The Pittsfield Garden Club sixth annual Garden Bus Tour is “In Praise of Beatrix Farrand.”

The tour leaves at 6:30 a.m. Saturday, July 15, from the Somerset Avenue Plaza in Pittsfield, and passengers will be picked up around 7 a.m. at Dysart’s in Hermon.

However, reservations must be made by Saturday, June 10.

The estimated cost is $75 per person and you do not need to be a club member to attend.

For club members, gardeners and camera buffs, Justine Mencl reports the focus of the tour is Farrand “and some of her gardens, known and not so well-known, on Mount Desert Island.”

Mencl explained Farrand was commissioned to design more than 50 gardens on MDI and that “her more distant, well-known designs are Dumbarton Oaks, Washington D.C., and campus areas at Princeton and Yale.”

On this tour, you will visit Farrand’s last home and garden, Garland Farm in Salisbury Cove, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. More information about it is available at www.beatrixfarrand.org.

You will also visit the Asticou and Thuja gardens in Northeast Harbor; Farrand’s herb garden; and a Turn of the Century Garden recently reconstructed by a College of the Atlantic student in Bar Harbor.

The tour includes lunch at the historic Asticou Inn, a vineyard and optional wine tasting, a visit to Sieur de Monts Springs and the Wild Gardens of Acadia and dinner at Helen’s Restaurant in Ellsworth.

For a tour brochure, to register or receive more information, call Mencl, 478-5670; Donna Laux, evenings, 487-5088 ; or e-mail Gail Watson at gails86garden@yahoo.com.

Carol Smith invites you to the Brewer Garden & Bird Club annual perennial sale at 9 a.m. Saturday, June 3, at the Brewer Historical Society on Wilson Street, where the club maintains an heirloom garden.

Since “spring came early this year,” Smith wrote, club members hope to have “wonderful perennials from our gardens for sale.”

At the same time, BHS will be selling coffee, coffeecake and cold drinks, and hosting a white elephant sale.

Proceeds from the sale will be used to maintain plantings in the Brewer area.

Former Newport resident Greg Ludden is battling lung cancer.

Currently living with his parents, Fred and Carole Ludden in Detroit, the 42-year-old is the father of a 6-year-old son, a 9-year-old daughter and a 20-year-old daughter.

To help with expenses incurred by his illness, family and friends are hosting a benefit spaghetti supper from 4 to 6 p.m. Saturday, June 3, at High Street Congregational Church in Newport.

Admission is by donation at the door.

If you cannot attend, but would like to help in any way, you are welcome to call his sister, Denise Ludden Savage, of Caribou, at 493-1042.

Stacey Young invites you to the Bangor Federal Credit Union yard sale from 8 a.m. to noon Saturday, June 3, at its 6 Dirigo Drive location in Brewer.

All sale items were donated by employees of BFCU, and all proceeds will benefit the Maine Credit Union Ending Hunger Campaign, which distributes funds to local hunger organizations and food cupboards.

The rain date is Saturday, June 10.

Maine Metal Scene Presents, and Leigh Leavitt, are hosting a benefit concert with doors opening at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, June 3, at Oakfield Community Center.

Nobis headlines a long list of local bands participating in The Caswell Benefit Concert.

Tickets are $10 each and proceeds benefit the Chris Caswell family of Dyer Brook, who recently lost their farm to fire.

Leigh Rush reports “the response from Maine’s finest local bands, from all over the state, has been extremely positive, and Maine Metal Scene Presents is proud to participate in this important charitable event.”

Included in the lineup is Demyze, Modus O’preandi, Death Among Thieves, Kelso, View From The Noose, Tomorrow’s Tragedy, The Divine Ruin, and Siren.

Maine Adoption Placement Service in Bangor invites the public to attend its next Adoption Informational Meeting from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 6, at the MAPS office, 181 State St. in Bangor.

Director Kristen Hirsch reports MAPS has experienced “quite a bit of activity in our domestic networking program lately, and we are in need of families that are open to African-American and biracial infants. If you have been considering adoption, this is a wonderful time to get the process started.”

For more information or to RSVP, call MAPS at 941-9500.

Joni Averill, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402; 990-8288.