In keeping with one of my favorite sayings, "learn something new every day," I always enjoy seeing photos from others taken during their vacations.
Not long ago, my executive assistant, Dorian Arrich, traveled to the Turks and Caicos Islands located in the Lucayan Archipelago of the the Atlantic Ocean and northern West Indies. The Turks and Caicos are best known for their beautiful beaches, turquoise colored waters, and interesting marine life. During Dorian's brief stay with her boyfriend, the two enjoyed kayak tours through the mangroves, learned about the area's animals and plants, visited various fruit plantations, and feasted on delicious island dishes - every day was filled with activity, learning, and fun.
Here are some of Dorian's photos, enjoy.
Dorian sits on the Board of Directors for The New York Celebrity Assistants Organization and won the trip as a raffle prize. It included a three night stay at the exclusive COMO Parrot Cay Hotel. Here she is just minutes from landing. The turquoise waters off the Turks and Caicos, or TCI, are a shade truly unique to the islands.
The flag of the TCI displays their sovereign state, The United Kingdom.
After a 15-minute drive from the airport, they arrived at COMO’s welcome center for refreshments before departing on a scenic 35-minute boat ride.
During this time of year, the Turks and Caicos weather is generally sunny with temperatures in the 80s. It was just a short distance to the dock where the Captain was preparing the boat for departure.
Upon arrival at the COMO Hotel, Dorian was greeted by their butler, Rikardus, from Indonesia. He’s been working at the hotel for more than 10 years. Because there are no passenger cars allowed on Parrot Cay, Rikardus also provided most of the transportation to and from activities.
The trip fell over Dorian’s birthday weekend, so COMO welcomed her with tasty treats and champagne to start the celebration.
Dorian enjoyed a complimentary lunch with Dr. Ed Butler, Director of Marine Science & Sustainability at COMO Hotel. Before joining COMO Hotels and Resorts in 2022, Dr. Ed led a UK government-funded grant focused on improving sustainability and management of small-scale fisheries in the Turks and Caicos. His research centered on the social-ecological system sciences — the study of linked systems between people and nature — with the aim of uncovering solutions for conservation issues.
During one excursion, Dr. Ed talked about the oceanic white tip shark, which is now critically endangered. Earlier this year, Dr. Ed and his team established the Parrot Cay Conservation Trust, which partnered with US researchers to tag sharks with satellite transmitters and learn more about their behaviors and travels.
Dorian and her boyfriend, Tommy, also went on a guided kayak tour through the mangroves. Mangroves are tropical and subtropical trees and shrubs that thrive in coastal intertidal zones with low-oxygen soil and slow-moving water.
These are leaves of the red mangrove, Rhizophora mangle. These leaves, which turn yellow and eventually drop off, accumulate excess salt from the mangrove tree, effectively shedding the salt to maintain the overall health of the plant.
Christian and Rohan were the tour guides. They pointed out an array of fascinating creatures and vibrant plant life.
Christian held a jelly fish upside down avoiding the stinging tentacles. Never touch a jellyfish!
This is a sea anemone. Sea anemones are marine invertebrates, related to corals and jellyfish, known for their flower-like appearance. Their tentacles also sting and are used for both defense and prey capture.
Christian shows a conch in its shell. Conch shells are primarily found in warm, shallow tropical waters. They inhabit areas with sandy bottoms and seagrass beds where they feed on algae and other plant matter.
The sand in Turks and Caicos is known for its brilliant white, soft texture. It is primarily composed of naturally broken-down coral and seashells.
Here’s another shell Dorian found during a beach walk – ever have a face off with a shell?
COMO treated Dorian to a lovely birthday sunset dinner.
… complete with cake. Here she is making her birthday wish.
Every morning, Dorian and Tommy enjoyed fresh island-made juices – a great way to start the day.
The hotel also offers numerous daily wellness activities and holistic wellness therapies.
Parrot Cay is a private island with a history dating back to the early 18th century. The original name is reported to be Pirate Cay. Legend tells it that pirate Ann Bonny took refuge here in the 1720s when Jamaican authorities dealt with her Captain, “Calico Jack Rackham”.
The tamarind tree, Tamarindus indica, is a tropical evergreen tree introduced to the Caribbean from Africa centuries ago. Locally, it’s sometimes called a “dilly”. The tree is known for its edible fruit, which has a sweet and sour taste, and is used in various dishes and drinks.
Rikardus took Dorian and Tommy to the on-site coconut plantation. The chef made delicious coconut sorbet from fruits just picked that day. One can email the hotel at [email protected] and request to adopt a coconut tree and then have one’s name and year displayed on a sign.
