5 Beautiful Things
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This new feature is designed to inspire you to look at the world around you, to take note of the season at hand and to capture it – in memory or on film – for posterity. I will be choosing five photos each week for Beekman1802.com with this aim in mind. We’re calling the feature, The Five Most Beautiful Things In The World This Week
Margaret’s Eden
When a friend told me about the Open Days Program sponsored by the Garden Conservancy I was intrigued enough to pack an overnight bag and drive across the U.S. border to the Catskills in upstate New York to experience a garden of dreams, firsthand. My destination was the garden of Margaret Roach, who was then the chief editorial director of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.
Each year, the Garden Conservancy organizes regional garden tours, spanning the entire growing season, giving the public an opportunity to tour and observe some of America’s finest private gardens. The program was devised primarily as an educational tool, urging visitors to learn more about garden design, horticulture and the greater importance of environmental stewardship as land owners.
Margaret’s garden had long been a source of inspiration for me. I had seen numerous examples of it in the pages of Martha Stewart Living magazine and had read her book, A Way To Garden, from cover to cover several years before. Margaret’s gardening philosophy is one I connect with very strongly:
Let nature be natural, but edit what doesn’t work
Respect the growing conditions of your climate but challenge them enough to yield some exciting surprises
Allow yourself to be humbled by the outdoors and its ever-changing personalities
Always remember why you garden – the reasons should always be personal and rewarding.
When I first met Margaret, she was disarmingly nervous as visitor after visitor strolled up her laneway to tour her beautiful, hillside landscape. She gave me a few tips on where to begin my journey and off I went, stepping into a garden I had only ever seen in two-dimensional form, like a child stepping into a storybook.
The garden was lush and flourishing on this warm September day and I was so captivated by the beauty that spilled out over huge, unusual foliage, across a prairie field hissing in the autumn wind and tickling the tips of gorgeous garden specimens I had never laid eyes on before. For nearly two hours I wandered and wondered, happily realizing that a little dream was coming true. Seeing a place you have only dreamt about is a magical experience. I took many photographs of the garden but realize now that the gardener understands how best to capture its beauty. Below are some of Margaret’s photographs of her home in Copake Falls, where she now lives fulltime, working on her award-winning blog A Way To Garden and writing new books.
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All photos by Margaret Roach
1. The front of the house in the fall
2. Margaret in the garden
3. Apple blossoms
4. On the windowsill
5. The back of the house
Andrew Ritchie is the creator of Martha Moments, a blog devoted Martha-Stewart related content and her community of supporters. He lives and works in Toronto, Canada, and has been a longtime friend of Brent & Josh, Beekman 1802 and Sharon Springs. Each week he’ll scour the world (wide web) to find the 5 most beautiful things to inspire you. Follow Andrew on Pinterest.
