On May 14th, as grey skies turned sunny over LionRock Farm in Sharon, the popular Trade Secrets Rare Plant and Garden Antique Sale drew 1,650 visitors from far and near.

Early Saturday morning, as the fog lifted, Martha Stewart arrived in Sharon with her crew and two trucks. She has attended the Annual Trade Secrets Rare Plant and Garden Antique Sale for the last 16 years. She says she wouldn’t miss it for anything.

Trade Secrets, better known as the “northeast’s garden event of the year”,  is a spectacular two-day event that brings loads of gardeners to the Litchfield Hills every spring. On May 14 and 15 of this year, Elaine LaRoche once again hosted the show at her 600-acre farm, a beautiful spot in the hills of Sharon.

Founded by Bunny Williams, Trade Secrets is the signature fundraiser for WSS (Women’s Support Services) of the Northwest Corner of Connecticut. The WSS mission is to create a community free of domestic violence and abuse through intervention, prevention and education by offering free, confidential, client-centered services focused on safety, support advocacy and community outreach.

On Saturday morning serious gardeners headed for the rare plant specimens brought in by specialized growers and nurseries, while others browsed the garden antiques, statuary, and wrought iron fencing. Outdoor furniture came in many different forms, and there were plenty of pots, bird baths, and watering cans to choose from. Early buying started at 8 am, which included breakfast. Regular buying started at 10 am.

The Trade Secrets Sale features growers, dealers, and artisans from all over the Northeast. There were more than 60 vendors and garden antiques dealers displaying their items under tents at LionRock farm this year. Along with our favorite local artisans and shop/curators, such as Pergola, Guy Wolff Pottery, Michael Trapp, and RT Facts, there were also quite a few new vendors joining the show: The Sugarplum Antiques from Wilmot, NH; Eastern Plants from Bath, ME; Ashfield Tools from Ashfield, MA; and Churchill Building from Lakeville, who launched his new furniture line at the event.

Antiques collectors were excited to check out the sterling silver pitchers, vintage wrought iron tables and chairs, vintage conveyer belts, and old gardening tools. The sun came out, the skies cleared and the beauty of the Litchfield Hills was the perfect setting for yet another great year at Trade Secrets.

On Saturday, there was a special book signing to celebrate three new gardening books: “Outstanding American Gardens; A Celebration – 25 Years of the Garden Conservancy” edited by Page Dickey; “At Home in the Garden” by Carolyne Roehm; and “The Art of Gardening: Design Inspiration and Innovative Planting Techniques” from Chanticleer. Three other books were also represented at the book signing event: “The Rooftop Growing Guide” by Annie Novak; “The Plant Lovers Guide to Magnolias” by Andrew Bunting; and “Garden Revolution” by Thomas Christopher. All of the authors were there and the book signing tent had a steady flow of fans and gardening book lovers streaming in and out.

On Sunday, the Trade Secrets Garden Tour included five superb Litchfield Connecticut gardens. The rarely visited private garden of Michael Trapp, designer and antiques dealer,  is as striking as his house and barn are. Around the house, there’s a flavor of Italianate formality, with tall columnar evergreens marshaled in straight lines, yew and thuja, not your typical New England farmyard planting. The doors of his living room and bedroom open onto a stone terrace, with 17th c. columns supporting a grape arbor, and a picturesque view of hayfields beyond. Geometric pools of water offer reflection and a series of ‘Donald Wyman’ crabs, underplanted with variegated liriope and ‘Tide Hill’ box, lend an air of grace to the house entrance.

Carolyne Roehm’s Weatherstone was built in 1765 and is listed in the Historic Registry. The house is surrounded by formal gardens consisting of boxwood topiaries and sargentina crabapples, silver lindens with a hornbeam allee on the south side and a rose garden surrounded by boxwood borders on the west façade.

The orchard is under planted with thousands of naturalizing daffodils. Red brick paths outline a cutting garden with a potager: hundreds of hybrid  roses bloom next to the perennial and peony borders. The pool is decorated with blue and white ornamental Chinese pots planted with boxwood and are bordered by a raised bed of tulips and crabapple trees.

Judy and Patrick Murphy opened Old Farm Nursery in 1988 on land that had been a general farm for generations. The extensive plantings include a large kitchen and herb garden, several perennial borders, fruit tree allee, a formal white garden, woodland shade garden with Japanese maple collection, a secret garden/swimming pool and a new river garden, about five acres in all.

Bunny Williams and John Rosselli’s garden around their Falls Village home is sublime. Not only are there tulips and bulbs galore carpeting the formal garden, but John’s vegetable and cutting garden was gearing up. The mock-coliseum poolhouse (featured in House & Garden) appears at the end of the old orchard with heirloom apple trees blossoming. Visitors strolled around the primrose and wildflower-dense woodland pond (featured in Garden Design) and its charms were popping out all over. Promenading through the arbors, one could see not only the wildflowers, but the wildlife as well – doves and various other fowl fluttering around. Plus, on the property’s final frontier, winged houseguests feathered their nests in the new “birdhouse village.”

Twin Maples features a trove of brilliant ideas wrought on a magnificent scale. Sumptuous and thoughtfully designed, there’s a little of everything at Twin Maples. Visitors took the promenade past intensely fragrant dianthus-filled beds overlooking a pool framed in crabapples. On the woodland walk filled with potentilla, primulas, foamflowers, woodland peonies, jeffersonia, maidenhair ferns, blue cohosh, corydalis, ginger, and Iris cristata—the scene was spectacular. A living moon gate framed the Litchfield Hills swathed in Hydrangea petiolaris. Everyone enjoyed the primitive labyrinth, the orchard, and the shad allée underplanted with white daffodils and snowdrops. This was a rare opportunity to visit a noteworthy private garden that rivals some of this country’s grandest public arboreta.

Tickets for the tours sold out very quickly. The tours were self-guided and each garden had a healthy share of visitors until 4 in the afternoon.

It was a day to remember, for a good cause, leaving us with plenty to think about as our gardens get underway with the plants and objects we brought home. Only one more year to wait until the next Trade Secrets!