The People’s Garden

July 15th, 2014

When I heard that TripAdvisor visitor/reviewers were rating the upstart Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens higher than any other American public garden – including Pennsylvania’s own Longwood Gardens – I thought, “C’mon, there’s some social-media manipulating going on there.”

Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens’ Lerner Garden of the Five Senses.

But after seeing this young 248-acre garden in the small coastal town of Boothbay, Maine, two weeks ago, I can see why. (Judge for yourself in a Photo Gallery I’ve posted on CMBG.)

This place is one of the top 10 public gardens I’ve ever seen. Maybe even in the top 5.

The 1-acre Lerner Garden of the Five Senses alone is worth the 9-hour drive from Harrisburg. See Boston, have some Maine lobster and keep going to Bar Harbor while you’re up there.

Only about 18 acres of the 248-acre tract is in cultivated gardens far. If the quality of those is any indication, CMBG could end up being considered in the same breath as Canada’s Butchart Gardens, England’s Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, and, of course, Longwood (which TripAdvisor visitors rate as No. 2 on their satisfaction list).

World-class quality was the incredibly brash idea right from the start of this unlikely project.

CMBG’s genesis is a mostly joking comment that Boothbay businessman, the late Rollie Hale, got from a friend back in 1991.

Hale, an avid gardener, was talking with the friend about public gardens when the friend said, “You should start a botanical garden.”

That got Hale thinking. He talked to some gardening friends, and they realized that Maine was one of only three U.S. states without a botanical garden.

They considered that an affront and began exploring the idea of bringing a botanical garden to mid-coast Maine.

A core group of seven started a planning committee and non-profit organization. They got some support but also a fair amount of resistance from key would-be allies – 1.) garden clubs (“Pie-in-the-sky idea”), 2.) regional plant and horticultural societies (“Who are these naïve novices?”), and 3.) other non-profits (“More competition for tight charitable dollars.”)

The whole crazy idea nearly collapsed when a student study from Radcliffe College concluded that a minimum of 100 acres was needed – more than twice the 40 acres the original planners thought.

The Giles Rhododendron Garden was CMBG’s first garden.

The day was saved when a 120-acre tract was found that a builder planned to develop before learning that the soil failed percolation tests.

The builder wanted $1.8 million, but after 3 months of negotiation, he accepted $500,000. Even that was a problem since the group had only raised $40,000.

The sale happened when a group of 10 idealists (mostly the original core group) put up their own homes as loan collateral.

Almost all botanical gardens happen in one of three ways: affiliation with an academic institution (Penn State’s Arboretum, for example), affiliation with a horticultural society (i.e. the Worcester, Mass., Horticultural Society’s Tower Hill Botanic Hill) or as a gift from a wealthy benefactor (i.e. Pierre du Pont’s Longwood).

CMBG had none of those. This was a grass-roots project from day one by mostly middle-class plant-lovers.

It was only by daring dreams, tenacious effort and a flood of volunteer hours that these gardens exist.

To their credit, the original planners spent 2 years gleaning advice from existing public gardens on what they’d do if they were starting from scratch.

Brilliant move.

That resulted in little but important steps like having plenty of seating, planning for adequate long-term maintenance funding, and especially building features attractive to kids and families.

CMBG really shines at the latter. The 2-acre Bibby and Harold Alfond Children’s Garden – just opened in 2010 – is a magnificent example of how gardens can be kid magnets.

CMBG’s Alfond Children’s Garden.

This space has a working windmill, a barn for puppet shows, a sandbox where kids can dig, a greenhouse where they can see “baby plants,” a play cottage with a grass roof, a pond filled with visiting dragonflies, and all sorts of intriguing plants.

But even beyond that, there’s youthful interest all over.

The Five Senses Garden has fuzzy leaves to touch, lilies to sniff and waist-high veggies to taste.

A separate Burpee Kitchen Garden (funded by Pennsylvania’s Burpee Foundation) shows potatoes growing out of tall, wire baskets and lettuce with red leaves.

And a fairy village in the woods encourages kids to build their own fairy homes out of bark, sticks, pine cones and such laid out by the staff.

The place was literally teeming with little kids and their actively involved moms and dads the weekday I was there.

My favorite garden is the Lerner Garden of the Five Senses. Designed by Colorado landscape architect Herb Schaal, this garden is devoted to plants and features that evoke each sense.

The “larch arch” leads visitors into the Lerner Garden.

An archway draped with the arms of two weeping larch trees (a “larch arch,” in other words) lead visitors through fragrant flowers into this garden.

The paver path winds down past the raised edible beds, through the gardens of color and texture and past a chest-level pond that drops water down a wall and under your feet into a lower pond.

Great focal points are everywhere. The bridge above the pond is an especially nice eye-grabber. The space ought to be called the Kodak Moment Garden.

CMBG is already attracting 100,000 visitors a year and is up to 8,000 members… and counting.

It truly is what the staff likes to call it – “the people’s garden.”

Says Executive Director Bill Cullina in the book “Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens: A People’s Garden:” “It is very common to see guests arrive with that harried, bored or slightly grouchy look so common in our busy world, only to see them leave hours later with a smile on their face and a youthful lightness in their soul.”