Gardens and Gardeners

by Kathy Purdy on February 4, 2006 · 0 comments

Cottage gardeners to advise you and cottage gardens to inspire you!

Celia Thaxter's Garden
"In the last year of her life, Celia published her most famous book AN ISLAND GARDEN. In it she describes her garden and its flowers in great detail. She refers to it as a cutting garden of old fashioned flowers. Her flower arrangements, designed in many small bottles and vases, filled her living room and decorated the hotel. The plants in her garden were not arranged in any color scheme at all but merely by height. The garden was reconstructed, in 1977, by Dr. John Kingsbury, the founder and first director of the Shoals Marine Laboratory. The garden is just where it was in Celia's lifetime and the raised beds and flowers follow her plan. Some of Celia's original plants are still in the garden: the snowdrops, the hops vine and day lilies. Because the garden is only open from the end of June through August, the spring flowers represented on Celia's 1894 plan are not represented in the Garden today. Also, many of the vines that shaded her piazza cannot be grown for there is no porch to support them. Celia's cottage burned along with the hotel in 1914. As is the case for many of Appledore's old cottages, Celia's cottage foundation remains. Visitors will still enjoy the exuberant color that captivated hotel guests and American Impressionist artist, Childe Hassam over a century ago.
Lana's The Little House - Storybook English Cottage
Deep in the forests of Chautauqua County you'll find Lana's The Little House, a country cottage that looks as if it jumped off the pages of Grimm's Fairy Tales. That's because the home is actually fashioned after cottages found in the Cotswold countryside of Central England. Like an English Cotswold, the dwelling was handmade from materials found in the region; timbers hewn from oak and hemlocks and slabs of flag stone. The little house is surrounded by 21 acres of hills and woods and a kaleidoscope of showy flowers and plants.
Maine Cottage Garden
"A three acre perennial garden open to the public through the growing season. (For the 2005 season - Memorial Day to September 30th.) It features old fashioned 'zone 3-4' perennials, fruit trees, and shrubs that survive (and thrive) in Maine's Western Mountains with our -30 degree winter temperatures. We call it a 'Garden of Survivors.' Consisting of islands, borders, and courtyard, the flower beds are naturalistically landscaped around the house and throughout the old Baldwin apple orchard, extending to the forest's edge."