GardenBook

  If I lived in Portland and was in the market for garden design services  the living portfolio that is the private garden of designer Darcy Daniels would be a strong argument in favor of her firm Bloomtown Gardens . Ironically it wasn't the blooms that were the big draw for me in this garden. It was Darcys' skill at combining foliage shapes, textures and color in both shade and sun.I found it particularly inspiring and wished I had had more time to take it all in. I still have my photos to refer back to, and those of others as well including several on the Bloomtown website . Since I am embarking on yet another renovation  of my front garden in the next few months I've been paying close attention to details of gardens I've liked this year, especially those that feature plants that I can grow here in mine.  Streetside approach. I wish I'd taken more photos of the robustly planted hellstrip.  A sidewalk strollers view. The hellstrips in this Portland n...

 My borrowed view is unfortunately the featureless rear stucco walls of the two homes that back up to mine. Mary and Larry Scripter can claim fields, farms and prairies unfolding west to the Rocky Mountains. The peaks are the ultimate  geographic focal point as the backdrop to their Lauren Springer/Scott Ogden designed meadow. The Scripters are native to the prairies of the Midwest-Larry grew up in Kansas and Mary in South Dakota. They began the process of creating this Niwot Colorado  garden in 2011, and in 2012 completed it-planting a mind-boggling 1800 plants in three weeks. The result is a dynamic living theater where birds and insects thrive  and the rhythm of life unfurls with the seasons. The gently triangular shape of the mown fields outside the border of the cultivated garden  points the eye west to the mountains.   Bloggers headed out to the meadow , but there seemed to be an enthusiastic mosquito population to greet us-th...

Coming home from Fling with a desire to rip out the whole garden and start over is a common though impractical sentiment. Common to me I should add.  Different climate zone, different plants, different soils, different plot size, but still the raw hunger to possess an Eden of sorts where one can grow anything, anytime and have a garden like the one we just saw today or yesterday or the day before persists. My own garden never looks as good when I come home as it did before I ventured forth to visit those of others. Still, after 30years of gardening where I live,  I have learned which envelopes I can push, how much energy I'm willing to ante up to create a faux climate for plants that won't thrive in mine, and how to let go of  the gardens I will never have.  My garden is in USDA 9 , Sunset zone 15 . Denver is in USDA 5b , Sunset zone 2A-defined as 'Warmer Summer Intermountain'.  Because Denver is in the west, and experiences only an average of 15 inches of rai...