Best Bouquet Ever?

While we wait for the rains to abate and the return of sunshine and warmth to our gardens, we can scheme and dream about what we'll be cooking up with our harvest. How about a fabulous edible bouquet like this one which was the featured centerpiece at a recent graduation party for my lovely niece, Alex.  It was crafted by Kelle Lambert of Lincoln, Nebraska, and featured a huge array of fresh veggies including turnips, beets, fennel and leeks, to name a few. Sharpen your knives and start practicing now!

Play Time

Yesterday, while Jim and I were walking along the Clear Creek Trail here in Wheat Ridge, he spied this old, fallen tree trunk. He commented that it was just the thing that he would have targeted for his childhood adventures. No kidding! What a perfect object to climb on and under, add a swinging rope to, cover with tarps to use as a fort, etc, etc. I wish I could have this reproduced and shipped to all the kids I know.

Although Jim grew up in a rural area with lots of spaces like this one, I had the run of an overgrown greenbelt near my home in the "big city" of Colorado Springs. My grandmother's overgrown gardens and orchard in small town southwestern Colorado were also a great source of adventure for me.

Did you have a favorite play area or object when you were a child?
What are your landscape goals when it comes to providing fun and / or education for the young ones in your family?

Let's Chat!

I can't wait for tulips to start blooming, can you?

This weekend I'm hosting a booth at the Spring Gardening Echxpo at Echter's Garden Center.  Stop by and say hello — I'll be there to answer your questions about landscape design and gardening.  On Sunday afternoon at 1:00 I'll be giving a presentation on great perennials for multi-season interest.

It's fun and it's free. Follow the links above for all the details.

Hope to see you there!

Garden Designers' Roundtable: Bold

Canna spp.

Has your garden become the only place where you feel safe to express yourself, to vent, to let go of social norms and do a bit of visual screaming?

I hear you.

Use your voice to create something powerful and beautiful — not just noise.  Create bold notes in the landscape to develop focal points that can lead the eye through the space and unify it, too.

Two simple ideas to employ when you want to be bold:  big and bright.

A big object is a bold presence that demands our attention, whether it's the overall plant size (relative to it's surroundings), flowers, foliage, or an in-organic item that's been introduced to the landscape:

Hibiscus spp.

plume grass, Erianthus ravennae

giant silver mullein, Verbascum bombyciferum

an eight foot tall bronze sculpture by Kevin Robb

A bright object catches the eye and is easy to see in a world of green.  Think red, yellow, and white — the colors most easily discerned by the human eye, even in low light:

Bold red tulips in Spring demand that we "Wake up, already!" and leave Winter blah behind.

Acid yellow flowers and foliage is are not to be ignored. Design by DBG.

white glows even on a cloudy day

This brilliant blue hue, unusual in nature, demands our attention. Design by Carol Hines.

Big AND bright?  Powerful stuff:

purple smoke tree, Cotinus coggygria and Achillea at Denver Botanic Gardens

Canna and kale

Hesperalo parviflora. at Kendrick Lakes. Design by Greg Foreman

Cranbe cordifolia

big swaths of bright perennial flowers in the trial gardens at Colorado State University

holiday light extravaganza at Denver Botanic Gardens

Dare to be bold — you may find a voice that you never knew you had.

For more inspiration on the bold landscape, click through the links below:
Garden Designers' Roundtable

Lesley Hegarty & Robert Webber : Hegarty Webber Partnership : Bristol, UK

Douglas Owens-Pike : Energyscapes : Minneapolis, MN

Scott Hokunson : Blue Heron Landscapes : Granby, CT

Jenny Peterson : J Petersen Garden Design : Austin, TX

David Cristiani : It’s A Dry Heat : Albuquerque, NM 

Nature's Gifts

A surprise discovery in the garden the other day:

I thought the flower had been left there for me to discover by Jim (it's something he would do).  But no, it was more likely an offering to the squirrel gods.

sculpture by J. Mark Burton

Regardless, it's a reminder to keep one's eyes open for random treasures in the garden.

Happy Monday!

When More is More . . . and Free Garden Tour Tickets!

Garden tour season is upon us, and one of my perennial favorites is the Enchanted Gardens Tour of Northwest Denver, a benefit for The Conflict Center. This tour always presents a wide array of gardens — from simple, zen-like spaces, to urban homestead farms, to lush flower fantasies. The landscapes are mostly created by dedicated homeowners, not professional designers, like me. I find them to be a wealth of inspiration, especially when I come across a true gem, like the lavishly lush and art-filled garden of Holly Fliniau.

I'm a minimalist at heart; too much stuff and clutter makes me feel overstimulated and / or claustrophobic.  But Holly, who gardens her property with her mom, Sandy Fliniau, manages to combine just the right proportion of plants to hardscape to cool stuff to keep me wanting more.

Holly and Sandy have participated in the Enchanted Gardens Tour of Northwest Denver at least twice (and graciously allowed me to take and share these photos). The gardens selected for this year's tour is top secret, but wouldn't you love to discover a wondrous landscape like this one?

The Conflict Center has generously given me a pair of tickets to give away here on the blog — a $30.00 value!  Please leave a comment on this post by midnight on Friday, May 31st, and I'll announce a winner on Saturday, June 1st.

The 2013 Enchanted Gardens Tour of Northwest Denver is Saturday, June 8th, 9am-4pm, Rain or Shine!

PS Holly and Sandy were recently featured in a nice article by Jane Shellenberger in the April issue of Colorado Gardener.