Henry Martinka & Sons

About Henry Martinka & Sons

Come October the valley along Route 7A turns over, and the long ridge of Glastenbury goes rust and gold behind Shaftsbury's stone walls and dooryard apple trees. Henry Martinka & Sons closes the year out on those properties — final mowings, leaves off the lawns and out of the beds, everything cut down and tidy before the ground hardens. In spring they open it back up: winter sand swept away, edges trimmed, the first straight lines of the year laid into the grass. A hill-town lawn is never quite flat and never quite square, which is precisely what makes a well-kept one worth looking at. The work is unglamorous and it shows from the road, and that is the whole idea.