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| Playing pick-up sticks with the horticulture crew! |
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The entire horticulture staff lent a helping hand |
If you’ve been to Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens at all this season, you probably noticed that we’ve had a bit of dust and construction down around the Fairy House Village. These changes are meant to improve one of our most popular and well-loved gardens. But when the Garden undertakes a large project such as this, sometimes we need all hands on deck and use the entire staff to push through to the end. This week has been dedicated to getting the Village all spruced up for its opening and we needed all the help we could get.
The major additions to this garden are the spectacular stone structures that now stand as the “fairy ruins from ages past.” In the placing of the stones, however, we created quite a mess that needed to be cleaned before the fairies could move back in. Twigs, logs, pine cones, and bark littered the grounds, so we organized these materials in neat piles for the children to use as supplies for their future fairy homes.
But the fun didn’t stop there. This morning (Friday), the entire horticulture staff came into work earlier than usual to lay down a mulch-like material called “Superhumus” as a top dressing to the forest ground. Let me tell you this: If you ever want to get in shape fast, I would highly recommend joining the horticulture crew during their spring mulching. I only experienced one morning of it and I’m already feeling sore; they do it for three weeks straight in the spring! Because of the amazing strength of our horticulture staff, it was easy for us to lay all of the “Superhumus” out before guests of the Garden even arrived for the day. Unfortunately, I can’t show you the final product quite yet because we are still primping and adding the finishing touches; I also love building the suspense and keeping it a surprise for everyone!
The newly renovated Fairy House Village opened Saturday, August 24, at 10:30 a.m., with a celebration kickoff. Sadly, in all of our cleaning, we removed all of the existing fairy homes to make way for machinery and new stonework. This just means that we have plenty of room for new fairy home additions! Bring your family and help fill the Village with as many beautiful new homes as you would like, while still adhering to building guidelines of course. For the young or just the young at heart, the Fairy House Village is an activity that all guests of CMBG should indulge in. We hope our new additions make your experience even better.
-Carrington Flatness, Horticulture Intern (published August 26, 2013)