Next on the itinerary – a banana plantation. The hotel’s banana baked cakes are all made using these bananas.
The time went quickly. Here’s Rikardus sending the two back to Provo for their flight home. A great getaway – now back to work. For more information on how you can help save the oceanic white tip shark, reach out to [email protected].
The gardens are constantly changing - anyone who comes to visit always sees something new.
Most of the private garden tours at my farm are conducted in the spring and early summer - I host a select few every year. Yesterday, I welcomed a lovely group of 25 fellow members from the Bedford Garden Club right here in Bedford, New York. I walked them through my gardens and allées, showed them my pool and orchard, introduced them to some of my animals, and served delicious refreshments on my terrace parterre.
Here are a few photos, enjoy.
The day started overcast with thunderous showers, but the weather did clear up enough for our afternoon Cantitoe Corners garden tour. Here is my terrace just outside my Winter House kitchen.
My housekeeper, Enma Sandoval, picked fresh flowers from the gardens earlier in the morning.
I like to vary garden tour routes. This tour began down at my stable courtyard. This view is looking east down my Boxwood Allée. Do you know what the big pot is in the middle? It’s a giant iron sugar kettle. Sugar kettles were used on 19th century Louisiana plantations for the production of sugar. Sugar cane was placed in the large, spherical vessels and cooked down to make syrup. Because they could withstand such high heat, they were also used for cooking. I have several others around the farm and love to use them for fire pits.
I walked the group through the vegetable garden. They admired the growing brassicas. Everything is doing so well.
Right now, the shelling peas, snap peas and edible pea pods are perfect for picking.
And what a difference a few days make – some of the broccoli heads are double the size after last week. We’ve had a lot of rain, sun, and heat – it’s all done well for my gardens.
The cabbages are also looking so beautiful. Here is one of my Savoy cabbages – so perfectly shaped. Savoy cabbage is a versatile cabbage, similar to green cabbage but a bit milder and sweeter, with leaves that are looser and more ruffled.
I walked the group past what I call the “ancient” apple trees. These are original to the farm and continue to produce an abundance of fruit every year.
Next was my sunken Summer House garden. This garden was just a blank dirt space when I created it. The focal point was the one original giant ginkgo tree in the distance. Over time, I planted American and English boxwood, smaller ginkgo trees, smoke bushes, Siberian weeping pea shrubs, peonies, hostas, lilies, alliums, etc.
All my potted tropical plants are now displayed all around the farm. These agaves are lined up on the Summer House terrace.
I always serve refreshments during my tours. It’s a nice break for my guests and a good time to answer any questions they may have about my farm.
For this gathering, I planned a number of small bites – all prepared by Chef Molly Wenk who has helped me with a number of other events and cooking shoots over the years. These are cheese straws. Perhaps you’ve made some – the recipe is in my 100th book, MARTHA: THE COOKBOOK.
I also served another personal favorite – potatoes with a dollop of crème fraîche and topped with caviar.
And, I served deviled eggs – also a recipe from MARTHA: THE COOKBOOK. And of course, eggs from my wonderful and productive hens.
We also ate bits of this Stilton cheese. Stilton is an English blue cheese, which has Penicillium roqueforti added to create the characteristic smell and taste. And believe me, this cheese is utterly fantastic with my Brown-Butter Shortbread Cookies, also in MARTHA: THE COOKBOOK.
It was so nice to meet everyone in the group and talk about our favorite topic, gardening.
After our refreshments, we walked down the carriage road. On the upright granite posts of my long and winding pergola, I planted clematis in a palette of blue-flowering cultivars. Every year they give a vivid floral display.
But here are the first blooms of the next pergola transformation. Soon this pergola garden will be filled with gorgeous orange tiger lilies.
After the pergola – the pool. Here, the group learned about the staddle stones at the far end, which were originally used in the 17th and 18th centuries as support bases for granaries, hayricks, and game larders. They typically looked like giant stone mushrooms, but mine are square – a more rare and unique version.
And finally a stroll down the Boxwood Allée before leaving. It was a fun tour with a very fun, enthusiastic, and curious group of dedicated gardeners. Happy first weekend of summer.
Summer officially starts today and here at my farm, it's expected to be sunny with temperatures in the 80s.
