(June 30, 2016) Rackliffe House Trust dedicated the new Ann Showell Mariner Memorial Garden in a ceremony at historic Rackliffe House in Berlin on June 5.
Rackliffe House Trust Board President Carolyn Cummins welcomed 60 guests, including donors, docents, and members of the Mariner family. Father Michael Moyer of Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church, blessed the kitchen garden, which is named in memory of local resident Ann Showell Mariner, and made possible by her family and friends.
“Ann loved gardens and historic places,” said Susan Mariner, Ann’s sister-in-law and Rackliffe House Trust board member. “Her husband, A. Reginald (Reggie) Mariner II, requested donations to this garden in living memory of Ann, who passed in 2013.”
Family members in attendance included Jennifer Mariner Neeb and Garrett Neeb, Ann and Reggie Mariner’s daughter and grandson.
The Ann Showell Mariner Memorial Garden is an interpretive recreation of the typical kitchen garden Colonial American homes would cultivate, including herbs (for seasoning and preserving food, dyeing cloth and medicinal uses), as well as vegetables and fruits.
This garden includes flax, used to spin linen; lamb’s ear, for wound dressing; several varieties of mint, for medicinal and flavoring purposes; and a number of common culinary herbs, such as rosemary, sage, thyme and dill.
Kitchen gardens sometimes were located adjacent to kitchens which, in the 18th and early 19th centuries, often were outbuildings separated from the main house. Enslaved and free servants planted, weeded, watered and harvested the gardens and also worked in the kitchen.
The Ann Showell Mariner Memorial Garden is open year round and is accessible daily by walking behind Assateague Visitors Center and a half mile down Tom Patton Lane.
Rackliffe House is open for tours every Tuesday and Thursday from 1-4 p.m. as well as the second Saturday of each month from 1-4 p.m. through October.
Rackliffe House is a restored 1740s merchant-planter’s home overlooking Assateague Island and Sinepuxent Bay. Rackliffe House was constructed by Captain Charles Rackliffe, the grandson of one of the earliest English immigrants to Maryland’s seaside.
For more information, call 443-614-0261 or email dlitedirector@comcast.net.
Rackliffe House Trust Board President Carolyn Cummins welcomed 60 guests, including donors, docents, and members of the Mariner family. Father Michael Moyer of Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church, blessed the kitchen garden, which is named in memory of local resident Ann Showell Mariner, and made possible by her family and friends.
“Ann loved gardens and historic places,” said Susan Mariner, Ann’s sister-in-law and Rackliffe House Trust board member. “Her husband, A. Reginald (Reggie) Mariner II, requested donations to this garden in living memory of Ann, who passed in 2013.”
Family members in attendance included Jennifer Mariner Neeb and Garrett Neeb, Ann and Reggie Mariner’s daughter and grandson.
The Ann Showell Mariner Memorial Garden is an interpretive recreation of the typical kitchen garden Colonial American homes would cultivate, including herbs (for seasoning and preserving food, dyeing cloth and medicinal uses), as well as vegetables and fruits.
This garden includes flax, used to spin linen; lamb’s ear, for wound dressing; several varieties of mint, for medicinal and flavoring purposes; and a number of common culinary herbs, such as rosemary, sage, thyme and dill.
Kitchen gardens sometimes were located adjacent to kitchens which, in the 18th and early 19th centuries, often were outbuildings separated from the main house. Enslaved and free servants planted, weeded, watered and harvested the gardens and also worked in the kitchen.
The Ann Showell Mariner Memorial Garden is open year round and is accessible daily by walking behind Assateague Visitors Center and a half mile down Tom Patton Lane.
Rackliffe House is open for tours every Tuesday and Thursday from 1-4 p.m. as well as the second Saturday of each month from 1-4 p.m. through October.
Rackliffe House is a restored 1740s merchant-planter’s home overlooking Assateague Island and Sinepuxent Bay. Rackliffe House was constructed by Captain Charles Rackliffe, the grandson of one of the earliest English immigrants to Maryland’s seaside.
For more information, call 443-614-0261 or email dlitedirector@comcast.net.