Fall 2009: A Season in the Garden
· Escape Garden Design, Aspen, Colorado
Autumn arrives fast in the high country, and if you blink you miss the best of it, so we try not to blink.
Spring bulbs go in now, tucked where they will be seen from a window come March, which is when they will be needed most.
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.
This is when we put the gardens to bed: cutting back what needs it, leaving seed heads and grasses for the birds and for winter interest, blowing out the irrigation, and shutting down the water features before a freeze can crack a line.
We also spent time this season on the everyday craft of the garden. A garden that reveals everything from the front door is a garden you stop looking at after a week. We break larger spaces into rooms, using planting, grade, and stone to hide one area from the next so there is always a reason to walk on. A turn in the path, a gap in a hedge, a glimpse of water through the trees: these are what make a garden feel larger than it is.
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.