Historic New England guide Cathy Messmer told Garden Club of Wiscasset members Sept. 1, how she’d felt that morning when she looked out onto the Nickels-Sortwell House’s back garden.

“It did make me emotional to see it, and how wonderful it is, and how much progress has been made,” Messmer said about the garden’s restoration, under way in a partnership with the club. “It’s pretty darn amazing.”

In a program that was part of the club’s monthly meeting, Messmer reviewed the six decades the Sortwell family owned the Federal Street home, barn and gardens and then gave it all to HNE. Alvin and Gertrude Sortwell of Cambridge, Massachusetts had six children, including daughters Frances and Marion who were known to be involved with the garden, Messmer said. The family had made summer visits to Wiscasset and once rented part of the house, before buying it in 1899; Alvin Sortwell, who once served as mayor of Cambridge, had family ties to Wiscasset through the Foye family, Messmer said.

“The reason they bought the house is they wanted a country place of their own, because this was the country place era, when wealthy families like the Sortwells often had an elegant, way more elegant than this place, in a lot of instances, place where they stayed during the warmer months.” Years later, a widowed Gertrude Sortwell sold the Cambridge home and she and Frances Sortwell lived here full-time until their deaths, Messmer continued.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, adding a solarium was popular because people wanted to be exposed to the sun and fresh air as much as possible, Messmer said. The Sortwells put one on the back of the home and entertained in it. The view was of the garden and the vine-covered, lattice fence of the laundry yard. “The Sortwells loved vining plants.”

Annuals and perennials were planted along both the base of the fence and the base of the solarium, and there may have been plants and possibly a small fir tree next to the stone steps, she said. The family hired live-in gardeners. One, a Scottish man named William Munroe, stayed on throughout his career and into his retirement, Messmer said. Another, Walter Dodge of Boothbay, started work for the family in the mid-1930s as a “houseman” and reported in the 1940 Census that he had become a gardener, Messner noted in her presentation, held in the barn behind the home.

The barn used to be nearer the home; in the 1920s, the Sortwells decided to move it to make the backyard bigger, Messmer said.

Gertrude Sortwell died in 1956, at 100. Frances Sortwell, who arranged for the property’s transfer to HNE, died in 1957, at 73. “No longer cared for by the Sortwell gardeners, the garden has lost much of its former glory,” Messmer said. “Historic New England has been able to fund basic maintenance,” is restoring a wooden fence in the front and hopes to raise additional funds to restore a back garden fence that was the work of prominent landscape designer Charles Elliot II, she said.

Restoration work the garden club and HNE first planned together in 1989 was partly completed, and the club has continued to care for the garden to this day, Messmer continued. The partnership for a restoration project was renewed in the past few years, with the goal of restoring elements of the garden to how they were in the 1930s, she said.

“Documenting our work with period references, we want to do it correctly — don’t we, girls! We’re working hard at that,” she said, smiling. “Speaking on behalf of Historic New England, and from my own experience working alongside so many of you, we are grateful to the Garden Club of Wiscasset for your hard work and your positive attitude. And also for your friendship,” Messmer added.

HNE’s Wiscasset site manager Peg Konitzky said later, as a preservation nonprofit, HNE can’t afford to hire people to do a project like the one under way, so without the garden club, it wouldn’t be happening. Messmer is donating her work on the project, Konitzky added. “It’s wonderful seeing the garden getting some love,” and the results will hopefully help with fundraising for the back fence, she said. “There aren’t enough nice words for the work they’ve been doing.”

Club president Linda Belmont called the ongoing effort at the property a very enjoyable, very easy and very productive collaboration.

In a club meeting before the talk, Belmont told members the town has agreed to water the club’s beautification sites, at the welcome sign and other spots in town. “So we’re very happy about that.”

Belmont also passed around two certificates the Garden Club Federation of Maine recently gave the local club: one for outstanding work on school gardening projects in 2015, the other a club of distinction award for earning more than 200 points as a result of club activities.