‘Gardens By the Sea’

St. Gabriel Episcopal Church’s annual “Gardens By the Sea” tour has long been a hit with gardeners and garden voyeurs alike because it provides entrée to some of the most delightful and exquisite private gardens in town.
This year’s presentation was a fantastic journey through gardens new to the fundraising tour, as well as the return of some revamped former tour stops. Purple and blue petunia wooden markers showed the way to seven seaside gardens that ranged from homespun Yankee beds to meditative and aquatic-themed sanctuaries. Every garden visited offered interesting stories about how the gardens were accomplished. Some was mixed with family lore, a bit of history, and praise for a good gardener. One obliging homeowner let a few lucky people into her antique home where they viewed, of all things, a clutch of 60 million year old dinosaur eggs. As surreal as that was, other gardens simply had to be seen to gain the full effect of what the gardener envisioned for his or her own personal landscape.
A sunny day with a light breeze brought a large crowd of garden tourists out for the Friday, July 10 tour. After picking up their maps and tickets from a tent awing set up at the corner of Point Road and Route 6, garden tourists were free to start the tour from where every they liked. The Sentinel started its tour at a garden on Delano Road, where a long driveway led pedestrians to a lovely wooden house nestled in some trees.
A docent that greeted garden tourists told them that the owner used all organic materials in her gardens, before leading you off in the direction of an Asian-influenced mediation garden among the tall pines. The mediation garden is rectangular with two granite benches facing each other. A young Japanese red maple is at the center of the rectangular stone mosaic. Beams of sun break through the branches to reflect off the pyrite stones that make up the mosaic, giving the space a tranquil and contemplative feel.
Elsewhere on the property, several garden focal points, including a trickling solar-powered fountain, are found among several flower beds. An outbuilding, possibly a summer guest cottage is surrounded by pink, yellow, and orange tiger lilies. A useful aspect of the landscape are 30 high bush blueberries that draw deer, fox, hawks, and heron, wild turkeys, hummingbirds, and bunnies from nearby conservation land
The next stop was a garden on Point Road, a delightful nearly 25 year old recently renovated home overlooking Planting Island Cove. Just beyond to short stonewalls a path leads to a cascading stone waterfall, where water trickles rhythmically into a stone pond with blooming pond lilies, native aquatic growth, and gold fish. White and purple hydrangea rim the property.
The third stop was a garden on Piney Point Road, The Sentinel had visited two years earlier and was impressed with not only the water view, but the waterfall, and garden whimsy found throughout the rolling property. The owners tops their previous showing by adding an infinity pool, which when standing on their patio and looking forward, one can easily be fooled by the optical illusion that the azure pool is one with Wings Cove behind it. The water from the pool falls over a six-foot wall into a basin and gets pumped back into the pool.
Adding the infinity pool was no small feat. A large in-ground pool to the left of the where the infinity pool now exists was removed. Thankfully, a rose-covered cabana remains in place. The infinity pool was an improvement to a property that seemed incapable of being more exciting to look at. Spirea, viburnums, serviceberries, and inkberries take up a large part of the garden. Large leafy tropical plants called “cannas” are found growing among ornamental grasses. The base of an old greenhouse serves as a vegetable at the side of the house. A colorful perennial garden can be found at the front of the house.
Next was a garden on Water Street. The current owners have occupied the house since 1981, and have replaced some of the original plantings that ring the rambling property. A nice mixture of sun and shade allows for a variety of plantings, including Stewardia, larch, styrax, japonica, halesia, magnolia, Princeton elm, a perimeter of Bradford pears along with umbrella pine.
The home owners do a portion of their own gardening, including a perennial garden established from cuttings around the house, and the many potted plants that adorn the property, but otherwise have the help of a professional gardener.
Nearing the end of the garden tour, at a garden on Converse Road, is a home that has been occupied by the current owner for 25 years, but whose garden only began to take shape seven years ago when the owner’s widowed mother moved in. When the owner’s mother moved in, she created a fenced secret garden where a terrace is surrounded by flowers, ferns, hosta, and ivy, and a low border of box and ginger.
A docent at the entrance of the home handed out a “Fun Facts for Garden Enthusiasts” for the curious, including the fact that the boxwood borders are descendents of seedlings an old friend brought back from England shortly after World War II, or the ivy which started as clippings from a 1969 bride’s bouquet that has “sadly outlived the marriage.”
A feng shui garden in the shape of a chi dragon , anchored by a nearly 25-year-old crab apple tree, came with its own story, woven with family history.
The Sentinel ended the tour where many chose to begin at garden on Moorings Road. The owners have owned the antique home, which was dismantled in New Hampshire and brought to Marion in the 1930s and reassembled post by beam, since the mid 1980s. It’s had several owners since th’30s but the current owners have gone to quite an effort to restore the 180-year-old elegantly simple summer home to its former grandeur. The lady of the house was home during the tour and allowed a few people in for a glimpse of her wonderfully interestingly appointed home. As fascinating as the home was, its gardens, especially given the sloping landscape, was almost as interesting as the house even though the house was a tough act to follow. Largely informal, landscaped paths join the main house, guest house and carriage, vegetable garden, flower gardens, maze, tree house, children’s swings, benches and secluded escapes.
Unfortunately, The Sentinel was not able to visit a garden on the tour on Allen’s Point Road, where the center garden was designed by a professional gardener. The tour map described the property like this “Filled with grasses, summer perennials, it is a focal point from the porch overlooking Blankinship Cove.
Under the porch wall is a wall of hydrangea and boxwood. A spray of pink roses surround the guest house, and a smaller sweet herb garden is in front of the kitchen window. The landscape is very natural, colorful and peaceful.”
Proceeds from the garden tour and a private luncheon benefit St. Gabriel Episcopal Church global and local mission.