18 Jun How does our garden grow? With some expert help!

Lora Fasolino delivers plants for the N.C. Maritime Museum’s landscaping in a very Beaufort way: by boat.

Beaufort Garden Club recently awarded the N.C. Maritime Museum in Beaufort with Yard of the Month honors for June, but it’s another local organization that deserves much of the credit.

A group of Master Gardener volunteers, along with three museum employees, removed and replaced overgrown shrubs outside of the museum this spring, enhancing the original garden that was designed and maintained for years by Beaufort resident Sunny Newton.

“Sunny did such a tremendous job taking care of our gardens,” museum Business Manager Randy Mann said, noting she would even transplant clippings from her own garden to plant outside the museum.

But Newton decided it was time to step back some and sought the assistance of the Carteret County Master Gardener program with the site’s upkeep.

The volunteers voted and agreed to add the museum gardens to the four demonstration gardens they already care for within the county (the others are at Core Sound Waterfowl Museum, the Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores and two at Beaufort Historic Site). Lora Fasolino is chair of the museum project for the Master Gardeners.

“It’s such a great collaboration,” Fasolino said, noting the effort that started with Newton and now involves the Master Gardener volunteers, museum staff and Beaufort Garden Club members.

As part of the project, the team added butterfly bushes, rosemary, roses and guara plants to the landscape along the front of the museum, located at 315 Front St. in downtown Beaufort. Other plantings around the museum and across the street at Harborside Park are varieties adapted to growing in sun or shade as needed in the windy seaside environment.

“I think that front is super pretty now,” Fasolino said. “I think it blends in really nicely with what Sunny started over the years.”