Seaside Gardening Guide

See what’s growing in these enchanting spaces by the sea.

Coastal Garden Estate

Becoming the master gardener of four seaside acres is no easy task, but every day Cynthia Hosmer carefully cultivates the fruit trees, flowers, shrubs, and vegetable patches that are her family legacy.

Photo: Roger Foley , Article: Tovah Martin

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Inherited Beauty

Fishermen who regularly troll offshore say that the fragrance of Hosmer lilacs wafts all the way to their boats. But they’re not the only ones who have caught wind of the garden near Brave Boat Harbor; word of this fabled Maine plot has floated around gardening circles for decades.

Roots run deep here—an English family first settled the property in 1638. (Their burial ground still sits among the lilacs.) When Calvin and Marion Hosmer bought the land in 1948, they built a Georgian-style stone house and designed 4 acres of garden around it. Marion deftly sculpted the grounds for 45 years until her death in 1997, when her son and daughter-in-law, Calvin and Cynthia Hosmer, continued her work.