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When someone is willing to drive hours into the woods, navigating an abandoned dirt logging road so narrow that she has to back out for several miles – in a quest to rescue a rare forest plant – that’s dedication.
But the handful of women who founded the Wild Gardens of Acadia 40 years ago saw such challenges as a lark.
“Every plant here has a story,” says Sue Leiter, a member of the committee that cares for the gardens located in the heart of Acadia National Park. “The garden is a tribute to the friendships among people.”
Betty Owen, the intrepid driver who ventured down the logging road, and other co-founders Dorcas Creary and Janet TenBroeck led club members in collecting more than 400 species of plants native to Mount Desert Island to create these gardens for the study of local flora.
Throughout the 1950s, members of the Bar Harbor Garden Club had been incorporating these native plants into the gardens around their homes.
“It started as sort of a contest among the members to see who could grow the most wildflowers,” recalls committee member Bobbi Cole.
But the women soon envisioned a place where the public could study native flora, a place where all of the landscapes of Mount Desert Island bloom in miniature.
“You can get a feel of the park in a kind of microcosm,” Leiter says.
The founding members considered local schools and Bar Harbor’s village green before settling on a three-quarter-acre parcel within Acadia National Park that had been dubbed the Wild Gardens of Acadia by Acadia father George B. Dorr in 1909.
Betty Hubler, wife of the Acadia superintendent at the time, lobbied her husband and earned both his support and the land near Sieur de Monts Spring for her club’s project, according to Cole.
Dorr had planted dozens of native royal ferns – a large, stately species – but never completed his vision of a wild garden to showcase Maine’s rich plant life.
Though grandly named, the wild gardens were no more than a tangled patch of maples and blackberry bushes when garden club members began their work in the summer of 1961.
“It’s rather an ornate name – not one that we’d choose in this day and age,” Cole says.
The entire plot had to be cleared before its 12 habitats – freshwater bog, meadow, roadside, sandy beach, rocky mountaintop, heath, pond, brook, mixed forest, bird thicket, freshwater marsh and coniferous wood – could be created on the bare earth.
“It’s not just a wild area that we sort of fenced in,” Cole explains.
Goldenrod and asters make a glorious display in late summer, pitcher plants bloom in a shadowy corner of the bog, and lilies grace the pond. But such Maine standbys as lupines, clover, daisies and beach roses are conspicuously absent.
These colorful plants are actually invaders. Like problematic kudzu or milfoil, they are alien species that were introduced when settlers moved onto MDI, Cole said.
Rather, the garden is based on surveys of native plants that were published during the 19th century.
“It really is a botanical garden,” Leiter adds. “Every single plant has been identified and brought into the wild gardens. And it’s all been done by amateurs, people who learned from each other.”
A dozen distinct habitats are packed into less than an acre, a collision of disparate botanic worlds that would be separated by many miles in nature – which has created some unique problems.
“It’s more of a challenge to grow some of these native plants. You have to consider the whole community, and figure out the whole complex environment, not just worry about watering and fertilizing,” Leiter says.
While planting the seaside garden, the women couldn’t figure out how to give the plants the periodic saltwater they needed without letting the water leach into nearby freshwater habitats. They hit on a creative solution.
“The husband of one of the members was a very tall man, and he had a very large raincoat,” Cole says.
His waterproof jacket is still buried under the sand that supports coastal species such as sea lavender, beach pea and beachhead iris, she says.
The bog is supplemented with a garden hose on dry days, and the meadow is mowed annually to keep trees from taking over. Plants must be weeded out constantly or moved as they migrate into nearby habitats.
“It’s not a static garden at all, it just changes all the time,” Leiter says.
In addition to the countless hours of labor that Leiter, Cole and their fellow committee members contribute, the park service funds one full-time garden intern each summer, while Friends of Acadia funds a second part-time staffer.
The interns spend most of their time weeding. They rake paths, trim trees and even don hip waders to pull grass and keep the waters of the man-made pond running clear.
When the garden was founded, most plant specimens were moved from elsewhere in the park, but due to changes in the law, today’s caretakers may dig up a plant only if it is endangered by trail construction or a similar project, according to Cole.
Some paper companies have allowed committee members to dig rare woodland plants on their holdings, and some species are grown from seed and transplanted to the garden.
But as development increases, and environmental regulations become stricter, there are fewer places where members can dig plants to replace specimens that fall to frost, drought and wildlife.
A new threat – plant poachers – recently struck the gardens. Last year someone methodically stole dozens of woodland species, including many of Dorr’s famous royal ferns.
Committee members were shocked, and suspect that the culprit took the plants for use in a private garden. Many, including some rare mosses and orchids, have not been replaced.
“They’re truly priceless,” Cole says.
The Wild Gardens of Acadia are free and open to the public every day through the summer. The garden committee accepts gifts of native plants. For more information about which species are needed, contact Cole at 288-3400.
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