Margaret's Eden

In September, 2005, I had the great fortune of touring Margaret Roach's garden in upstate New York. Margaret, who is chief editorial director of Martha Stewart Living, likes her parcel of land on the wilder side of things.The story contains some of my photos of her garden. Enjoy! ~ Andrew Ritchie

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Margaret Roach, editorial director of Martha Stewart Living, flutters around a leafy border along her driveway, plucking a few yellow leaves from the grateful plants she nurtures on her two-acre property in Copake Falls, New York.

They are the last preparations on a day when her hilly parcel of land will be happily trodden upon and inspected by a few curious guests on this bright September day. At least once a year she opens her garden gate to visitors, most of whom will be fellow members of the American Garden Conservancy, a non-profit organization founded in 1989 to help preserve and showcase some of America’s finest private grounds.

The sleek black turtleneck and the grey wool trousers she is wearing whisper of a profession enjoyed in nearby Manhattan as she greets me at the gate with a smile and a beckoning hand. She turns and quickly flits up the driveway, her shoes crunching on the sandy gravel that leads us up to her 1880’s farmhouse.

As we walk, we slowly enter a new world of considered horticultural opulence, a garden with ferocious confidence that must surely have been sown by fearless, tireless hands.

“Welcome, welcome,” she says as she urges me to sign her guest book, which rests on a small wooden table under a canopy of cedars. Muttering to herself, she disappears into the house for a moment and returns wearing her spectacles, carrying a few flyers about the Garden Conservancy. She is disarmingly nervous and shy as she hands me the flyers and her smile is one of excitement.

A few other visitors are already meandering through the grounds and a photo shoot is taking place by a birdbath that is brimming with mosses, rock ferns and tiny alien-like plants that wiggle in a breeze in sun-dappled shade.

I become ever more seduced by the verdant tendrils of this mountainside retreat that seem poised to envelope the place and all who tread here. I am so taken by my emerald surroundings that I don’t notice Margaret slip back into the house through the narrow screen door, leaving me to explore the wonderland on my own. Freedom never felt so green.

Margaret's garden is a monument to inexact luxuriance. Nowhere were there fussy flower beds or pristine lawns – no elaborate swimming pool, no fancy fountains.

Instead, the garden is anchored in unusual specimens of sturdy foliage, fruit-bearing trees, swaying grasses and hidden treasures with flirtatious colloquial charm. Margaret, who has worked in the garden department at Martha Stewart Living since 1993, has always been philosophical about gardening. Her book, A Way to Garden, was written in just three weeks but it resonates with an astute brand of gardening wisdom most of us have to wait an entire lifetime to achieve.

Humorous and touching anecdotes are woven seamlessly with photographs by Kit Latham and blended with practical gardening advice, perfectly linking the garden to the curves of a life that is fully lived.

“No wonder so much gardening is done on one’s knees,” she once wrote, “given how humbling it is to try to make sense of what is going on outdoors, or to try to get plants born somewhere else to grow as fast as the local weeds. But that is what I like – that very powerlessness.”

This ‘powerlessness’ finds itself in the grassy paths that snake through chunky gardens loaded with September offerings: delicate columbines, gargantuan Petasite leaves that hang like parasols over shade-loving groundcovers. The berry bushes and fruit trees are alive with bees and some amphibian growls at me from a dark, fern-laden patch of ground. Two ponds serve as laboratories for water plants, such as the parrot-feather plant (an aquatic perennial) and water lilies.

Small sheds on the lot are heavy with flowering vines, further masked by potted geraniums and broad cannas leaves that spring from the natural stone terraces and steps.

A meadow at the back of the property grows wild with tall, whiskery grasses, like little bluestem, goldenrod and yarrow, while a rustic vegetable garden yields seasonal treats: squash, tomatoes and onion.

The garden is throbbing with green, punctuated here and there with colorful, exotic finds, such as an espaliered Asian pear tree near the back porch and what looks like a giant pink hibiscus growing defiantly next to a bank of cedars and pine along the front fence. There are inconspicuous Buddha statues hiding among the foliage wearing little necklaces. Peculiar but stunning water features, such as an old sink used as a quiet fountain, surprise the wanderer.

Across the road, and in marked contrast to her farm lot, is her guest house. An Asian-inspired gray pavilion under a ceiling of white pines sits amid combed white gravel, majestic ferns and clay urns that gurgle with circulating water, giving the guest lot a Zen appeal. The serenity of this place would make any guest feel welcome.

Margaret makes a few more appearances throughout the afternoon, talking to the goldfish in her pond and peeking in on Jack, the stray farm cat who took up residence in one of her gardening sheds several years ago and decided he never wanted to leave. As I inhale the fresh air of these Catskill Mountains and feel happily lost in a world made entirely of leaves, I understand why.

Using her fingernails, she snips a few desiccated leaves from a vine on her back porch, while scents of a delicious lunch waft through the screen of her open kitchen window.She retreats indoors with a wry commentary for wayward listeners: “What was I doing? Oh yes, probably about to burn down the house with my cooking!”“Hush now,” I think to myself. “Martha will never know.”

