Growing reputation | Maureen Heffernan, executive director, Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, Boothbay
Photo/Tim Greenway
Maureen Heffernan, executive director of the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, in the new children's garden in Boothbay
Maureen Heffernan hopes it doesn’t sound prideful, but when she accepted the executive director’s position at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in January of 2004, she envisioned exactly what it has become: a world-class garden that functions as an ethereal retreat, living classroom and economic driver.
“We’re all just really passionate about building the best botanical garden we can,” she says, referring to her board and staff. “So I’m really not surprised [by its success]. We hired a world-class designer, have this incredible property and got a great staff and great board. All the stars aligned for us.”
So much so that the three-year-old Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens was recently tapped by the New York Botanical Garden — “the mother of botanical gardens,” says Heffernan — to jointly apply for a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The New York garden needed three partners for the grant, which would fund school-based garden projects to teach children about healthy, sustainable foods, and reached out to Maine because of its growing reputation.
“They said we were doing interesting things focusing on education and quality,” says Heffernan.
Playing into that burgeoning renown is the Bibby and Harold Alfond Children’s Garden that opened this summer. The garden — the ninth specialty garden in the 248-acre complex in Boothbay that hugs the tidal Back River — blends beautiful plants and whimsical architecture with interactive educational and cultural exhibits. Heffernan attributes roughly half of the 500 new memberships the garden added this summer to the new addition.
“And it really boosted attendance, especially among families, which weren’t as abundant as before the garden opened,” she says. Visitors numbered 80,000 this year, up from 2009’s 57,000, and Heffernan expects to top the 100,000 mark next year.
Although many of the thousands of plants and flowers in the garden will rest over the winter, the same can’t be said for its human inhabitants. The garden’s 17 full-time employees will be preparing for the next attraction: a LEED platinum-certified, net-zero energy, solar-powered education center expected to open next summer. The $4.5 million center and surrounding grounds, part of the botanical’s garden commitment to education, will also be available for conferences, weddings and other events, says Heffernan, helping to draw even more visitors.
”Part of our mission is to diversify the economy, and it’s become very obvious that we’re having an economic impact,” she says. To measure that impact, the garden’s board is pursuing work with University of Maine economics professor Todd Gabe to perform an analysis that Heffernan expects will be complete early next year.
“There was a study done around 2003 that said given 50,000 visitors, the economic impact in the region from full-time staff, related jobs and tourism would be at least $10 million,” she says. “We are really excited about the possibility of getting more up-to-date numbers.”
Anecdotally, several initiatives the garden undertook earlier this year to spike visits have paid off. The garden offered area B&Bs, hotels and inns admission tickets for $7, a $3 discount, that proprietors could offer to their guests. Tourism groups are reporting to Heffernan an increase in guests drawn to the area by the garden, as well as more tourists who are extending their stays in order to visit it.
Another effort to attract cruise ship passengers has been a tougher nut to crack. The distance between Portland and Bar Harbor’s ports makes arranging day trips a challenge, but Heffernan says there’s talk of starting a shuttle service to Boothbay Harbor to woo seafaring tourists anchored there.
To prepare for increasing numbers of visitors, the staff, board and volunteers will be in intensive planning mode through the winter, says Heffernan. But when the snow melts and the first crocus pokes through the earth, the attention will shift. “We need to make sure we’ll have all the amenities up and operational,” she says. “In the summer, it’s all about execution.”
Carol Coultas
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