retaining wall designed by Fresh Water Stone of Orlando, Maine. 

Below the swimming pool, a circular pavé style garden with a millstone/sun dial at the center has been sunk into the sloping lawn. Repeating the curve of this garden, a second semi-circular flower border runs along the edge of the perimeter path to where the land drops down to shore level. The path then winds down to the shore through a wetland garden planted to attract pollinators. A babbling stream runs through it and several small frog ponds, planted with water lilies, add interest. The path then continues along the shoreline to the pier. Turn right at the stairs, and walk up the pine path, past the flagpole, to the house and a walled garden by the conservatory which features large leaf ball sculptures made of hundreds of individually cut metal leaves welded into a spherical frame (design by “A Place in the Sun,” London), and a wonderful architectural model of the main house.

The Ledge

To enter this extraordinary garden, follow the path under an arch of Sorbaria sorbifolia, past the front door and around to the left side of the house and the kitchen garden. The owner, a talented artist and designer, describes this garden as “looking like a Poussin painting.” 

The garden was raised twelve feet up from the rocky shoreline to its perch above Gilpatrick Cove. It is lush with sweet peas staked with birch branches in tubs, tall, staked tomatoes, herbs, lettuces, vegetables, and decorative blue cabbages growing amongst the flowers.

Walk up onto the porch to see the view out the Western Way above a lawn, sculpted with areas of moss and low ground covers, and be awed by the glorious border that runs down the right side of the house to the shore. This undulating deep border, backed with sunflowers, and tall perennials, is full of rich, hot colors and features dahlias, some the size of dinner plates.

Each fall, all the plants are chosen by the owner and each section of the garden is carefully mapped out. Her long-time gardener and collaborator Tim King, then grows the plants in his winter greenhouse. The result is a true work of art.

Hedgefield

Four years ago, Hedgefield was on this Tour as two separate gardens:  The house and the gardens around it, and a fenced garden, down the road and separated from the house by woods. Today the woods are gone, and these two gardens are now connected. In addition, the owner has purchased some adjoining property and has expanded the garden and added some new features.

The entrance to the house still features the stacked stone walls, the bronze Arts and Crafts lanterns designed by Dennis Bracale and crafted by Robert Breeden, and the playful animal sculptures by Dan Falt. The traditional knot garden in the backyard of the house has matured and in addition to fifty roses, (nineteen varieties) there is lavender, and Cranberry Isles Nicotiana. Dutchman’s Pipe winds around the picket fence. Here you will find, mounted on a Deer Isle Granite Post, a railroad bell engraved with the name of the house which is also the name of the owner’s parents farm in St. Louis. The short allée, opposite the front door, that led to an outdoor children’s playroom on the left, has been elongated and transformed into a grand allée of green lawn, flanked with large borders of annuals and perennials, now connecting the gardens around the house to the fenced “Petal Garden” (named for its central feature:  beds shaped like flower petals around a millstone center). There is a small moss garden on the right side of the potting shed, and some vegetable boxes on the left side. A walk through an area of shade loving perennials behind the petal garden remains, but some of the woods have been removed to create access to the new areas. In the new area, a stream meanders through a Japanese style water garden before cascading into a free form swimming pool, which is tucked into the landscape and lined with granite rock to resemble a quarry pool.