Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens
October 7th was another busy day of touring. One of our destinations was a botanical garden I knew nothing about, only that I found it on the map just off the route to Boothbay Harbor, so I added it to our itinerary.
It turned out to be spectacular! It deserves more time than we could give it, of course. This 270 acre garden began as a vision in 1991 and opened to the public in 2007. Much of the garden consists of maintained trails through natural growth. You can even hike to the waterfront and take a boat ride!
We managed to to a pretty good job of covering the central, more formal parts of the garden. Put your walking shoes on. Here we go.
A close up of the wind sculpture.
These "formal" pumpkins announced the entrance to the event lawn, where I suspect at least several weddings have taken place.
What is that weird plant with the balloon like pods on it?
We have no idea. We've never seen it before.
Into the Children's Garden. It was amazing, and we didn't begin to see it all.
These stones spurted water, and are called The Whales.
Since it was time to eat, we picked up some simple food at the little cafe, and ate our lunch right there.
Ah, those weird plants again. Maybe we can find out what they are.
Gomphocarpus physocarpus (Balloon Plant). Well, it fits, and glowing in the sun, they are quite lovely.
There was lot more to this day, but I'll have to save that for another post. This one is more than full! ;-)
Glorious botanical garden. Gomphocarpus physocarpus is also sometimes called Hairy Balls. Really, I'm not making that up. Spray painted pumpkins, who'd have thunk it?
ReplyDeleteBeautiful and your photos are stunning. I especially liked the giant rabbit rock.
ReplyDeleteI hope you took your shoes off and tried the labyrinth, it feels amazing! Spring is my favorite season at CMBG . Tulips, daffodils, rhododendrons and so many flowering bushes! You must come back!
ReplyDeleteI like how there are so many pumpkins - getting ready for Halloween.
ReplyDeleteThat's a lot of pictures! And a great looking garden. Sounds like you're having fun here in the east. Never seen a bright blue pumpkin before though!
ReplyDeleteSo many pumpkins! Are those blue ones painted, or do they actually grow like that? Lovely tour, Linda. Thank you for taking me along. :-)
ReplyDeleteWow! Fantastic! ...and you say you only saw part of the garden. They certainly made use of the pumpkin in decorating for the season. Now I've seen everything with painted pumpkins. I'll bet you'll go back there again.
ReplyDeleteYes, the blue pumpkins are painted, and the gold ones and the purple and the polka-dots. Only the orange ones and the white ones are natural. I love how they had fun with pumpkins!
ReplyDeleteRed, most likely this will be out last trip to the east coast, but we would love to go back again to this garden.
What a pretty place to visit! :)
ReplyDeletefascinating, what a lot of work to keep that going! thanks for sharing...
ReplyDeleteI was going to give you the other common name for Gomphocarpus, but I see Peter has already given it to you. We are a pair, aren't we, both knowing that? You found a wonderful public garden, thanks so much for sharing your pictures from your visit!
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