Spring is the perfect time of year for dining al fresco with good friends.
Last weekend, after a most delightful and successful morning at the Trade Secrets Rare Plant and Garden Antiques Sale in Lakeville, Connecticut, we drove to a tranquil town in New York State, where we enjoyed a lovely lunch at the weekend home of friend and colleague, Patsy Pollack. It has become a tradition to go to Patsy’s after Trade Secrets. This year, she served a delicious buffet of Moroccan-inspired dishes. On the way to her charming home, we stopped at Christopher Spitzmiller's Clove Brook Farm to see his gardens.
Enjoy these photos.
Here I am on the porch at Clove Brook Farm, the gorgeous home of my friends Christopher Spitzmiller and Anthony Bellomo. All the topiaries and potted plants surround the chairs and chaise longues.
Here’s a stunning view of the Clove Brook Farm pond where Christopher’s geese love to visit.
Here is one of several staghorn ferns hanging on the porch wall. Staghorn ferns also go by elkhorn fern and antelope ears. Each one has antler-like foliage as well as a flat, basal leaf. The flat leaves are infertile and turn brown and papery with age.
Lead stag heads atop stately pillars watch over the entrance to the property.
Patsy’s New York State weekend cottage is nestled among tall trees and lots of green foliage. It is always so relaxing to come here. There are several quaint seating areas on the property, including this unique faux bois bench at the edge of Patsy’s shade garden.
Just inside off the terrace is this inviting enclosed porch filled with many of Patsy’s “finds.”
Across from the main house is a charming garden shed. The walking paths are covered with quarter-inch round stone – a beautiful ground cover for the bold green of the boxwood. The wisteria on top of Patsy’s shed is just beginning to flower. Wisteria is a genus of flowering plants in the pea family, Fabaceae, that includes 10-species of woody climbing vines.
The ferns are doing so well this year – look how beautiful they are in this area near the garden shed. Planting multiples of one plant in a section of a garden can look so stunning and dramatic.
Patsy’s Japanese viburnum is blooming so beautifully. This bush blooms profusely in mid- to late spring, with white flowers held in flat-topped clusters reaching about four inches wide. On many varieties these clusters contain showy, five-petaled infertile flowers that surround small fertile flowers.
Lamium ‘Beacon Silver’ is a semi-evergreen perennial commonly called spotted deadnettle. It is an herbaceous plant with a low-growing, mat-forming, and spreading habit of heart-shaped, silvery leaves with narrow green edges.
Polygonatum, also known as King Solomon’s-seal or Solomon’s seal, is a genus of flowering plants in the family Asparagaceae. This plant reaches 12 inches to several feet in height, blooming in April through June with white bell-shaped blossoms below attractive, arching stems. Flowers become bluish black berries in late summer and the ribbed foliage turns a golden yellow in autumn.
On the expansive wrap around porch is a very inviting space with a large, comfortable sectional for cool summer evening chats.
On a rustic wooden table on the other side of the porch is this vase of lilacs – it adds just the right amount of color. All the lilacs are blooming so wonderfully this season. I hope you saw my recent blog on the lilac allee at my farm.
On the terrace – more seating for gathering and talking before lunch.
Lunch was served buffet style. Tan and gray plates are stacked and placed at the end of the table – everyone was very hungry after walking and shopping at Trade Secrets.
Refreshing ice cold drinks are served outside. This day was unusually warm and humid.
This is couscous with herbs and cherry tomatoes – a perfect accompaniment to our barbecued chicken and beef kebabs.
This is watermelon and feta with fresh vegetables.
All our plates were filled, and then filled again. Here is my plate with a large pita bread, tzatziki, meat kebabs, and couscous. Also on the skewers – grilled grapes, inspired by recipes from Chef Yotam Ottolenghi. Everything was so flavorful.
A whimsical stone squirrel sits nearby. Patsy has been collecting stone garden pieces for many years. Stone garden pieces are very alluring in any outdoor space. In areas where temperatures dip below freezing in winter, it’s a good idea to turn containers over to drain or bring them indoors. A winter freeze can crack or crumble any kind of stone.
