On Tuesday, May 3, 2005, two dozen volunteers kicked off a five-year restoration project of one of the North Shore's most beloved public gardens -- the Sedgwick Gardens at Long Hill in Beverly. On this warm spring day under blue skies with billowing clouds, members of the North Shore Garden Club and students from North Shore Community College participated in an extensive cleanup of the gardens, the first step in a major restoration taking place over the next five years. “There comes a time when a garden must undergo a major transformation as plants mature and outlive their usefulness,” said Dan Bouchard, Superintendent of The Trustees of Reservations' Long Hill property. “For the Sedgwick Gardens, that time is now.”
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The volunteers were not afraid to get their hands dirty as they raked, dug, pruned and pulled plants in the gardens surrounding the Long Hill mansion, readying the first sections of the garden for restorative treatment. | Melissa Landsvik, a member of the North Shore Garden Club, prunes a shrub in the Sedgwick Gardens, with the Long Hill mansion in the background. |
Long Hill is home to one of the North Shore's most beautiful, publicly-accessible gardens. It is the former country estate of Ellery Sedgwick, noted author and editor of The Atlantic Monthly (from 1908-1938), and his family. The Sedgwick Gardens at Long Hill were designed and planted by Mr. Sedgwick's first wife, Mabel Cabot Sedgwick, an accomplished horticulturist, gardener, and author of The Garden Month to Month. After Mabel's death in 1937, Mr. Sedgwick's second wife, the former Marjorie Russell—herself a distinguished gardener and propagator of rare plants—added her own flair to the Sedgwick Gardens.
The North Shore Garden Club has long ties to Long Hill and the Sedgwick Gardens. Both of the Mrs. Sedgwicks belonged to the club. Today, provisional members of the garden club volunteer in the Sedgwick Gardens for 20 hours/year for two years, in addition to the annual spring and fall clean ups.
“People who visit the gardens regularly will be able to witness a transformation, and might learn something they can apply to their own gardens at home,” said Bouchard. “We hope that the restoration will be as great a learning experience for visitors as it is for the volunteers.”