By Tammy Thornton
Sometimes you just need to get away. While the kids were at camp in New York, my husband and I decided to head north to Maine. Though we enjoyed our share of lobster and rock climbing, the Shore Gardener can’t visit a new place without checking out the local gardening scene. Our Innkeeper, Mary, suggested a beautiful place to see flowers near Acadia National Park—Thuya Garden.
Thuya Lodge, completed in 1916, was the summer home of landscape architect Joseph H. Curtis. After Curtis’s death in 1928, his friend and the trustee of the property, Charles K. Savage, converted the small orchard on the property into a beautiful herbaceous garden. Savage, a gifted landscape designer, took his inspiration from the famed English gardener Gertrude Jekyll. The garden was designed and built by Savage between 1956 and 1961, with financial support from philanthropist John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
As we entered through the huge and beautifully hand-carved cedar doors, we could see flowers galore. The semi-formal English border garden is filled with both perennials and annuals, complete with plant labels identifying the flowers.
Many of the flowers growing at Thuya would be familiar to South Jersey gardeners. Delphiniums were lush and towering, while purple, white, and pink phlox were brimming with blooms. Because the zone 5 Maine growing season begins later than our zone 7 gardens in South Jersey, the astilbes were still in full bloom with their colorful plumes. And the air was scented with the intoxicating fragrance of colorful lilies.
Of course, pollinators were abounding in this smorgasbord of pollen and nectar. Bees disappeared as they shoved their fat little bodies into the cups of the foxglove flowers. Thuya also has a butterfly garden filled with swamp milkweed, which were covered with monarch butterfly caterpillars on their leaves. But Great Spangled Fritillaries were also enjoying its flowers.
Although Thuya Garden changes with the seasons and years, it still adheres to the original watercolor sketch design first conceived by Savage in 1933. It became open to the public in 1962, and today is beautifully maintained by the Land and Garden Preserve in Seal Harbor, Maine.
Tammy Thornton is a mom of four, a substitute teacher, and a Sunday school teacher. She is passionate about gardening and cooking, and loves the beach.
