We spent a good part of the day at the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden, which is about an hour north of us in the town Boothbay.
I tried to time the trip to correspond to the peak of the rhododendron bloom, but I forgot that they’re a bit cooler on that particular portion of the coast, so only about half of rhodys and azaleas were in bloom. What unexpectedly (to me at least) turned out to be in full flower were the Lady Slipper orchids:
These little buggers turned out to be fantastically hard to photograph, as they grow best in shade, so the ones we managed to get good pictures of were the ones that accidentally ended up in the sun. I never remember to make it into the woods when the lady slippers are blooming, so I was so very pleased to be able to see so many today. (There are apparently 10,000 plants in the garden grounds.)
I’ll be doing a separate post of some of the other flowers and plants we saw, due to the sheer number of those that I have, but here’s a small sampling of the wildlife:
They also had a number of really neat art installations scattered around the grounds. Much of it was very modern, but also very integrated into the landscape. (I could do an enter photo essay on their really neat stone benches.)
And finally, some of the other scenic spots along the paths. We actually only covered about half of the garden grounds, so will definitely have to go back.
