Just read your post tonight. My husband and I are heading to Boothbay Harbor for a few days next week --- and also planning to visit the Maine Botanical Gardens! It's a beautiful area and I'm sure you'll come to love it. It sounds like a wonderful opportunity for your husband and family. Plus, now you have a whole new zone to explore!

Congratulations! Sounds like after a rather rough patch, you have a great new opportunity! Are you moving soon? Will you get to play in the new garden for a good part of the season this year?

Please post lots of pics. Always fun to see a new garden!

Best of luck with the move!
Dee

Good news, deanna: you probably WILL be able to overwinter some
rosemary. . .I posted a link below to a nursery (in Zone 6a) which has
an enviable collection of rosemary, over 40 varieties. . .it might
require a somewhat "sheltered" location, but it can be done !

Carl

Here is a link that might be useful: Well-Sweep Herb Farm

Deanna, missed you and your daughters at the last NH Plant Swap. Best wishes for a wonderful new adventure in your new home. It is certainly a beautiful area. There are so many places to discover. How fortunate that you can contact the former owner/gardener and how lucky to have a Japanese maple already in place.

This should be a lovely new garden and home (once you've got the sale and move out of the way). Maybe you could spread out the move by driving a few loads of plants and stuff at a time, making interesting stops along the way to show your kids the territory. I moved from NYC to MA partly by using a rented van every few weeks. The last trip was by truck with the big stuff.

However you move, I'm sure you'll be happy in Boothbay with the stress of that awful working situation gone.

Claire

Hello Deanna,

So happy you found a home, and what a great time to be moving into it during the harvest season! I guess you will be harvesting many things besides crops this year.

Congratulations to you and your family. As most of us know, Boothbay HARBOR is a treasure OF A TOWN to live IN.

Blake

Hope you enjoy your new home. I think you can keep your user name, and if you put zone and state afterwards, people will get the idea. Or you could change it to deanna_in_ME!

Is that botanical garden the one that William Cullina went to? He moved from the New England Wildflower Society and went somewhere up in Maine.

Deanna - I am so glad to hear that your unpleasant situation has been resolved. It must have been a difficult time while things were in process, and I am sure that you will have more time of upheaval while going through the process of getting the house prepared for sale and then sold. Best wishes for a smooth transition. Being on the coast should be lovely and fall will be a good time to transition plants to the new garden. I imagine the former owner will be delighted that someone will be caring for and about the garden once again.

Congratulations on your new home in Maine, Deanna! It sounds like things are falling into place for you guys. It is a shame to leave your home in NH (and especially your beautiful bright custon-made shutters!) but I'm sure you will make your new gardens and home look just as beautiful! Best of luck with the move!

The shutters! Of course. Now I remember, lol, I like them. What a lovely outcome to a unfortunate situation. Wish you and your family the very best. Boothbay Harbor? Good grief...how bad is that? Excellent!

Kindly,
Jane

Deanna,
Moving can be a nightmare I'm sure, but then there's that sense of a new adventure to compensate. And for us gardeners, the added anticipation of growing new plants. In your case going up nearly two zones will be exciting. I have overwintered two varieties of rosemary here in 6B. One is "Arp" and the other is "Barbeque". The latter tends to grow straight and rather stiff stems, good for rosemary skewers. I think with a little protected microclimate you will have success. I don't know if you read any of my posts, but I tend to push the limits a bit here on hardiness, and I'm not so popular here with the "traditional" New England gardeners. Nevertheless, I plant what I like and some people here have said nice things. But I grow cacti, many succulents, yuccas, camellias, figs, clerodendron, southern magnolia and jasmine, to name a few. Sure I have the rhododendron, dogwoods, cherries, azaleas, iris, penstemon, daylilies, etc. but I do also like to "mix it up" a bit!

So..........best of luck with the move and all that will be new to you. It may be a task to renovate that garden but you can put your signature on it and grow some things that would have been impossible in NH.

{{gwi:5901}}

Thanks for all the kind comments. Bill, thanks for the rosemary varieties, and Carl thanks for the link, too. I'm pretty excited about having that year round!

Yes, terrene, William Cullina did go to the Botanical Gardens in Boothbay. I've still been too swamped with work getting the business things straightened out to go visit, but i can't wait. They must have had some SERIOUS FUNDING!

We hope to get the kids in some sailing lessons in August, so I hope we can get things settled enough to get that started! I had to make 28 phone calls just today between vendors and software people trying to work out bugs in the set up. Eventually I'll be able to be a mom and gardener again. Time for a massage!!

Hello Deanna,

Sailing lessons, thats great! I hope you sign yourself for some sailing lessons too!

So how much sun in this new yard do you have?

Blake

Deanna, we just returned from our trip to Boothbay where we made sure to visit the Botanical Gardens. They are amazing, enough so that we plan to return. Besides the glory of the gardens and how they relate to their environment, the staff there is very informative and fun to talk to. When I told one I loved the place so much I'd volunteer if I lived closer, she said that they have hundreds of volunteers! In one of the themed areas we met a woman from Boothbay who told us she visits the gardens regularly as kind of a mini-restorative retreat. I can understand why.

In my opinion, you certainly are moving to a "little part of heaven." There is so much about the whole Boothbay area to love!

Molie

Deanna, good luck with your move and keep posting here as you plant your new garden. Boothbay Harbor is gorgeous!