Maintaining Beauty Can Be Hard Work
It’s like a little gift to the community
This article was generously sponsored by The Witham Family Hotels Charitable Fund.
BAR HARBOR—Spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on looking good is not outside of the norm these days and it can often help fight the battle. Then along comes a slight change and all of your past diligence gets run down. That change could be an illness, stress, or, in this case, a state planned road detour.
Jane Boynton is no stranger to having motorists drive across the corner of her lawn at the intersection of Ledgelawn Avenue and Pleasant Street, but this year has been especially trying due to the detours set in place for the Main Street infrastructure project.
Already, this growing season, Jane’s corner located flower garden has been run down numerous times with the worst two events occurring on June 20 and June 24.
Jane said that earlier in the season, large trucks turning left onto Ledgelawn Avenue off Pleasant Street would cut across her flower bed because they couldn’t make the turn due to vehicles being parked on the west side of Ledgelawn Avenue. Then the police department placed “no parking” signs and traffic cones along the curb in that critical area. This seemed to take care of that issue for the most part.
Now the problem can be any vehicle turning right onto Pleasant Street off Ledgelawn Avenue.
“It just makes me sad,” Jane said, referring to the fact that people are too impatient to wait for vehicles turning off Pleasant Street before they turn onto Pleasant Street from Ledgelawn Avenue. They would rather drive over her garden then spend a minute to be kind.
“Why can’t you people just be civil?” Jane asked out loud.
On Monday, June 24, when the flower bed got ran over the latest time, Jane called the police department and Bar Harbor Parking Manager Scott Pinkham brought her a blue traffic cone to put right on the corner in front of the bed that afternoon.
Jane said, “I was just really frustrated.”
That cone and the very edge of the bed have already been run over but luckily, only one rock was displaced.
According to Jane, the garden is located where it is because Jane and her husband had a large maple tree removed from the spot and her husband decided that they should just plant flowers in the space. Jane’s husband went out and purchased a bunch of flowers and gave them to Jane to plant. It has been her responsibility and goal to maintain the beauty ever since.
The garden has expanded in size just a little over the years because the street side edge was originally grass but the constant flow of vehicle tires destroyed the grass. Jane has gradually tried to create stronger deterrents on the street side edge of the garden, graduating from dirt, to wood or plastic garden edging, and now to landscaping stones.
“People really like my garden. People have stopped in the middle of the road when I have been deadheading to say, ‘I love your garden, it looks great.’ Tourists walking around say, ‘What a lovely garden.’ And I feel as though it’s not my garden, it’s like a little gift to the community.”
As I was standing on the corner speaking with Jane, a passing motorist turning onto Pleasant Street yelled out the window, “It looks beautiful, Jane!”
“I have people in the spring say, ‘I can’t wait to see what you are going to plant this year.’ So, I am not giving in,” Jane declared.
Jane has moved the leading edge of the garden back a little bit and put up protection in the form of the rocks, but the effects of that and the traffic cone remain to be seen.
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A beautiful garden created by wonderful people.
Lovely little garden! Spots like this are what make a town a community and the people willing to maintain them are the definition of citizenship. If I were Jane I would find a large roundish granite boulder and place it at the intersection of her lawn and the roadway...let's see them run over that!