View from The Boathouse at the Claremont Hotel, Southwest Harbor, Mt. Desert Island, Maine. They make an excellent blueberry martini!
Of all the subjects that I write about, I get the most positive feedback from my customers on my posts from Maine. For the last three years, Michael and I attended the Camden (Maine) House and Garden Tour, and I featured photos from the Camden-Rockport-Rockland area in my Maine posts. This year is the 100th anniversary of Acadia National Park located on Mt. Desert Island, which is about two thirds of the way up the Maine coast southwest of Bangor. As we had never visited that area we decided to spend four days in and around Acadia and attend the Garden Club of Mt. Desert Open Garden Day.
Nursery News: 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.
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Northeast Harbor, Mt. Desert Island: Many families from the Philadelphia area where I live summer on Mt. Desert so it was fun to see all the locations I have heard so much about.
In the days before the garden tour, we visited three public gardens on Mt. Desert, many of the little villages on the island, and most of the major sites in Acadia National Park. I hope to do more in depth posts on the gardens once I figure out how to transfer my photos efficiently from my Apple iPad, which I used to take the pictures, to my PC, which is where I compose posts. Its not as easy as it should be—if anyone has any tips let me know.
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US native fireweed in a field on a back road. Mt. Desert was much less developed and crowded than I thought it would be. We were often the only car on the road.
Acadia National Park was gorgeous and not crowded at all even though it is one tenth the size of Grand Teton National Park and gets the same number of visitors, in 2015, 2.8 million. One reason that I have never visited it before is that I thought it would be similar to the Maine Coast that I am used to around Portland. I couldn’t have been more wrong—the geography is totally different even down to the type of rock, which is an arresting pink granite. Beautiful lakes have been scraped out of the rock by glaciers, and there is even the only fjard on the East Coast, Somes Sound. Mountains abound and, although they are not tall by many standards—Cadillac Mt is the tallest at 1,530 feet—they soar straight up from sea level. Gorgeous coastal vistas and lovely beaches abound.
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Somes Sound at sunset
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Sand Beach in the park looks just like beaches I have visited in the Caribbean, although the resemblance stops at the water line as the water temperature was 54 degrees F (12 C). There was much warmer swimming in the ocean at Otter Cove and at Echo Lake.
In this first post from the area, I am just showing some beautiful scenes to give you an idea of the setting. Once I get my images straightened out, I hope to go into more depth about the gardens in the area.
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Beautiful stands of moss are everywhere, here the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden.
Northeast Harbor
Delphiniums and monarda at the Thuya Garden in Northeast Harbor. I wish delphiniums would grow like this in Pennsylvania, but it gets too hot and humid for them.
I hope that you will have a chance to visit Mt. Desert Island and Acadia National Park. A special thanks to my wonderful customer and friend Charlotte F. who welcomed us into her beautiful home during our trip and provided crucial planning advice.
Carolyn
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Nursery Happenings: You can sign up to receive catalogues and emails about nursery events by sending your full name and phone number to carolynsshadegardens@verizon.net. Subscribing to my blog does not sign you up to receive this information.
Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a local retail nursery in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, U.S., zone 6b/7a. The only plants that we mail order are snowdrops and miniature hostas and only within the US.
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.
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The Colonial Revival manor house built at Mt. Cuba in 1935 by the Lammot du Pont Copelands.
The courtyard in front of the manor house as well as the gardens surrounding it are all very formal.
The house is beautiful from every angle, here the terraces in the back.
The view from the terraces.
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‘Carolina Moonlight’ baptisia
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Oakleaf hydrangea as a foundation planting.
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Goldenstar, Chrysogonum virginianum, as a groundcover.
Containers filled with native plants decorate the terraces.
