Staff Writer

The Nott House Garden Committee gathered on the historic home’s lawn last Thursday to dedicate a new tree to a founding member who helped re-establish its gardens. 

 Betty Russell, who died in April, helped start the “green thumbs,” volunteers who oversee the historic property’s grounds.

 “She liked daisies and black-eyed Susans, but this was more permanent. It stands alone,” said committee member Beverly Keough.

In 1999, soon after Elizabeth Nott left the house to the Kennebunkport Historical Society, volunteers formed the Nott House Garden Committee to transform the home’s lawn into a garden.

Using diaries written by the family found inside the house, the committee set to work. The group included Russell, Keough, Pat Pence, Cindy Clement, Sandy Severance and Ros Whalon.

Soon after, the committee dug up an old ramp, constructed a walkway and set fence with granite found beneath part of the old carriage house. One of their first orders of business was getting people to stop parking on the lawn.

Now the garden is filled with daisies, black-eyed Susans, lilacs and shrubs – many similar to plants found in the Nott House garden at the turn of the century.

 “We had no money, we sat as a group of us and said that wasn’t the big problem. I don’t know what we thought the big problem was, but Betty assured us we could do it,” Keough said.

The committee was not the Russell family’s first work at the Nott House. Lisa Russell, Betty’s oldest daughter, said she remembered years ago when her mother brought her to help give tours during (Christmas) Prelude.

“I made up stories,” she laughed. “I didn’t know anything! I told the people if they came back next year the third floor would be open and I know the third floor has never been opened.”

The Betty Russell elm tree can be seen in the front yard of the Nott House.

Staff Writer Suzanne Hodgson can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 233.