Spring 2007: A Season in the Garden
· Escape Garden Design, Aspen, Colorado
Spring is the season of false starts, warm days chased by hard frosts, until one morning it is simply real.
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.
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.
The first bulbs push through the last of the snow, then the columbine and the early natives, and the whole valley turns green almost overnight once it commits.
Aside from the weather, here is what was on our minds in the garden this season. If we could get every client to do one thing, it would be to mulch, properly and every year. A two to three inch layer of mulch holds soil moisture, moderates temperature, suppresses weeds, and feeds the soil as it breaks down. In a dry climate the water savings alone justify it, easily cutting how often beds need irrigation.
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.
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.
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.
That is the season from where we stand. We will check back when the next one turns.