Allmayer-Beck Garden Rich In Wildlife, Sculpture and Specimen Plantings

Images and article by Annadeene K Fowler

Belfast, Maine - On Friday August 23 from 10am-4pm, Belfast Garden Club’s 2013 Open Garden Days series will visit the cheerful and creative garden of Diane Allmayer-Beck, 45 Lincolnville Avenue, Belfast. Tickets can be purchased at the garden for a donation of $4 for the day. Proceeds will benefit the Belfast Garden Club’s civic beautification projects.

Diane’s lovely garden has been designed to attract wildlife and birds living in the adjacent undeveloped boggy woods and fields. A tranquil pond at the tree line boundary of the property brims with water hyacinth, water lilies and frogs. The shady areas leading down to the pond trickle along with beds of Hosta and woodland creepers are studded with birdbaths, birdfeeders and houses. “We see and live peacefully with raccoons, skunks, birds, squirrels, chipmunks and a woodchuck,” Diane explains. This garden is for them and the Allmeyer-Beck’s human friends too.

The Allmayer-Beck garden has been part of the Garden Club’s tour in previous years, so if you saw it in the past, come back and see what has changed!  Each year has brought new elements.  Changes since last Open Garden Day include: blueberry and cranberry bushes, a secret patio garden with a fountain and fragrant wild cucumber entrance as well as several new garden sculptures. In a large swath, which runs gracefully along the length of the property, a new collectible garden has been installed. The centerpiece is a stunning, freshly completed Ron Cowan sculpture of a sea captain carved (on site!) into a Norway Maple. Specimen evergreen trees of interest are woven in, in a delightful range of heights, colors and textures. The selections include; yellow prickly broom tree, Weeping Larch, ninebark and the commanding Metasequoia tree, which can grow to 110 feet!

A rose garden pays tribute to Diane’s parents and will display the fragrant blooms of the white Henry Hidson rose. A succulent garden spills with Dragon’s Blood,  varigated sedum, acre Minus, hispanicum and Autumn Joy. Visitors will enjoy raised vegetable beds, herbs, and a fairy garden. Purple leaf smoke bush, PeeGee Hydrangea- with it’s later white blush, Echinacea, garden phlox and tiger- eyes sumac add beautiful late-summer color. If you like to talk compost, bring your questions. Diane has tried many different methods for different purposes in her non-chemical garden. From tumblers to bins, piles to green cone, she knows compost!

Visitors are welcome to bring a picnic and sit at one of the tables or on one of the benches and relax listening to the birds or look for all the “faces” waiting to be discovered nestled amongst the plantings. Iced tea and lemonade provided.

Directions to the Allmayer-Beck Garden, 45 Lincolnville Avenue, Belfast: From Post Office Square, Belfast, go up Main St. hill to a left on Lincolnville Ave. House is on the right.  Once you get close, follow the yellow Open Garden arrows.

The next and final 2013 BGC Open Garden Day will be Friday, September 6 at the Troy Howard Middle School, 173 Lincolnville Avenue, Belfast. Let teacher, Jon Thurston and his Middle School students show you over 100 varieties of vegetables and beautiful flowers in over 1 acre of gardens designed and grown by students for wholesale and retail; greenhouses, outdoor pizza oven, dome trellises for squash and cucumbers, farm stand and student led tours 10-3:30.

For 8 consecutive years, Belfast Garden Club has presented Open Garden
Days, a Friday garden tour series, which will feature 11 gardens in
the Belfast area this year. From backyard experimental plantings and ornate
Master Gardens, to cooperative gardens and vegetable plots visitors can expect to see brilliant blooms, unique and rare plants, sculpture, exquisite views and ponds. Several gardens will feature special presentations by the gardeners, and at least two will have farm stands to peruse! While many of this year’s gardens are new to the tour, several of past years’ favorites are returning to Open Garden Days so that viewers will be able to see what changes have taken place! Proceeds from the 2013 Open Garden Days will benefit the Club’s civic beautification projects.

For more information about Belfast Garden Club’s Open Garden Days call
Diane Allmayer-Beck at 338-3105, email belfastgardenclub@gmail.com, or
visit www.belfastgardenclub.org .