cool gardens in a hot climate™
July 21, 2019Colorful stucco walls! Upcycled metal garden art! Octopus planters! Agaves (atop caged columns) and alliums and poppies! Amusing vignettes! As soon as we stepped off the bus at Denver Garden Bloggers Fling (June 2019), I knew this garden … Read More
All 80+ bloggers had lunch under a pavilion at Denver Botanic Gardens on Day 3 of the Denver Garden Bloggers Fling (June 2019), and then we were set loose for about an hour. One hour is not enough time to see DBG, of course. One day hardly is. Happily, this being a garden open to the public, I’d already enjoyed a lengthy visit before the Fling officially kicked off. This is part 1 of my tour, combining photos from both excursions.… Read More
After 24 years as a radio talk show host on gardening, Jim Borland may have retired, but his Denver garden continues to broadcast loud and clear about how to garden in semi-arid eastern Colorado (15 inches of annual precipitation) without using any supplemental water. His gardening inspiration? Mother Nature. “She perfected the notion of growing a vast number of species in un-amended soils with no mulch or supplemental irrigation,” he says.… Read More
Rob Proctor has been showing Coloradans how to garden for decades. A former director of horticulture at Denver Botanic Gardens and the author of 17 gardening books, he also appears weekly on Denver’s channel 9 news for a gardening segment called “Proctor’s Garden.” When we arrived at his personal garden on Day 3 of the Denver Garden Bloggers Fling (June 2019), I found Rob and Fling planner Judy Seaborn on the front porch, seemingly rapt over a game of marbles, a surprising but charming sight.… Read More
At the home of Scott Deemer in Niwot, Colorado, the garden is a true marriage of nature and art. … Read More
It’s hard to compete with a grand view of the Rocky Mountains. And why would you? TLC Gardens instead created space-defining, bird-sheltering, pollinator-friendly beds around the Lafayette, Colorado, home of Jim and Laura Strouse, which I toured on Day 2 of the Denver Garden Bloggers Fling (June 2019). … Read More
As our tour bus of 40+ bloggers arrived at the Louisville, Colorado, home of Jean Morgan, one visitor reached down to pick up a stray piece of trash in Jean’s garden. Only the crumpled Hershey bar wrapper wasn’t trash. It’s part of a cheeky vignette — Happily Dying of Chocolate, complete with chocolate daisies (Berlandiera lyrata) — tucked in her streetside garden.… Read More
Colorado gardeners are crazy for crevice gardens, and no wonder. When the Rocky Mountains peek over your back fence, creating a miniature mountain range in your yard makes perfect sense. Alpine plants that thrive at high altitude and require excellent drainage love these rocky niches. … Read More
At Denver Garden Bloggers Fling, I toured The Gardens on Spring Creek in Fort Collins. This time I explored the reopened rock garden and the brand-new Undaunted Garden.… Read More