Summer 2004: A Season in the Garden
· Escape Garden Design, Aspen, Colorado
The long days of summer are when the gardens finally do the thing they were drawn and built to do.
The perennial beds peak in July, and steady deadheading pushes a second flush of color into the cooler nights of late August. The native grasses come into their own as the season ages.
Water is the constant concern. The features run on a closed loop, recirculating the same water, and the planting is grouped so the irrigation only runs where it is needed. In a dry climate, a beautiful garden and a frugal one are usually the same garden.
It is also fire season, never far from anyone's mind in this valley, so we keep the ground near the house lean and green and stay aware of how dry the hills get.
A seasonal tip worth passing along. A garden that feeds pollinators is busier, healthier, and frankly more fun to sit in, and it takes only a little planning. Aim for something in bloom from the first pulsatilla in April to the last aster in October, so there is always a food source. Natives do the most work: penstemon, bee balm, blanket flower, native asters, and milkweed for the monarchs that pass through.
Water early in the morning, before the midday sun and wind carry half of it off, and let the monsoon do the rest when it shows up.
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.
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.
That is the season from where we stand. We will check back when the next one turns.