It amazes me how quickly everything grows from day to day. All the trees are so lush with foliage, some showing off pretty blooms. I've planted thousands of trees over the years - displayed in allées, in groves, planted closely together in my living maze, or in rows several feet apart in my orchard. Some of the trees are large and majestic, some feature beautifully shaped leaves, and some have pendulous branches cascading to the ground. It makes me so happy to see them thrive through the seasons.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
Here on my 153-acre farm, I love how all the trees look in the landscape and how they change through the seasons. Most importantly, we need trees for the environment – they help combat climate change, provide habitat and food for birds and other animals, and release oxygen for us to live.
Every chance I get, I tour the property to see how things are growing. It always delights me to see how these trees look from a distance in all the different layers.
Smoke bushes, Cotinus, have superlative color, appealing form, and look excellent in the gardens.
The plume-like seed clusters, which appear after the flowers, give a long-lasting, smoky haze to the branch tips.
This one is a royal purple smoke bush with its stunning dark red-purple foliage that turns scarlet in autumn.
The Japanese Stewartia is native to Japan, Korea, and the southeastern United States. It is a slow-growing, all-season performer that shows off green leaves in spring, white flowers in summer, and colorful foliage in autumn. I love stewartias – after all, my name is “Stewart.”
The flowers of a Stewartia are cup-shaped, camellia-like white blossoms that grow up to two-and-a-half inches in diameter with showy orange-yellow anthers.
One of the most appealing features is the Stewartia’s bark. It is multi-colored and peels away in strips.
Along the carriage road near my back hayfield, I have several Cornus kousa trees – small deciduous trees in the flowering plant family Cornaceae. Common names include kousa, kousa dogwood, Chinese dogwood, Korean dogwood, and Japanese dogwood. It bears these white flowers in spring and summer and edible berries with soft pulp that is sweet with a similar flavor to a ripe persimmon in the fall.
Just outside my kitchen on the terrace parterre is a tall weeping katsura. Cercidiphyllum japonicum f. pendulum has pendulous branches that fan out from the crown and sweep the ground. Tiny red flowers emerge in late March or early April before the leaves.
Nearby is this beautiful weeping copper beech, Fagus sylvatica ‘Purpurea Pendular’, an irregular spreading tree with long, weeping branches that reach the ground. I have several of these trees on the property.
Outside my main greenhouse, I have Camperdown Elms, which slowly develop broad, flat heads and wide crowns with weeping branch habits. I also have beautiful Camperdown Elm specimens outside my Winter House.
From a distance, everyone notices the stunning weeping willows. Here is one grove of weeping willows at the edge of my pinetum. The golden hue looks so pretty against the landscape.
Some trees feature interesting leaf shapes. This is the leaf of a ginkgo tree. The leaves are unusually fan-shaped, up to three inches long, with a petiole that is also up to three inches long. This shape and the elongated petiole cause the foliage to flutter in the slightest breeze. Ginkgo biloba, commonly known as ginkgo or gingko, and also known as the maidenhair tree, is the only living species in the division Ginkgophyta. It is found in fossils dating back 270-million years.
This is the leaf of the tulip tree. Our tulip trees are the tallest at the farm – these trees can grow more than 120-feet. In the late spring bright yellowish-green and orange flowers bloom. They resemble tulips in shape. The silhouette of the tree’s leaves is also tulip-shaped. Together, these features give the tulip tree its name. The tulip tree is also known as tulip poplar, yellow poplar, whitewood, and tulip magnolia. Some of these names can be deceiving, as the tree is not a true poplar. Instead, it belongs to the magnolia family.
Eastern redbud leaves are alternate, simple, broadly heart-shaped and three to five inches high and wide.
The Pin Oak Allée is the first allée guests see when entering my farm. These trees are tall and impressive. Pin oaks, Quercus palustris, are popular landscape trees because they are fast-growing and easy to maintain.
From this side of my long and winding pergola, one can see the towering bald cypress, Taxodium distichum – a deciduous conifer. Though it’s native to swampy areas, the bald cypress is also able to withstand dry, sunny weather and is hardy in USDA climate zones 5 through 10. I also planted these when I took over my farm.
This is the newer of two linden allées here at Cantitoe. This one is planted between the paddocks and runs from the pergola to the Boxwood Allée and then all the way down to the chicken coops. It, too, has grown so beautifully over the years, in part because I pay so much attention to the soil and keep it rich and filled with nutrients for all the plantings.
And it won’t be long before we’re enjoying the fruits from my orchard. My orchard surrounds three sides of my pool. I planted more than 200-fruit trees here, many of which started as bare-root cuttings. And now they are growing beautifully. I hope you can enjoy the trees where you live.
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