Margaret Roach: From Martha Stewart to garden bliss

In 2008, Margaret Roach dumped her city life and cushy job as editorial director at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia -- and the luxury spa vacations and fancy Fifth Avenue shopping sprees that went with it -- for a ramshackle farmhouse and garden in upstate New York. In her memoir, "And I Shall Have Some Peace There: Trading in the Fast Lane for My Own Dirt Road" (Grand Central, $14.99 paper), the former Newsday fashion and garden editor details her search for identity beyond mroach@marthastewart.com and her struggles with snakes, floods and solitude, ultimately building an existence that blooms beyond her wildest expectations. In a recent telephone call, Roach discussed her popular blog, the importance of staring out the window and what it means to be home.

You gave up a pretty posh life to follow your dream of moving to the country. Do you ever miss the finer things?

I had such a longing and was so drained, but now you can entertain me just by sitting me in a window. I can see out three primary windows from my writing desk -- east, west and south -- and it is such a treat. The luxury of that mesmerizing view satisfies me so much more, somehow. I sleep better, I eat better, I am happier during the day, I don't think about going shopping.

So what do you do instead of shop?

Once I started sitting here in Nowheresville, it became very obvious to me that I would have to find another way to think of myself. My deepest attribute was gardening. So I went back to the thing that came before Martha and at Martha -- I was her first gardening editor. I thought, "I'll start from there." I named my blog A Way to Garden, after a book I wrote in 1998, and it caught on.

You started gardening in your 20s when taking care of your mother, who had early-onset Alzheimer's. In the book, gardening heals you. How?

Weeding is so meditative, not self-involved, and it relaxes me. Gardening is my spiritual practice and I find comfort and solace in the rhythm of the seasons. Each spring, summer and fall are never quite the same as the previous ones, but plants come up, there is green growth, then flowers, and so on. There is a system and rhythm. Even if you completely lose the beat yourself, just going outside is a reminder that the beat goes on and is much bigger than you.

You'd meticulously planned your exit from MSL at 53 years old. Then the financial crisis put a dent in your savings. Bad timing?

Yes, all my great planning -- what a joke! But there was a silver lining. Things were shifting for everybody, not just me. I haven't felt as alone with the financial fear as I would have because the move put me in the midst of a community where this is on people's minds. I also learned about bartering, the old-fashioned neighborly way of doing things in a rural economy.

You went from a bustling office in the middle of Manhattan to living by yourself where instead of people you interact with frogs, birds and your cat Jack. Yet you never seem lonely.

I was solitary but not lonely. After a short period of uncertainty, I gained my balance and started doing stuff -- reading books, devouring DVDs of shows I'd never had the time to watch, working on the garden website, which gave me a real community. There are certainly more things I want to do than I could fit into the remainder of my days. I think if you have that perspective on life, you're never going to be lonely.

What finally gave you the strength to make the break with your old life?

Ultimately, it is an equation. Staring out the window, being my own boss, never hearing myself say I don't have time for something, and seeing my garden every day of the year until I die -- and I could have died a week after I moved -- had more value than the paycheck and security. I just couldn't bear hearing myself complain anymore. This house is not spectacular; it's a funny little place, but it's my place -- my home. I wasn't home and it was too costly.