Summer 2005: A Season in the Garden
· Escape Garden Design, Aspen, Colorado
Summer in the high country is short and generous, and we spend it mostly watching people use the gardens we planned all winter.
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.
The afternoon monsoon storms arrive most days from mid July, brief and loud, and a smart garden leans on them, pulling back the irrigation after a real soaking instead of running the timer.
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.
We also spent time this season on the everyday craft of the garden. A sunny slope is a gift and a problem: great drainage and full sun, but prone to drying out and washing during a hard rain. We plant slopes with deep-rooted, xeric species that hold soil: yarrow, penstemon, creeping veronica, sulphur flower, and native grasses. Groundcovers like creeping thyme and pussytoes knit the surface together while the bigger plants anchor below.
Stake tall perennials early against the afternoon storms, which bring hail and hard wind along with the welcome rain.
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.