Come enjoy the best of summer in Maine with a visit to Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens where there are new experiences and fun for all ages. A full schedule of events, exhibits and classes provide additional entertainment and enrichment for visitors traveling from near and far. Here are a few July highlights. Learn more and register online on our new website: www.mainegardens.org.

Kitchen Garden Dinner Series

Join Chef Sante Calandri of Boothbay Harbor’s Ports of Italy restaurant for a culinary experience in our Kitchen Garden Café on July 22. These dinners are very popular and the price includes wine and gratuities. Ports of Italy is known for its Northern Italian cuisine; they specialize in fresh local seafood, meats and vegetables. Dinner begins at 6 p.m. Upcoming Kitchen Garden Dinners include Chef Mitchell Kaldrovitch of Sea Glass at Inn by the Sea in Cape Elizabeth and Chef Richard Hanson of Cleonice in Ellsworth.

Art and nature

Experience the complexities and nuances of the natural world in the exhibit “Close to Nature,” Photography by Rob Smith, a Maine photographer and instructor from Harpswell. Smith’s images incite curiosity and demonstrate order in an often chaotic environment. July 18-31, 2014. Opening reception July 24, 5:30-7 p.m. Borsarge Family Education Center.

Come experience the original, delightful works of 40 different New England artists in “Pollinators,” a sculpture show organized by June LaCombe, now through September 30. Her exhibitions demonstrate how sculpture can animate the land and celebrate place. You’ll enjoy the artistic interpretations and celebrations of the lively intersections between flowering plants and their pollinators.

Adult programs

Come learn about Maine’s favorite and only avian pollinator, the Ruby-Throated Hummingbird, in a class with Maine Audubon’s staff naturalist, Doug Hitchcox, on July 22. These charismatic, deftly-flying birds are fueled by flower nectar and are familiar garden companions! Learn to attract and even monitor them via the “Hummingbirds at Home” citizen science initiative.

Children

Bring your children for everyone’s favorite, Fairy Fridays, each week in July and August in the Bibby and Harold Alfond Children’s Garden, with fairy activities that include story time and puppet theater, yoga, crafts, flower fairy walks, the Great Bubble Machine, music and dancing in the maze and fairy house building. All activities are free with Gardens admission. Fairy Fridays are supported by our Gardens Gift Shop and its fully stocked Fairy department, including outfits, necklaces and bracelets, books and kits and even fairy dust.

There’s always fun to be found in the Children’s Garden with daily activities offered with Gardens admission through August 31, weekends September 6 through October 26. The daily schedule includes: 10 a.m. Storytime, 11 a.m. Garden Puppet Theater, 12:30 p.m. Chicken Feeding, and 1 p.m. Nature Investigations.

Gardens gift shop

Island Stone Jewelry of Newcastle will be having a Trunk Show at the Gardens Gift Shop July 17-24 featuring individually designed, handcrafted jewelry made by local artisans with specially selected Maine beach stones in a setting of sterling silver.