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.
Laite Beach, Camden Harbor, Maine
I spend time on an island near Portland each summer, and I have been admiring from afar the beautiful private gardens that seem to be everywhere along the Maine coast This year I decided to venture to the mainland and go to a couple of the many garden tours listed in the July 2013 issue of Downeast Magazine. Earlier in the summer, I went to a tour in Brunswick, which you can read about here. On July 18, a friend and I attended the 66th Annual Camden Garden Club House & Garden Tour in Camden, Maine.
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Camden Harbor (unfortunately there is invasive Japanese knotweed in the foreground).
Camden is a charming New England seacoast town in the midcoast region of Maine about two hours north of Portland. Because we had never explored that area, we decided to go the day before the tour and do some sightseeing. We walked around the downtown, which is lovely but quite crowded with tourists and traffic. Thanks to our hosts at the Towne Motel, we spent the afternoon swimming at Laite Beach, a beautiful spot only blocks from downtown. Luckily it doesn’t seem to have been discovered by the casual visitor, and the water was quite warm for Maine. That night we had a fabulous dinner at Fresh, a restaurant on the harbor also recommended by our hosts. Here are some more photos of the Camden area:
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Camden Harbor
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A church in Camden, quintessential New England.
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Towne Motel in Camden, nothing fancy but economically priced with very helpful owners and a delicious continental breakfast.
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Rockport Harbor is right next to Camden and several of the gardens on the tour were in this area.
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Rockport Harbor
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Rockport Harbor
We took the tour the next day, which was bright and sunny so not so great for taking photographs. At first I was dismayed because there were only six gardens, but I forgot we were touring the inside of the houses too. Having that added dimension was so much fun as you rarely get to see gardens from the inside looking out. Also I am sure that unlike me many tour participants were more interested in the inside of the house than the outside. The tour was very well planned with houses and gardens of all types. It was also logistically flawless with a great map and descriptions, very helpful signage directing you to each garden, well thought out parking and even shuttles in hard to access gardens, and knowledgeable and friendly garden club members to answer questions.
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The Anderson garden in Rockport has a beautiful and unusual sculptural awning.
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Looking out from under the Anderson’s awning.
Tour participants could photograph the gardens but understandably no photos could be taken inside the houses. That means that I can’t share with you the gorgeous interiors, which were the highlight of several of the properties. I have also split this post into two parts because three of the gardens were nice enough to merit more than a few photos. This post will cover four of the six gardens, and the remaining two will be in Part 2.
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Pleasant View Farm used to be an apple orchard, and the 1828 cape and barn housed migrant apple pickers.
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Out back is an attractive gazebo.
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The back deck at Pleasant View Farm has a wonderful view of Vinalhaven and Hurricane Islands.
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Right in downtown Camden is this alpine chalet designed for optimum energy conservation and minimal maintenance. The inside was beautiful with a cathedral ceiling, spiral staircase, lots of wood, and interesting art.
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In keeping with the low maintenance and sustainability objectives, the lawn and driveway have been replaced with gravel. Unfortunately, the sun was so strong that it washed out the photo, but the gravel was very attractive. This is something I would like to do at my house.
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A one-room writer’s hideway behind the house is surrounded by gardens.
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A sculpture in the herb garden.
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The Einsel garden in the Rockport countryside is surrounded by blueberry fields and woods.
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The view from the deck over the blueberry fields towards the Camden Hills and Penobscot Bay.
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Extensive perennial gardens fill the sunny area in back.
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The most beautiful parts of the Einsel property are the shade gardens that surround two sides of the house (now why do I think that?).
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The shade gardens are intensively planted.
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The back entrance to the shade gardens.
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Garden room overlooking the shady areas.
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View from the garden room.
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Photos of the remaining two gardens will be in the next post. I highly recommend that anyone in the area attend next year’s Camden House and Garden Tour on July 17, 2014. I intend to if I can.
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.
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CAROLYN'S SHADE GARDENS 