Garden Tour Series: The Tour Continues!

After breakfast, satiated and beside ourselves with joy and disbelief, the tour continued. We headed towards the west side of Martha’s Winter House where she showed us a collection of new French faux-bois planters that had just been delivered from Tropics, one of Martha's favourite Los Angeles nurseries. Many of them were in need of repair, which she said she would have professionally taken care of. They were very large and made of cement. When asked if she was going to take them to Skylands, which is known for its showcase of Martha’s faux-bois collection, she said she wanted them at the farm. Martha also mentioned that she wanted to make this small, private section of the garden an enclosed space attached to the house, like a conservatory, surrounded in glass and with a glass ceiling. We all thought that was a spectacular idea!

The tour continued down the lane towards the very large peony garden. It was marvellous seeing this in person. We were not permitted to enter the garden itself but we gazed at it over the boxwood hedges. Many of the peonies had passed their prime but a new batch was beginning to bloom. I loved seeing the vastness of this space. Martha did mention she wanted to thin it out a little but found it almost impossible to do so because all of the roots of the individual plants had become so entwined with one another: almost impossible to separate and extract without causing lots of damage to the plant. She was working on a solution! (Many of us volunteered to come to the farm in July to help her with the extraction process! She said she'd think about it...)

Here is Dennis at the entrance to the peony garden.

And here I am!

We then continued to the sunken garden behind the Summer House, which is one of my favourite spaces on the property, mainly because of its secret location and privacy, as well as the very large 100-year-old ginkgo tree at the back of the garden, which commands so much attention. Martha did a wonderful job designing this space to have a somewhat formal air but it’s still a lovely place to walk and contemplate.

This is a side view of the Summer House. There was a small path to the right of the house that leads to the sunken garden.

The details on the exterior of the house are subtle but striking.

Ryan at the back entrance to the Summer House speaking to the group about this garden's genesis.

This early photograph from nearly ten years ago shows how the garden was conceived.

The garden is very symmetrical with layered plantings and an enormous ginkgo tree at the end of the garden. More gingko trees flank the pathway.

The group headed onward. Jeff, Kristina and Justin saunter along to the next locale.

We then headed to Martha's new maze! It is in its nascent phase at the moment and has a lot of growing to do. (We could see over most of the hedges, but the effect was still evident!)

At the midpoint of the maze is this large eagle statue.

Here is Jocelyn, Martha's personal blogger, standing next to it.

The eagle is striking: a well recognized symbol of America.

After the maze, we all headed down towards the stables.

I captured this photo of Brian and Trellis outside the stable entrance: two online friends I had known for nearly two decades and finally got to meet!

All of Martha's horses (beautiful black Friesians) were so good-natured and so curious to meet us.

Bernie was very excited to show me the stable kitchen: one of our favourite spaces on the farm. We both love its scale and the interesting use of materials.

Here's Jennifer posing by the Aga oven and the wall-mounted cake and jelly molds. 

Here are Jeremy, Bernie, Dennis, Nathan and John in the stable kitchen.

Carey was thrilled to discover the original wall-mounted rack that Martha once used as a prototype for a product she developed for Martha by Mail. This original was once on the set of her 1990s television show, hence Carey's enthusiastic reaction!

Jennifer Zimmerman snapped this photo of the soapstone sink in the stable bathroom.

After the stables, we continued down the lane towards the chicken coop and the area of the farm where Martha keeps her specimens of rare peafowl and pheasants. Her peacocks were very lively on this day!

One of them gave us quite the show!

Jeremy Lambertson leaned in to take a closeup.

He loved the attention!

After visiting with the birds, Martha and Ryan led us to the vegetable garden.

Everything was coming up beautifully!

Martha is able to feed herself, her family and many of her friends using the bounty from this garden. We were all enamored of its scale and productivity. (Martha even allowed us to sample some of the sugar-snap peas that were growing prolifically on one of the trellises).

It was getting close to lunch by this point, so we headed down along the roadway towards the pool area where lunch was being prepared for us. Along the way, many of us remarked on the climbing hydrangeas that blanketed many of the trunks of the large trees to striking effect! Some members of our group had not heard of climbing hydrangeas and were very taken by their size and vigorous growth.

Here is Bernie standing next to one. This image really demonstrates the scale of both the tree and the vine.

Hayden and Ryan pose next to a climbing hydrangea.

Jordan Munn captured this shady spot of the laneway on our way to lunch.

As a Canadian, I was very grateful to finally get to see the old antique cedar-post paddock fencing that Martha had imported from Ontario, Canada - my homeland! Old fences like these are everywhere in evidence in the rural regions of the province. 

A few hours had passed by this point and it was soon time for lunch. We headed up towards the pool for our next Martha Moment!

(Photos by Andrew Ritchie, Bernie Wong, Jennifer Butler-Zimmerman, Carey Lowe, Jeremy Lambertson, Dennis Landon, Matt Lara, Jocelyn Santos, Rachel Butler and Jordan Munn).