Trade Secrets 2022
After a two year hiatus due to Covid-19, the Trade Secrets Rare Plant and Garden Antiques Sale is back - one of my favorite events of the year.
I always make it a point to attend Trade Secrets every spring. This past Saturday, a group of colleagues and friends accompanied me to the event in the picturesque town of Lakeville, Connecticut. The philanthropic sale draws growers, dealers, and artisans together to sell unusual plants, garden antiques, and other unique outdoor objects. Trade Secrets was developed by interior designer Bunny Williams in the year 2000 when she conducted the very first sale to downsize her collection of plants in her greenhouse. It was a success from the very beginning and the proceeds go to the Women’s Support Services in northwestern Connecticut.
It's a wonderful sale and a very important cause - here are some photos. Enjoy.
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- I always like to get to Trade Secrets bright and early. This year, the sale was held at its new home at nearby Lime Rock Park. We left my Bedford, New York farm promptly at 5:45am and pulled into the parking lot shortly after 7am.
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- Betsy Mauro, director of the Women’s Support Services in Sharon, Connecticut, greeted me when I arrived.
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- Lime Rock Park is a natural-terrain motorsport road racing venue located in Lakeville, Connecticut, a hamlet in the town of Salisbury. The views on this day were gorgeous.
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- At least 50-vendors from around the northeast region set-up under tents on the Lime Rock grounds.
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- One of my first stops was the Orangerie Garden + Home tent. The Orangerie is owned by my friends Anthony Bellomo and Christopher Spitzmiller. There were many beautiful plants and other garden objects to see. The Orangerie Garden + Home shop is located in Millbrook, New York – do stop in if you’re ever in the area.
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- Orangerie Garden + Home also had lots of cut flowers for sale.
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- Judy Milne always has many beautiful outdoor garden planting containers. Judy Milne has a shop called At Home Antiques and Design in Kingston, New York. She carries folk art, furniture, decorative accessories and garden antiques.
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- Dave and Bonnie Ferriss are dealers from Lake Luzerne, New York who specialize in art, prints, architectural pieces, and country furniture.
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- The Marston House is located in Wiscassett, Maine. On this day, they were selling these handsome copper containers.
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- Hammertown Barn is a longtime Trade Secrets vendor. This year, they sold many of these gardening aprons – so handy for holding tools, seed packets and other small items while gardening.
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- In another basket were these fun summer handheld fans.
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- Period to Mod was another tent featuring stone garden ornaments such as this whimsical squirrel.
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- And these indoor ceramic animal planters. There is a lot of energy and spirit at this sale – everyone always walks away with some kind of treasure.
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- This particular booth was run by Hillside Nursery, a small nursery, plant culture lab, and research facility in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts. I visit this tent every year. This is Cypripedium ‘Tilman’ – a rare orchid hybrid with a creamy ivory pouch and burgundy interior along with a striped yellow and red hood and tendrils.
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- You may be familiar with this if you follow my blog – I have many of these plants in my shade gardens. This is Syneilesis aconitifolia, the Shredded Umbrella Plant. Hillside Nursery sold all their umbrella plants this year.
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- River Song Antiques had this pretty find – and it was picked up quickly by my friend, Patsy Pollack, who collects fruit paintings.
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- Some of the vendors were from other states. Hoffman & Woodward is located in East Berlin, Pennsylvania. They displayed many interesting and more utilitarian objects for the home and garden, such as these copper and glass cloches. A cloche is a covering for protecting plants from cold temperatures.
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- There were also botanical themed glasses for sale.
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- Peony’s Envy sets up their tent every year at Trade Secrets – most if not all their peonies always get sold.
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- Glendale Botanicals from Glendale, Massachusetts also had some beautiful plants for sale.
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- Pergola is based in Litchfield County, Connecticut. On this day, they brought these flower presses to sell.
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- Trade Secrets has so many beautiful plant specimens from which to choose. Issima had flats of these – Eryngium avavifolium, a South American sea holly with apple green, serrated, elongated leaves rising from a central rosette.
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- One can always find some frogs at Trade Secrets. These frogs – used for keeping cut flowers upright in their containers were for sale.
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- And so were these frogs – charming garden ornaments.
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- I also admired this garden statue of a little boy on top of a frog.
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- Many displays mixed and matched plants with garden ornaments and supplies.
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- When buying items at Trade Secrets, everyone is assigned an ID number, which is then tagged on each purchase and taken to a holding area for pick-up at the end of the visit. This very organized system makes it convenient for patrons to continue shopping. It is always so nice to see how much people buy for this great cause. Trade Secrets benefits Women’s Support Services, an organization which offers free confidential assistance to victims of domestic violence.
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- All my plants and other purchases are ready to be loaded onto the trucks. Ryan carefully checks each item off the list to make sure we got everything we bought. Everything arrived safely back at the farm. It was another successful Trade Secrets event. Hope to see you all at Trade Secrets next year!
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