2018
Quiet Year
Boards
The Lee Planning Board
We spent a lot of time (21 months) with this Board, with a very satisfactory resolution:
Scott LaPointe
...but grew our Board, again with a successful resolution. We added Scott LaPointe to our Board of Directors!
But we did hold Events...
We opened this year with: our second Annual Celebration of International Sculpture Day
International Sculpture Day, or IS Day, is an annual international celebration event held on the last Saturday in April to further the ISC’s mission of advancing the creation and understanding of sculpture and its unique, vital contribution to society. This was Bedrock Gardens' second participation.
by Liz Fletcher.
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Head by Meghan Samson
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And our favorite local band, The Chicken Shack from Lee, played bluegrass. Give them a listen!
...and Our Open House Days were Special...
The Caterpillar Lab came, for the fourth year in a row.
Here are some pix:
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...and we had a great Third Annual Fairy Hobbit House Festival.
Wonderful people helped:
Betsy Williams, author of Are There Faeries at the Bottom of Your Garden? made pixie dust for our visitors. She was very popular.
Michael Lang was here again with his captivating story telling.
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Arts in Reach supplied us with wonderful face painting. What a vibrant program that is!
Valerie Sununu, The Gov's wife, and strong advocate for children, is a perennial favorite of ours...and of the kids!
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And, of course, there were fairies and fairy houses...
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Great art, provided by painter Peggy Hepburn of Somersworth, NH:
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See lots more details and photos of the FHH here.
But we couldn't have done it without our special volunteers...
...like Nancy Helton, who took a week off form work to organize it, and James Reynolds, who help cut trees, ran the parking, and solve problems.
Families having a picnic.
Visitors
We hosted Vistors:
Portsmouth Christian Academy used the Garden for a photoshoot for advertisement for a play they were producing.
Educational Visits.
Some of our visitors were in conjunction with educational institutions:
UNH has a couple of pruning classes here every year. The instructor, Abby Zuidema, is on the right.
Or as classes. Several groups of En Plain Aire painters visited, including NHAA and NEWS
Frank Costrantino set up...
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...and one of his paintings.
...and here the guineas are, tying to live up to their portrait, but not looking so good.
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Groups and Clubs.
Christie Dustman visited with her landscape design group from Brookline, MA.
The Sunapee Arts Group
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Yet to be determined
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Arts In Reach (AIRS)
Cambridge Garden Club
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Westford Garden Club
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The Herb Society of America joint gathering of The New England and NorthEast Seacoast chapters
Newmarket Garden Club
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Long Hill Gardens in Beverly MA
The HSA with a presentation...and food
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and Yoga classes...three different groups: Symmetry, Peace Tree, and Awakening Grace.
Misc
Some of the fun weddings ceremonies that took place here:
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The Property
Looking Good!
Rhodies by South Lawn
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Tulips in The Wave
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Always there are projects:
Trenching utilities to the barn. Thanks for your help James Reynolds.
Building a stone wall by the pond for Dylan's Dell.
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Built a Kiosk to help with admissions
Mark Pitkin digging test pits for parking area, with the help of Marc Jacobs, soil scientist, an
excellent man.
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Loving:
Plants
Big Bird in Castor Beans
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Touchstone in Echinaeca
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Crocosmia
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Jeffersonia dubia
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Gentian
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Verbena bonariensis blossoms
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Lotus (It really looks like this!)
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Woodland Japanese Peony
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We even love plants that misbehave. Bamboo grows well, but periodically has a world-wide (!) simultaneous flowering (called gregarious or mass flowering) and death. No one understands how a plant in Asia knows how to flower and die at the same time a bamboo stand in Bedrock Gardens does. But they do. Here all our bamboo of one kind suddenly flowers and dies:
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Animals
Nice frog on Lily Pad
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Not-So-Hungry-Anymore-Frog. See the foot of another frog in its mouth? It is a frog-eat-frog world out there.
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Green Heron (photo courtesy of Hobson Jandebeur). An infrequent visitor.
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The Guineas have flown their coop and are now nesting in trees.
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and insects.
Swallow Tail Butterfly
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Gypsy Moth (I think)
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But mostly we love our volunteers!
Part of the Hands in Dirt crew (Robin Heider, Kerry Ridolfi, Diana Anderson, Peggy Tucker)
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Marc Bono at the 7th settlement fund raising, to be followed by Francine Kontos
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Marc and Jane Bono manning a tent at one of our open houses.
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The Friends of Bedrock Gardens, the nonprofit being groomed to inherit Bedrock Gardens, was extremely active this year. Over 80 volunteers contributed more than 2000 hours!
Here the Volunteers have a Tea at the beginning of the season. |
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Lots of good times, in our new kiosk.
Of Interest
Jill gave a talk at the Atlantic Design Center at Eldredge Lumber and Hardware in York ME. Doug Tallamy also presented.
We are rewarded for our work...
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Best cultural oasis in NH for 2016 by NH magazine.
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All good things must come to an end...
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See you next summer.
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YUM!