Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade. The only plants that we ship are snowdrops and miniature hostas. For catalogues and announcements of events, please send your full name, location, and phone number (for back up use only) to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com. Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.
The Sortwell property in Camden contains everything that is beautiful about Maine gardens.
The 66th Annual Camden House and Garden Tour, which I attended in July, gave me a chance to admire up close a few of the many gorgeous gardens along the Maine coast For photos of the Camden and Rockport, Maine, area and profiles of the first four gardens on the tour, read part 1 by clicking here. I intended to include the final two gardens in this post, but even when pared down there were too many photos for one installment. This post will focus on the classic Maine garden at the Sortwell residence.
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The elegant garden shed at the other end of the property from the house.
The fifth garden on the tour was located within walking distance of downtown Camden. The house is an 1860s cape, a style prevalent in New England. The gardens surrounding the house suit the setting perfectly. Large beds are filled with big stands of perennials and shrubs and partially covered by elegant shade trees. A picturesque garden shed nestled at the opposite end of the property from the house provides a perfect focus for perennial beds.
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The view from the house to the shed, as you can see the perennial border is huge.
I have mentioned on this blog many times how beautiful the summer gardens are in Maine, and this garden captures the essence of the coastal Maine gardening style. I am not sure what makes the plants so big and beautiful. It could be the cool but sunny and himidity-free weather. Or the ocean breezes. Or the relative (to Pennsylvania) lack of pests and diseases. Whatever the secret is, here are more photos of this quintessential Maine garden for you to enjoy:
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This was a very high quality tour, and I highly recommend that anyone in the area attend next year’s Camden House and Garden Tour on July 17, 2014. Photos of the final garden on the tour will be in the next post.
Carolyn
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Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, U.S., zone 6b. The only plants that we mail order are snowdrops and miniature hostas and only within the US.
If you are within visiting distance and would like to receive catalogues and information about customer events, please send your full name and phone number to carolynsshadegardens@verizon.net. Subscribing to my blog does not sign you up to receive this information.
Nursery Happenings: The nursery is closed and will reopen in the fall around September 15. Have a great summer.
Facebook: Carolyn’s Shade Gardens has a Facebook Page where I post single photos, garden tips, and other information that doesn’t fit into a blog post. You can look at my Facebook page here or click the Like button on my right sidebar here.
Notes: Every word that appears in orange on my blog is a link that you can click for more information. If you want to return to my blog’s homepage to access the sidebar information (catalogues, previous articles, etc.) or to subscribe to my blog, just click here.
