September 8, 2026
Summer in Maine 2026
Every visit to Skylands, my home in Seal Harbor, Maine, is filled with memorable activities and quality time spent with family and friends.
This summer, in addition to enjoying countless delicious meals, I spent my days sailing, swimming, entertaining, enjoying local fairs, walking along local beaches, visiting with friends, exploring nearby gardens, shopping, and simply savoring time at my beloved home. The weather was beautiful, and the flowers in my gardens were especially vibrant this year. I hope you saw my photos on my Instagram page @marthastewart48.
Here are more images, enjoy.
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- Whenever I arrive at Skylands, one of the first things I do is tour the gardens and terraces to see all the wonderful growth since my last visit. Here is a view looking at the house from my large “cracked ice” terrace. So much has grown – the container plants and the kiwi vines, which are original to the home, just thrive here.
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- I always have agaves up at Skylands. Agaves are exotic, deer-resistant, drought-tolerant, and make wonderful container plants. Here are two on the ledge. I planted them last spring, when I came up to Maine for my traditional terrace planting weekend. In the trough below – young sago palms.
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- The lilies bloomed everywhere at Skylands this summer. The tall, colorful flowers filled my large terrace. this corner is just outside my living room window.
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- This philodendron is just under the deck off of one of my bedrooms and outside the door to my living room below. Split leaf philodendron plants are loved for their striking, large, glossy foliage and unique splits or holes, which give them a bold, exotic look.
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- Below the ledge and lying beneath the Western Terrace is the lady – La Riviere by Aristide Maillol. The original terms of the commission were intended to honor Henri Barbusse, noted author and pacifist. Maillol initially conceived the figure as a woman who had been stabbed in the back, falling at the viewer’s feet. However, when funds proved to be insufficient to complete the memorial, Maillol re-conceived the figure as a more timeless theme, the personification of a river. Here, she is surrounded by ferns, tree peonies, Japanese maples, blueberry bushes, and Lady’s Mantle.
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- We planted so many different kinds of lilies in my cutting garden. Lilium is a genus of herbaceous flowering plants growing from bulbs and all with large, prominent flowers. The flowers are often fragrant, and come in a wide range of colors.
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- If you love lilies, don’t forget, they have heavily pollinated stamens, which stain, so before bringing them indoors, it’s important to gently pull the anthers with a tissue, or pinch them off with your fingers.
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- These lily arrangements are the first one sees upon entering Skylands. They’re on this long table in the foyer – so bright and inviting.
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- Here is a lovely lily arrangement in my Living Room – all flowers are grown right in my garden. On the wall behind it are bird prints by artist and avid ornithologist, Carrol Sargent Tyson, Jr. Tyson was best known for his coastal landscapes, portraits and natural history paintings of birds. He summered on Mount Desert Island in Maine and was an expert on the island’s bird species. I have a complete set of his famous bird lithographs.
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- Wildlife love to walk through the woods at Skylands. This wild turkey was seen strolling between the trees on a warm, but quiet afternoon.
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- This part of the woodland is filled with beautiful moss. Mosses are small, non-vascular flowerless plants that typically form dense green clumps or mats, often in damp or shady locations.
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- I planted moss along the pine needle footpaths in this area of the woodland.
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- Here is another beautiful image of the woodland filled with moss. Sometimes, I use moss in my potted plants, but after the season os over, my gardeners return it to the woods, so it can continue to thrive in nature.
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- On one day, I visited the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden. The garden was designed by the legendary landscape architect, Beatrix Farrand, for John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and his wife Abby Aldrich Rockefeller in the 1920s.
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- The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden is rare and blends English garden tradition with Asian-inspired art and design.
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- This is a Nemesia hybrid, ‘Sunsatia Blood Orange.’ It shows fiery red-orange flowers all season and can grow more than a foot tall and wide at maturity.
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- These frogs did not seem to mind me getting up close to capture their photo.
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- If you’re in the area, you can still make it – The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden will be open through September 13th.
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- I visited the exhibit of the late Emilie Benes Brzezinski in a new personal museum. Emilie is the mother of talk show host, Mika Brzezinski Scarborough. Emilie is best known for her towering sculptures of twisted chainsaw carved tree trunks. Here i am with Mika inside one of these beautiful creations.
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- Here I am with business executive Doug Newhouse aboard his boat, the Spirit 52 “Yonder.”
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- He took us on a wonderful ride – did you see my Instagram post @Marthastewart48? Here I am as the boat “heels to the ‘DCK’ edge” at 10 knots! The deck edge is the outermost point of the hull’s edge.
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- Back home, this is my front circle driveway in front of Skylands. The pink gravel lights up the carriage road.
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- And here is my handsome Emperor Han – always “on watch.”
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- On this day, my grandchildren and their friends enjoyed a guided sea kayak tour to the Bar Harbor Oyster Farm. Here are the kayaks ready to go out. The experience was made possible through an auction hosted by Friends of Acadia Annual Benefit and hosted by The Bar Harbor Oyster Company.
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- The group paddled through Acadia’s coastal waters and learned about sustainable farming, local ecology, and shellfish.
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- And of course, a trip to Maine is not complete without a ride see the seals that congregate and rest between feedings here at Bunker Ledge – a small island in the mouth of Seal Harbor.
This story originally appeared on Martha Stewart Blog
