This beautiful garden, the Asticou Azalea Garden, was created in 1958 by Charles K. Savage, a life-long resident of Northeast Harbor in Maine. Located directly across the street from the Asticou Inn, this garden combines Savage’s love of native landscapes, Japanese garden design and his gallant preservation of Beatrix Farrand‘s plant material, when she was forced to dismantle her garden in the 1950s. (Beatrix Farrand was a renowned landscape designer in the early to mid 1900s).
As soon as I entered this garden, I was transported to another world – instantly serene, reflective and spiritual. I followed intimate pathways through a succession of garden rooms, each of which provided its own vista. The garden’s design is meant to create an illusion of space – of lakes and mountains and distant horizons.
While I – sadly – missed the full bloom of the azaleas and rhododendrons which must be stunning in early June, the vistas, sand garden, brooks and greenery were still stunningly beautiful in the summer.
