Fall 2003: A Season in the Garden
· Escape Garden Design, Aspen, Colorado
Fall is the short, brilliant one, two weeks of aspen gold and then a hard night that ends it.
It is also the best planting season of the year. The soil is still warm, the air is cool, and trees and divided perennials get a quiet head start before the ground locks up. A tree planted in fall is ahead of one planted next spring.
Spring bulbs go in now, tucked where they will be seen from a window come March, which is when they will be needed most.
The first hard freeze usually lands in mid September and ends the growing season almost overnight, so the last harvest and the last tender color come in on a deadline.
Aside from the weather, here is what was on our minds in the garden this season. The old habit was to cut everything to the ground in fall and rake the beds bare. We have mostly stopped doing that, and the garden is better for it. Standing seed heads feed finches and juncos through the winter and catch snow in a way that looks intentional. Hollow stems shelter native bees and other beneficial insects until spring.
Drain and winterize anything that holds water before the first hard freeze, and do not let a warm spell lull you into waiting too long.
The land around us is the best teacher there is, and the gardens we like best borrow from the hillsides more than from any catalog.
Everything in this valley runs on the same short calendar, and the gardens that thrive are the ones designed around it rather than against it.
Our soil is mostly alkaline clay, the air is thin and dry, and the sun is strong, so the plants that last are the ones that have made peace with all three.
We take on only a handful of gardens each year, which is the only way to give a place like this the attention it asks for.
More than anything, a garden up here rewards patience: it takes a season or two longer to settle than people expect, then looks like it was always there.
We design, build, and maintain our own gardens, so we live with the results for years and learn from them.
We will see you next season.