Gardens of Trade Secrets
The 15th annual Trade Secrets takes place this Saturday and Sunday and it is not too late to get your tickets and be a part of this exciting annual event.
Trade Secrets is like an industry trade show open to the public. Shop for unique plants and garden antiques elbow-to-elbow with world-renowned designers and industry insiders. It is one of Martha Stewart’s favorite events.
The show is Saturday at Lion Rock Farm in Sharon, CT. On Sunday the garden tour features four gardens. To whet your appetite Coleen MacMillan photographed the owners in some of the most extraordinary gardens in the vicinity.
Bunny Williams and John Rosselli
In Falls Village - This garden is where it all began. Bunny Williams is a co-founder of Trade Secrets and her continuing passion drives the event to benefit Women’s Support Services. Bunny opened her garden to the public for the first Trade Secrets and it remains a highlight of the tour.
The property has it all; tulips and bulbs in the formal garden, John’s vegetable garden, a Greek temple-style pool house, a woodland pond surrounded by primrose and wildflowers and an old apple orchard in bloom. In the new ‘birdhouse village’ doves and fowl fluttering about.
Michael Trapp
In West Cornwall - Pass through a gate and step down into the tiered and architecturally perfect garden of this renowned designer and architect. Travel slender paths through cobbled spaces staged with Corinthian columns, stones set as dining tables, Roman fountains and towering topiaries.There are wisteria-covered stairs, espaliered apple trees, a grotto beside a lap pool. One can look down at the Housatonic River.
Rockwood Farm
In Cornwall - Bruce and Debbie Bennett, professional landscapers and owners of Kent Garden and Design, created their property to reflect the “mutual love we have for New England history, casual ambiance, and personal comfort.” Designed around a Deerfield Colonial home and a 200-year-old Dutch barn, the property features an antique cemetery fence supporting espaliered fruit trees, and a fieldstone terrace with planting pockets for perennials. Fieldstone pathways meander through camassia, tulips, May apple, Solomon’s seal, as well as a carpet of other precocious performers in spring.
Twin Maples
In Salisbury - Sumptuous and thoughtfully designed, “there’s a little of everything at Twin Maples.” The formal garden has tulips and other spring plantings amongst willow edging. A promenade features beds of dianthus overlooking a pool framed in crabapples. There is a woodland walk with all manner of wildflowers, a primitive labyrinth, an orchard or you can wander a shad allée under-planted with white daffodils and snowdrops. There is also a greenhouse featuring a collection of begonias and tropicals.
Photos © Colleen MacMillan 2015
Other Links you may enjoy:
Behind Trade Secrets <a href=" http://www.berkshirestyle.com/features/Behind_Trade_Secrets_2014.html" target="_new">www.berkshirestyle.com
Berkshire Buzz 2014 <a href=" http://www.berkshirestyle.com/features/Trade_Secrets_Buzz.html" target="_new">www.berkshirestyle.com