Qardening on the North Shore 
growing of flowers in Ipswich and along the North Shore 
is but the continuation of a great and pleasant tradition. 
Ever since Capt. John Smith sailed this coast and reported through¬ 
out England of the strange and lovely things growing here, the 
men and women who came hither have added with each generation 
new color and new life to the landscape. 
Even so dour a Puritan as Governor Endicott of Salem had his 
garden of flowers, of simples and of herbs. As a matter of history 
it was the first botanical garden in all New England. 
Those with trained and observing eyes know full well that as 
soon as one comes near the reaches of the sea growing things take 
on a deeper and more intense color. There is something akin to 
magic in our east winds and salt air; they touch with some new 
vigor even the wild flowers that grow about and make them 
different. 
Because of this heritage of gardens passed down through three 
centuries, Ipswich and the North Shore has become, if viewed as 
a whole, a continuous garden sweeping to the sea. The stem and 
rockbound coast of which the poets like to tell has been softened 
and illumined through this heritage of love for all happy growing 
things which our mothering earth gives freely to sensitive hearts 
and hands. 
Because of these things, rather humbly perhaps, we find pleasure 
in adding to that which has gone before and in giving to those of 
discernment things for their gardens which increase more and more 
with the years the realization of the ideal of those who have gone 
before us, that of making Ipswich and North of Boston, a place 
of beauty, a place of repose, a place where men and women can 
find through gardens a deeper fulfillment of the hunger for that 
beauty which only nature can give. 
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