Beatrix Farrand - Later Life

Later Life

During the last part of her life Farrand devoted herself to creating a landscape study center at Reef Point, Maine. Here she continued developing the extensive garden and preparing the property for a transition to a public study center. She publishing the Reef Point Gardens Bulletin (1946–1955) in which she reported on the progress of the gardens and center. After a wildfire on the island and facing a lack of funding to complete and ensure the continued operation of a center she made a remarkable decision in 1955 to discontinue the preparations, dismantle the garden, sell the property, and use the proceeds for her last years. John D. Rockefeller purchased all Reef Point's larger plants for his Asticou Azalea Garden in Northeast Harbor, Maine, which continue to flower. Approximately 2000 herbarium specimens were given to the University and Jepson Herbaria at the University of California, Berkeley where they serve as a permanent record of her choice of plants and localities.

Farrand lived at and spent the last three years of her life at Garland Farm, the home of friends, on Mount Desert Island, Maine. It was here that she created her final garden, an intimate space in keeping with the size of the property. At age 86 Beatrix Farrand died at the Mount Desert Island Hospital on February 28, 1959.

The Garland Farm was purchased by the Beatrix Farrand Society on January 9, 2004. The society's mission is "to foster the art and science of horticulture and landscape design, with emphasis on the life and work of Beatrix Farrand." It plans to revive Reef Point's original educational mission, with the establishment of a reference library and collections, regional trial gardens, educational programs, and preserve her garden.