Spring 2005: A Season in the Garden
· Escape Garden Design, Aspen, Colorado
Spring up here is not a date on the calendar so much as a negotiation with the mountain.
Patience is the rule. The last hard frost can land in early to mid June up here, so the tender things wait while the cold-tolerant ones go in the ground.
Cleanup is the work of the season, though it is less about tidying and more about reading what the winter did: what came through, what did not. We cut back last year's growth and freshen the compost.
The waterfalls come back online first. There is a morning every spring when we open the valves, clear the basins, and listen for the sound to even out, and it is one of the better days of the year.
We also spent time this season on the everyday craft of the garden. The single most useful date for a mountain gardener is the last frost, and up here it is later than newcomers expect. In the valley floor around Carbondale and Basalt you can usually plant tender annuals in late May, but in Aspen and the higher benches we wait until early to mid June. A frost can still sneak in after that, so we keep frost cloth within reach all month.
Go easy on the beds while they are wet with snowmelt, since working saturated soil compacts it for the season, and firm any plants the freeze and thaw has heaved.
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.
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.
More when the season changes. As ever, ask if you want a hand with your own piece of the valley.