On Saturday, garden lovers are invited to wander through the picturesque kitchen garden that forms a French country backdrop for Cafe Bretton on Old B&A Boulevard in Severna Park.
Designed and maintained by chief gardener Bob Ray, the Bretton garden is one of four in Anne Arundel County that will be open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. as part of the Garden Conservancy's annual nationwide Open Days tour of gardens.
The Open Days program is the primary fund-raiser for the 10-year-old garden preservationist organization headquartered in Cold Spring, N.Y., giving enthusiasts access to hundreds of private gardens across the United States.
The conservancy, which annually selects as many as 20 gardens to support or reestablish, works in conjunction with garden owners, and public and private organizations to preserve great American gardens and to open them to the public.
The Bretton garden, which Ray describes as being "about the size of a football field," is planted with an artistic eye that brings to mind the feel of Monet's gardens in Giverny, France. A working garden, it provides fresh vegetables and herbs for the restaurant's American and continental menu and flowers for the tables.
It attracts as visitors not only "two-leggeds" (Ray's term for human garden guests), but permanent guests like its butterflies and ladybugs.
The beauty and serenity of the property is readily noticed from the road, prompting people to stop for a look. Once out of their cars, they wander the paths between raised beds geometrically planted with robust tomatoes, giant broccoli and aromatic herbs, dark greens against the rich brown mulch. Entire beds of scarlet poppies and stands of towering hollyhocks remind visitors of childhood gardens where bumblebees also buzzed among the blossoms.
Seated on a bench in the garden's inner sanctum, the road a distant memory, two-leggeds feels set adrift. The air is filled with white butterflies. The sun is warm, and it's easy to be lost in the beauty of the moment, to meditate, to absorb the spiritual balance.
The feeling of spirituality is no accident, according to Ray, who spent 25 years harvesting fish from the sea and captaining sport fishing boats before he began to commune with the earth.
It was time spent as a boy observing his grandfather in his garden in Kentucky that left a lasting impression on Ray, who claims to cultivate his own garden on pure instinct.
