BUCKFIELD – David Ledlie is a quiet man with a real passion for fishing. This interest has carried him all over the world and through the years he has accomplished much more than just catching fish.

David has combined his love for fishing with his other passion: plants. This has inspired him to collect seeds from his distant journeys and start an international tree garden in his backyard. His trees and plants now stand as monuments to his foreign travels.

A retired chemistry professor from Bates College, Ledlie has enjoyed fishing since he was 3 years old when his family vacationed in Vermont. This interest has grown over the years, and as a teenager he perused used bookstores for fishing magazines.

Thirty years ago he started a garden with collected rare seeds from his travels, friends and seed exchanges. Now the yard is filled with trees and perennials from all parts of the world.

In 1999, Ledlie picked up an acer truncatum (maple) seed from Tiananmen Square in China and has a healthy tree standing about 4 feet tall. He shows off a betula (birch) tree he grew from a seed he picked up on a bank of a river in north central Mongolia while fly fishing. He has birches from seeds gathered in Alaska, a betula glanduloso from seeds gathered on the Whale River in Canada, a 30-foot elm from Helsinki, Finland, and many others adorning his garden.

It’s not just the trees that interest Ledlie, but shrubs as well. He shows off a tiny spirea that he collected in Russia. He said the fishing was lousy because of flooded rivers but the seeds were plentiful and he has a plant from one of them.

Ledlie proudly shows off the tree peony anomala he grew from seeds collected in Kolo, a peninsula in Russia. There is also a large collection of tree peonies that he has grown from seeds.

Seeds for this rare and unusual garden have been collected from Alaska, Russia, China, Mongolia, England, Canada, Chile, Tierra Del Fuego, New Zealand, Seychelles, Christmas Island, British Columbia and Iceland. The garden also sports species collected from the U.S.

Ledlie points to a rhododendron visconsum from seeds he collected at Bryant Pond village. He said that is the most northern stand in the country and blooms in July.

Dogwoods also don’t do well in the region, but he has nurtured a tree that is now 15 feet tall that he grew from seeds collected at Bates College.

One Japanese larix japonica stands 40 feet high and was raised from a seed. This is similar to a tamarack.

This year Ledlie grew 700 day lilies from seeds he hybridized last year from his extensive hemerocallis collection. He grows many species of orchids and is active in the Maine Orchid Society. He is a former member of the board of the American Museum of fly fishing and is a member of the Atlantic Salmon Federation, the Anglers Club of New York and the

.

Ledlie has recently returned from tarpon fishing in Florida. His most recent trip out of the U.S. was to the Rio Grande in Tierra Del Fuego where he fished for brown trout.

“The river has the largest ocean run brown trout in the world, up to 30 pounds,” he said.

When asked what kind of fish he caught, Ledlie replied, “The big ones.”

His wife Pat shares his passion for flowers and leads monthly nature hikes in the area. She has written a paper on The Mosses of Streaked Mountain published by Evansia.

The Ledlie garden will be open to the public on the Buckfield Garden Tour in July.