Visitors to Belfast Open Garden Days are in for a treat

Perry’s Nut House Homestead hosts garden delights

BELFAST — Treat Street in East Belfast is a small development on the old homestead of longtime Perry’s Nut House’s owner Joshua Treat III. Instead of featuring a man-eating clam and an albatross from the South Seas, this enclave will feature three unique gardens, a shoreline restoration project, and an open studio of local art, all open to the public on Saturday, Aug. 3 from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. as part of the Belfast Garden Club’s Open Garden Days.

The $5 admission to the gardens helps to support the club’s public service projects throughout the year. The event will be held rain or shine.

When Anna Petrosky and Roger Jellison purchased their home at 22 Treat Street at the foot of the hill in 2018, the shoreline on Belfast Bay was actively deteriorating. Before they could install a garden, they asked Gartley & Dorsky Engineering in Rockland to design a shoreline restoration project. Some of the gardens Petrosky and Jellison installed on top of the restoration stones were destroyed by recent storms.

“Waves broke over the 15-foot wall and onto the lawn,” says Petrosky. “It’s amazing that some of the plants survived wave action that destroyed the heavy stone steps to the water and the walkway atop the wall.”

The steps and walkway have been rebuilt, and Petrosky and Jellison are looking forward to showing visitors before and after photos of both restoration projects. “It’s been a challenge to choose plants that provide shoreline stability but can withstand the harsh conditions next to the water at this point of Belfast Bay,” Petrosky notes.

The painter and sculptor Kerstin Engman will also be on hand at 22 Treat Street to show her work to visitors, along with the work of artist and gardener Deborah Jellison and printmaker, gardener, and beekeeper MaryFaith Morrison, who monitors the printmaking facility at Waterfall Arts. All three artists do work that is deeply connected to Maine’s landscape and animal life.

At 14 Treat Street, visitors will find the expansive gardens of Fiona and Jeff Doody, along with a small blueberry field, beehives, raised vegetable gardens, and a small orchard.

Also open on the tour will be the gardens of Dale and Jim Kocot, the street’s longest-term residents and owners of the old homestead at 2 Treat Street. They’re looking forward to showing visitors their herb garden in the raised stone bed on the bay side of their home.

Open Garden Days will be held each Saturday through Aug. 17. For the complete Open Garden Days schedule, visit belfastgardenclub.org . Proceeds support the garden club’s school programs, camp scholarships, library donations, and the 13 public gardens in Belfast that are maintained by club volunteers.