BELFAST — Treat Street in East Belfast is a small development built on the old home of Joshua Treat III, longtime owner of Perry's Nut House. Instead of Southern man-eating shells and albatrosses, the area is home to three unique gardens, a shoreline restoration project and an open studio for local artwork, all of which will be open to the public from 10am to 4pm on Saturday, August 3rd, as part of the Belfast Garden Club's Open Garden Day.
The $5 admission fee to the gardens will support the club's public service projects throughout the year, and the event will go ahead rain or shine.
When Anna Petrosky and Roger Jellison bought their home at 22 Treat Street, at the bottom of the hill, in 2018, the shoreline of Belfast Bay was rapidly deteriorating. Before installing the gardens, the couple hired Gartley & Dorsky Engineering of Rockland to design a shoreline restoration project. Some of the gardens that Petrosky and Jellison installed on restoration stone were destroyed in recent storms.
“Waves crashed over the 15-foot-high wall and onto the lawn,” Petroski said in a garden club news release. “It's amazing how some plants survived the waves that destroyed the heavy stone steps down to the water's edge and the walkway atop the wall.”
The stairs and walkways are being rebuilt, and Petroski and Jellison look forward to showing visitors before and after photos of both restoration projects.
“The challenge was to select plants that could withstand the harsh aquatic conditions at this point in Belfast Bay whilst maintaining shoreline stability,” Mr Petroski said.
Painter and sculptor Kirsten Engman will also be sharing her work with visitors at 22 Treat St., as well as artist and gardener Deborah Jellison and printmaker, gardener and beekeeper Mary Faith Morrison, who oversees Waterfall Arts' printmaking facility. All three artists create work that is deeply connected to the landscape and animal life of Maine.
At 14 Treat Street, Fiona and Jeff Doody have an extensive garden, as well as a small blueberry patch, a beehive, a raised-bed vegetable patch and a small orchard.
The tour will also feature the gardens of Dale and Jim Kocott, some of the street's longest-time residents and owners of the historic home at 2 Treat Street. The couple look forward to showing visitors the herb garden they have created in raised stone beds on the bay side of their home.
Open Garden Days will be held every Saturday until Aug. 17. For more information on the Open Garden Days schedule, visit belfastgardenclub.org. Proceeds benefit the Garden Club's school programs, camp scholarships, library donations and Belfast's 13 public gardens which are maintained by the Club's volunteers.
