The Tea Garden

Sit down in the tea garden in the afternoon and the temperature drops a few degrees. This is a small, shaded corner of The Sanctuary Estate built for one thing: sitting still. At its center is an antique cast-iron table and chairs brought from India, and around them a planting and a canopy chosen to keep the spot cool and quiet.

What is the tea garden?

It is a shaded seating area, arranged around that Indian table and set apart for rest. The cast-iron pieces carry the detailed motifs of their age; painted white, they stand out against the planting. Ringing them are Cordyline plants — Ti plants — grown for their deep, colorful leaves.

What grows over it?

A Royal Poinciana spreads its wide, umbrella-like canopy over the whole corner, which is what makes the shade. In April and May the tree flowers, and the branches fill with red and orange bloom. A Chinese hat vine climbs up through it, threading its own orange blossoms into the canopy, so the color arrives on two levels at once.

The step at the entrance

Underfoot, the garden is laid with clay tiles, warm in tone and grounding. The detail worth pausing over sits at the entrance: a half-moon step carved from red sandstone, in the manner of the temple thresholds of Sri Lanka. It marks the passage into the garden — the point where the planting meets the hand of the maker.

At a glance

• The centerpiece: an antique cast-iron table and chairs from India
• The planting: Cordyline (Ti) plants around the seating
• The canopy: a Royal Poinciana, flowering red and orange in April and May
• Climbing through it: a Chinese hat vine with orange blossoms
• Underfoot: clay tiles, with a carved half-moon red sandstone step at the entrance

Every part of it was chosen and placed by hand. That is what the garden is for — a small, deliberate place to sit in the shade and let the afternoon pass.