Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens

Has anyone visited this place? It sounds interesting and is now under the stewardship of William Cullina. We're good friends and I just call him Bill. ;) We LOVED Mendocino Coast Botanical Garden, and it sounds like this might be an east coast version of that. If so, I want to see it!

I've visited several times. they do a good job - I am sure I have a thread from the past over in the NE forum from my visits.

Ok, I'll check that out. Thank you.

Well, I took your advice and checked out the NE Garden forum, but didn't see anything directly related to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. Can you provide the link? Since you've been their several times, I'd be interested to know your thoughts on the highlights (or lowlights) on the place. Is it worth the price of admission?

I looked as well and they are probably buried in a thread there.

I can post some of the pictures when I get some time.

it is worth the price of admission for sure

Here's a link to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens site: http://www.mainegardens.org.

I think it's a worth while garden to visit. I'm a professional gardener and can be fussy about where I go and that botanic garden was a nice one.

It is a new garden so you can't expect a lot of mature trees but it has a good representation of what grows well around here. Additionally, it's well designed and quite pleasant as such.

Thank you, Barharbor. We'll be staying a couple of nights in Booth Bay, so there's really no reason not to check it out. Is there a location along the Maine mid coast that's noted for specimen trees? From Booth Bay we'll be heading north towards Augusta, and then west into New Hampshire.

There's no place on the mid-coast that has noteworthy specimens that I know of. Sorry....

It is a little out of your way (not too bad) and well worth the trip to go to Carol's Collectibles near Belfast (carolscollectibles.com). She has a lot of unusual conifers.

As for the botanical garden, I recommend it highly. We go at least once every year. The garden is young but the setting is so beautiful that it hardly matters. There are lots of walking trails, so allow plenty of time. Don't miss the meditation garden and the rhododendrum garden (even if you aren't into rhodis, the water features there are wonderful). There is lot of awesome stone work everywhere. The garden of the five senses is near the gate and not to be missed.

I agree with granite about the stone work there - i have borrowed many of the stone art ideas and built my own.

wife is traveling for a couple of days so maybe I can find the time to post some pictures

It's on the intinerary. :)

Flying into Boston? Bangor? Manchester?

Oops, another spelling error. I feel like I'm in 6th grade.

We're flying into Boston. We'll spend three days there and then off to the Maine mid-coast, with stops in Portsmouth and Portland on the way. There's an outside chance we'll visit a microbrew during this trek.

Granitegneiss, I meant to thank you for the recommendation and endorsement. Thank you. BTW, are you related to diorite gneisse? ;)

Gneiss one, Pseudo.

Gneiss people do gneiss things - when asked - like make recommendations and endorsements.

I'm just sorry you won't get to see the Old Man of the Mountain...

http://www.nhstateparks.org/explore/state-parks/old-man-mountain.aspx

Now that I've got a reputation for being gneiss, I've got to live up to it. Another nursery that has alot of neat trees is Estabrooks in Yarmouth. They bring in lots of conifers from Iseli and the selection is good (but pricey) in the spring before they get snapped up. Another stop at the same exit off I295 is DeLorme mapping. They have a cool map & book store and an awesome rotating globe several stories high. All this in right on your way north from portland. Of course since you are flying, the pcroblem is getting the trees home, but they do carry small ones for the fairy garden crowd. Carol's Collectibles has a lot of small ones too as she does her own propagation and the greenhouse is full of tiny treasures.

That was gneiss of you to share the link. Yes, the old man fell apart. I can empathise...

I will start with a bonus question about Maine - from what movie is this famous lighthouse from.

The rest are from MBG.

Lot's of interesting garden art

that all for now.

If you want to see specimen trees and are in Boston, then the Arnold Arboretum is a must.