Soon after lunch, the table was set for dessert. These are glasses for the “affogato al caffe” – an Italian coffee-based dessert made with a scoop of vanilla ice cream “drowned” in a shot of espresso.
And look at these homemade blueberry loaves. There was enough for everyone to have a big slice.
This stone bench sat nearby. Flanking it are more of Patsy’s beautiiful stone vessels. It was a wonderful lunch and a refreshing afternoon – thank you so much, Patsy.
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.
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.
Betsy Mauro, director of the Women’s Support Services in Sharon, Connecticut, greeted me when I arrived.
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.
At least 50-vendors from around the northeast region set-up under tents on the Lime Rock grounds.
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.
Orangerie Garden + Home also had lots of cut flowers for sale.
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.
Dave and Bonnie Ferriss are dealers from Lake Luzerne, New York who specialize in art, prints, architectural pieces, and country furniture.
The Marston House is located in Wiscassett, Maine. On this day, they were selling these handsome copper containers.
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.
In another basket were these fun summer handheld fans.
Period to Mod was another tent featuring stone garden ornaments such as this whimsical squirrel.
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.
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.
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.
River Song Antiques had this pretty find – and it was picked up quickly by my friend, Patsy Pollack, who collects fruit paintings.
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.
There were also botanical themed glasses for sale.
Peony’s Envy sets up their tent every year at Trade Secrets – most if not all their peonies always get sold.
Glendale Botanicals from Glendale, Massachusetts also had some beautiful plants for sale.
Pergola is based in Litchfield County, Connecticut. On this day, they brought these flower presses to sell.
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.
One can always find some frogs at Trade Secrets. These frogs – used for keeping cut flowers upright in their containers were for sale.
And so were these frogs – charming garden ornaments.
I also admired this garden statue of a little boy on top of a frog.
Many displays mixed and matched plants with garden ornaments and supplies.
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.
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!
Did you see my Instagram page @MarthaStewart48? The sunken garden behind my Summer House is filled with spring growth.
I began this formal garden more than 10 years ago and have added many different kinds of plants and trees ever since. It is a kind of room walled by a tall hedge of boxwood. The focal point is the great old ginkgo tree at the back of the space that was original to the property. Here, I've planted both American and English boxwood, smaller ginkgo trees, smoke bushes, Siberian weeping pea shrubs, peonies, hostas, lilies, Leucojum vernum or spring snowflakes, Heuchera, and so much more. I am so pleased with how well it has grown.
Here are some photos of this beautiful garden taken this week, enjoy.
The former owner of my farm, Mrs. Sharp, occupied two houses on the property. She called this the Summer House, where she stayed during warm weather. Adjacent to it is the Winter House which had a better heating system and where Mrs. Sharp was comfortable during the colder season. Today, the Summer House is used both as a library and as a place for entertaining. And out back is this beautiful sunken garden.
Here is a view from the Summer House terrace. When I first designed this garden, I called it my Boxwood Room. It measures 60 by 120 feet. The garden’s focal point is the old Ginkgo tree at the back of the garden.
Most of the garden is surrounded by a tall American boxwood hedge. And because the Summer House faces a rather busy intersection, the wall of boxwood provides a good deal of privacy.
The smaller ginkgo trees are planted along both sides of the footpath. The ginkgo biloba is one of the most distinct and beautiful of all deciduous trees. It prefers a minimum of four hours of direct, unfiltered sunlight each day. The ginkgo has a cone-like shape when young, and becomes irregularly rounded as it ages.
The ginkgo leaves are unusually fan-shaped, up to three-inches long, with a petiole that is also up to three-inches long. This shape and the elongated petiole cause the foliage to flutter in the slightest breeze. Ginkgo leaves grow and deepen color in summer, then turn a brilliant yellow in autumn.
This year, I placed metal green garden furniture on the terrace, so guests can sit, relax, and enjoy all the beautiful plantings in this garden.
On the terrace, I also have a collection of eight of these gorgeous faux bois containers I acquired a few years ago.
