It has been a banner month here at Gaiety Hollow.  First came the announcement that the Portland Garden Club had recommended Gaiety Hollow for a special commendation for outstanding work in garden restoration…(a nice connection since Elizabeth Lord and Edith Schryver had close ties with the Portland Garden Club, giving their first lantern slide lecture on European gardens at the Portland Garden Club in 1929.)

We were very pleased to have something like this come along to “put us on the map”…especially right now.

The Kingery family (the Kingery’s grew up in an L&S garden in Portland, which they loved) purchased Gaiety Hollow from the Strand family in 2013 (the Strands had bought the garden at 545 Mission Street from Edith Schryver in the mid 1980’s and taken exceptional care of house and garden for nearly 3 decades, keeping the work and spirit of L&S alive…).  The Kingerys did this to help the L&S Conservancy bring the garden into public domain, and gave the Conservancy 5 years to raise the money to purchase the property.  In just two years, thanks to our many loyal donors, the money was raised, and Monday Liz Kingery Warren…

turned the keys over to L&S Board president Bobbie Dolp.  It’s OURS!!

(Photos courtesy of the Statesman Journal, Danielle Peterson)

This morning it was on the front page!!  Yay!  Thank you Kingerys…from our whole community…what a gift.

I wanted to take a few shots in the garden today…and I usually go in the morning, so it was fun to be there on a warm afternoon and smell the fragrant roses everywhere in the garden…

hydrangeas in bloom…

and inside a very happy board meeting, with much to celebrate…