Winter 2003-2004: A Season in the Garden
· Escape Garden Design, Aspen, Colorado
By the time the deep cold arrives, the garden has put away its color and shown us its bones, which is its own kind of beauty.
Out in the garden, the evergreens carry the whole composition now, and a heavy wet snowfall is the one thing worth bundling up for, to brush the weight off upright branches before it splits them.
Snow is the headline. A deep, steady snowpack is the best thing that can happen to a garden up here, insulating roots and watering the soil slowly as it melts. A thin, open winter is harder on plants than any cold snap.
The birds keep the place alive in winter, working the seed heads we left standing and sheltering in the spruce, which is reason enough to leave the fall cleanup undone.
A seasonal tip worth passing along. With a season this short, starting some plants indoors in late winter is how you actually get a harvest or a full flush of bloom. A sunny window works for a few things, but a simple shop light a few inches above the seedlings does far better and avoids leggy, weak starts. Tomatoes, peppers, and many perennials want six to eight weeks indoors before they go out after the last frost.
If the season turns dry and snowless, which happens more than people expect, water the evergreens and young trees deeply on a warm day, then put the hose away before it freezes.
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.