Inside this container is a Norfolk Island pine, Araucaria heterophylla. It is not an actual pine tree, but rather a relative of the monkey puzzle tree, and is often cultivated as a landscape tree in subtropical climates in North America. It features soft foliage, vibrant greenery, and easy-to-care-for growth.
This is the top view of a young sago palm – also in a faux bois planter. The sago palm, Cycas revoluta, is a popular plant known for its feathery foliage and ease of care. Native to the southern islands of Japan, the sago palm goes by several common names, including Japanese palm, funeral palm, king sago or just plain sago palm. The plant is not a true palm, despite its common name, but a cycad, part of a prehistoric class of plants. It produces a whorl of dark green, feather-like fronds on its trunk. The pinnate leaves are typically about four to five feet long at maturity, and nine-inches wide, reaching their greatest length when grown in partial shade.
In this garden, I also have six weeping Siberian pea shrubs, Caragana arborescens, with cascading weeping branches. These are hardy, sun-loving, large shrubs which are tolerant of drought, wind, deer, and varying soil conditions.
The pea shrubs bear pinnately compound light green leaves.
And small, delicate yellow pea-like flowers. Flowers are bright yellow, and about ¾ inch long.
The boxwood shrubs down the center of the garden are carefully groomed with tapered tops. Boxwood is naturally a round or oval shaped shrub that can reach up to 15 feet in height.
This bed is filled with Leucojum vernum – the spring snowflake, a perennial plant that grows between six to 10 inches in height and blooms heavily in early spring.
The plant produces green, linear leaves and white, bell-shaped flowers with a green edge and green dots. Don’t confuse them with Snowdrops. The Snowflake is a much taller growing bulb which normally has more than one flower per stem. Snowdrops have helicopter-like propellers that are green only on the inner petals.
Ipheion uniflorum, commonly called spring starflower, is native to Argentina and Uruguay and features grass-like foliage and solitary star-shaped flowers on six inch tall stems. Flowers range in color from almost white to violet blue. Flowers have a mild spicy fragrance, and the foliage when bruised emits an oniony aroma.
This trout lily is ‘Pagoda Dogtooth,’ It produces up to 10 clustered, 12-inch arching stems that bear yellow, nodding flowers with reflexed petals.
And it’s a bit of a tease, but soon the tree peonies will all be blooming. Tree peonies are larger, woody relatives of the common herbaceous peony, growing up to five feet wide and tall in about 10 years. They are highly prized for their large, prolific blooms that can grow up to 10 inches in diameter.
All the hostas are also growing quickly. Hostas are a perennial favorite among gardeners. Their lush green foliage varying in leaf shape, size and texture, and their easy care requirements make them ideal for many areas. Hosta is a genus of plants commonly known as hostas, plantain lilies and occasionally by the Japanese name, giboshi. They are native to northeast Asia and include hundreds of different cultivars.
Look at the giant leaves of this hosta.
This is Heuchera. The glossy dark maroon, almost black, leaves keep their color all season – it adds a gorgeous accent to the beds.
The ferns are looking so vibrant this time of year and they grow taller every day. These graceful perennials are easy to grow, long-lived, and require very little care. They come in a variety of leaf colors, shapes, and sizes. I have many, many ferns here at the farm.
At the end of the footpath is this antique sundial. A sundial is any device that uses the sun’s altitude or azimuth to show the time. It consists of a flat plate, which is the dial, and a gnomon, which casts a shadow onto the dial.
Cotinus, also known as smoketree or smoke bush, is a genus of two species of flowering plants in the family Anacardiaceae, closely related to the sumacs. They are a great choice for massing or for hedges.
The stunning dark red-purple foliage turns scarlet in autumn and has plume-like seed clusters, which appear after the flowers and give a long-lasting, smoky haze to branch tips.
This is a view from the side entrance into the garden. Straight ahead is the tall American boxwood hedge that surrounds this area on three sides. Here, one can also see the low manicured boxwood hedges that provide the framing for the garden beds. I love this formal garden – it’s looking more lush every year.
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