Gardens
Each season in Maine is a treasure, but after a long, cold winter, a Maine spring is a true gift to the senses. As the earth warms, the beauty of awakening gardens renews the soul.
Midcoast Maine and the Camden area offers an exceptional amount of beautiful places to see Mother Nature doing here best to impress!
Enjoying a latitude and climate similar to the British Isles, spectacular gardens abound, both pbulic and private. A stroll down any street reveals just how seriously the art of Gardening is taken around here!
There are cottage gardens, woodland gardens, seaside gardens, formal and informal gardens. Window boxes over-flow, street lights are festooned with baskets of trailing flowers, and legendeary gardens are just a peek over a fence or gate away!
The work of some of America’s most renowned landscape architects, Frederick Law Olmstead, Fletcher Steele, Warren Manning and Charles Eliot are represented in places like Camden’s beautiful Harbor Park and Bok Amphitheatre.
In early Spring, lawns full of crocuses give way to drifts of daffodils and tulips, and Lilac bushes, from pale to deep purple, seem to grace every antique dooryard.
Then follos a processions of perennials…peonies, hydrangeas, fox-glove, and fields of nodding daisies.
But the true star of Maine’s garden season, and one of Maine’s best kept secrets, is Lupine season! This is a magical 2-3 week span in mid-June when every meadow, roadside ditch and hill-side is covered in the iconic blue, pink and white spires that turns every bend in the road into a scene from an Impressionist painting! Even Maine’s most breadth-taking vistas are imporved by a stand of these dazzling flowers.
So beloved are these plants that thrive in our cool, sea and pine-scented air, and acidic soil, that farmers will not mow their fields until the Lupine’s have set their seed! To see Maine in the first 3 weeks of June is to see Maine at one the prettiest times of the year. In a word…unforgettable!
July and August continue to deliver with a dazzling array of wild rugosa roses, daylilies, stands of lavender, and mallow. Be sure not to miss the ever-popular Camden Garden Club House and Barden Tour held annually on the third Thursday of July, just before the weekend of Harbor Arts Festival. It is not unusual to see artist’s set up with easels to capture someones painterly cottage garden.
In the cooler days of Fall, black-eyed susans dot the meadows, and asters, mums and sunflowers compliment the colors of the turning leaves.
The following is a list of some of the great places to see Maine gardens at their best:
- MerrySpring Horticultural Gardens and Nature Center
Conway Road, Camden - 207-236-2239
Perennials, annuals, roses, herb gardens, arboretum, and nature preserve in a 66 acre park - Vesper Hill Gardens (Children’s Chapel)
Calderwood Lane, Rockport
A sylvan setting especially beautiful in June, this woodland garden has bulbs, lilacs, climbing hydrangeas, rhododendrons that meander over stone walls and along pathways, the work of a renowned master gardener. A favorite spot for intimate weddings, there are plenty of shady nooks for contemplating stunning glimpses of Penobscot Bay. - Avena Botanical Herb Gardens
219 Mill Street - Rockport - 594-2103 - 594-0694 - www.avenabotanicals.com
Beautiful medicinal herb gardens and apothecary. Specializing inbody care products, teas, tinctures. Tours and Garden festivals such as “The Fairy Tea”. Fun for both grown-ups and children attired in fairy and butterfly wings! - Endless Summer Farm
57 East Fork Road - Camden - 236-8752
Cut your own dinner-plate sized Dahlias of all colors and shapes. Beautiful gardens specializing in stunning Dahlias. At it’s best in late summer, early fall. - Bok Amphitheatre and Harbor Park
Located behind Camden Public Library
Fletcher Steele designed this stunning garden amphitheatre in 1928. Listed on The National Historic Register. Across the street, Harbor Park bears the hand of the famed Olmstead brothers. - Camden Garden Club House and Garden Tour
Held annually on the 3rd Thursday in July. Spectacular homes and gardens from impressive estates to cozy cottages. One of the most popular venues of the summer. - Friendship Gardens
117 Bradfield Point Road - Friendship - 207-832-7905
Debbie Deals coastoal garden specializes in snip your own and pay by the bunch delphiniums and other cottage perennials. - Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens
Boothbay - 207-633-4333
Spectacular seaside gardens, horticultural center, shore gardens and walking trails on 128 acres on a beautiful peninsula. - Common Ground Fairgrounds
Unity - 1st weekend in June - Herb fest sponsored by Maine Herbalists Association - 623-5115.
3rd weekend in September - Harvest festival sponsored by Maine Organic Farmers Association - 639-2005. - Hidden Gardens
96 Seekins Road - Searsport - 207-548-2864
Gardeners flock here because Carla Brown specializes in tough plants for northern climates. - Fernwood
Swanville - 207-338-4100
Woodland garden specializing in shade plants. - University of Southern Maine Stone House Gardens
Hundreds of heathers, rhododendrons, and peonies. - Pine State Arboretum
Augusta - 207-621-0831 - Camden Farmes Market and Lincolnville Beach Farmers Market
Always great displays of locally grown flowers, fruits and vegetables. - Fabulous Nurseries
Hoboken Gardens - US Route 1 - Rockport
Green Thumb - ME Route 17 - Rockport
Plants Unlimited - US Route 1 - Rockport
Seasons Downeast - Meadow Street - Rockport