The American Garden Conservancy: www.gardenconservancy.org

A field at the back of the property contains carefully-selected wild grasses.
Container plantings dot the garden: these two host a vareity of aquatic species.

A garden shed is nearly obscured by vine and leaf and fillagree.

A view of the vegetable garden.

The main house.

A birdbath planted with various mosses and succulents.

Business Assets

September 2004 marked what could have been the true end of Martha Stewart as the ‘face’ of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. In a knee-jerk reaction to the legal woes of America's most recognized authority on the domestic arts, Sharon Patrick, the CEO at the time, led the effort to remove Martha from the pages of the flagship magazine that is the cornerstone of the company. Quite literally, the effort leaned toward removing Martha completely. All that would remain would be her name. With the redesigned magazine masthead it was apparent that the “Martha” in Martha Stewart Living was shrinking. Readers had to wonder, “Would she disappear totally?”

Margaret Roach, Editor-in Chief of MSL, wrote in her September 2004 Editor’s letter: “…This September is one of change for me and my colleagues at Martha Stewart Living, and change, though necessary and often a sign of new growth, isn’t always comfortable. It would probably be no surprise to hear my confession that I miss Martha’s monthly column at the front of the magazine this month, as I’m certain you do, too…” Margaret goes on to comment about Martha not literally being “in” the pages of Martha Stewart Living magazine saying, “… Martha’s inspiration and genius are the heartbeat of the magazine.” Can a company that was built on a personality survive without the personality? Sharon Patrick thought it not only could survive, but it had to survive without Martha. Martha was no longer a valuable asset. She had become a huge liability to the future success of the company. In short, get rid of her.

Two short months later, on November 11, 2004, MSLO issued a press release announcing the resignation of Sharon Patrick and the installation of Susan Lyne as the new President and CEO of the company. For a company that was on the verge of ruin through intense media battering and plummeting stock prices the business world was reeling at the news. This leadership change symbolized more instability. It symbolized a company that was floundering in the sea of bad press of its name, face and image. The public quickly learned that Susan was going to get to work, attempting to diligently restore MSLO and, happily, would be bringing Martha back as well.

In less than a month, December 2004, the first big announcement: Martha was returning to television with a new daytime show and the development of “The Apprentice: Martha Stewart.” This was a huge announcement. It showed that the recent trend of “de-Martha-izing” the company was no longer the direction the company was taking. Martha was going to come back as she promised when she spoke on the steps of the federal court: “I’ll be back. I will be back.”
In the months that followed it was all good news for the company and for Martha. New business ventures, a highly successful daily show, and even the mediocre success of The Apprentice have brought Martha back into the everyday lives of those that trusted and relied on her in the past. Would this have been possible if Sharon Patrick were still CEO? Not likely.

While Patrick and others at the company had long said they were NOT distancing themselves from Martha, the person, it was obvious that was exactly the plan. Many of the regular magazine features (Martha’s Calendar, the “Remembering” column) were no longer present in the magazine. The new masthead of Martha Stewart Living showed a less prominent inclusion of Martha’s name. Everyday Food, which at the time was the newest title from MSLO, saw her name removed completely. Pictures of Martha throughout the pages of the magazines disappeared as well.Susan Lyne recognized the company could not live a healthy life without Martha being part of it. In a February 2005 interview with the New York Times, Susan Lyne commented that the company’s greatest asset is its library of video footage, recipes, articles and other content. She said, “The core brand is Martha Stewart, the brand. It is a corporate brand that we can use to launch a television show, a new product line, DVD’s, books, all kinds of things.”

MSLO’s vast library, with literally thousands of hours of video, more often than not features the woman behind the brand, Martha. The idea of repackaging the content into various opportunities could not be done with the exclusion of Martha. Suzanna Walters, chairwoman of the department of gender studies at Indiana University summed it up quite well, “There is no Martha Stewart empire without Martha Stewart.” With an August 2005 Gallup poll showing a 52% favorable rating for Martha Stewart, she was actually more popular than she was six years ago before there was a hint of legal trouble. With that type of rating (which our country’s president can only dream of) the company would be foolish to attempt to pull Martha from its visible ranks.Without Susan Lyne and Chairman of the Board Charles Koppelman, it is my guess that MSLO would still be floundering. Their keen business sense, knowing when to partner the brand with others and when not to, have led Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia on a course for great success. All of the new ventures certainly include its Founder.

For Sharon Patrick, of course, everyone wishes her well. She was a dynamic force as Martha moved to take control of her own company and her own name. Patrick helped orchestrate the company going public in 1999 and helped assume full ownership of the magazine by maneuvering to buy it back from Time Warner in 1997. Her assistance and her business savvy were certainly essential tools in the creation of MSLO. Despite her contributions, I can’t help but be thankful that she “stepped down for professional and personal reasons.” I’m not convinced that we would have as much Martha if she was still at the helm of the company.