If there’s anyone who knows her way around a home, inside and out, it’s Martha Stewart . The lifestyle icon has spent decades teaching her devoted audience how to cook, decorate, and entertain via books, magazines, and television shows. Her latest endeavor is a tome dedicated to the art of gardening and floral arrangement, titled Martha’s Flowers: A Practical Guide to Growing, Gathering, and Enjoying ( $45, Clarkson Potter ), by Stewart herself and Kevin Sharkey, executive director of design at Martha Stewart Living.
“As I write this, I am in the process of planning my next garden,” remarks Stewart in the introduction of the book. “It will be my seventh garden, and I’ve been collecting images in my head, tear sheets in folders, and names of varieties of trees, shrubs, plants, and flowers that I think will be appropriate in this new and exciting landscape.”
Stewart learned the art of gardening as a child, under the watchful eyes of her father in his carefully groomed backyard plots. Her very first solo project was a modest garden in front of her Berkshires home. But soon, a front yard wasn’t large enough for Stewart, and she expanded to two acres for her second garden, 45 for her fourth, and an astonishing 150 acres for her seventh and newest garden, located at her Cantitoe Farm property in Katonah, New York. “There is no lack of flowers at the farm for arranging and enjoying, and no shortage of incredible opportunities to plant more of everything,” writes Stewart.
The book is Stewart’s 90th title, but it is her first solely dedicated to flowers. It’s smartly divided by season, with individual sections for the flowers that best grow at each time of year that combine Stewart’s personal stories with her best tips on planting, caring for, gathering, and arranging the blooms. Here, we take a peek inside Martha’s Flowers.
Stewart has 3,000 daffodils of 20 varieties in this naturalized plot at Cantitoe Farm. She advises choosing an area with good drainage and some sunlight for such a display.
At her Lily Pond Lane home in East Hampton, pictured here, Stewart surrounded herself with antique roses—she transplanted some 350 bushes of these roses to Cantitoe Farm. In northern climates, Stewart recommends protecting your roses in winter by keeping them frozen. That way, they will not suffer from the “heaving” of the soil from repeated freezes and thaws.
The climbing flower clematis adorns a pergola along Cantitoe Farm’s carriage path. While they’re not often used as cut flowers in arrangements, Stewart likes to place them in vases or bowls.
Stewart notes that lilies have about two months of bloom, which gives her many stems to create giant floral arrangements, like the one shown here outside the summer house at Cantitoe Farm. She plants her bulbs in the autumn so they can take hold before winter—and she advises planting bulbs as soon as you receive them.
Gathered flowers are driven down a lane at Cantitoe Farm.
All images: Reprinted from Martha’s Flowers. Copyright © 2017 by Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc. / Published by Clarkson Potter/Publishers, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC.
