I'm a bit behind the curve in writing about garden trends for 2013.  Probably because I'm not a trendy kinda person.  I'm more about quality classics; things worth investing in that I can enjoy for the long haul. So I just have two words for you today regarding "trends" because I think this idea is a culmination of current gardening passions, low-stress lifestyles, and low-water realities: edible natives.

Forget about boiled aspen bark and cattail roots. I'm talking about easily accessible berries, nuts, and foliage that you can toss in with your breakfast cereal or dinner salad, cook up into a sweet pie or jam, or decoct into a refreshing beverage. These are plants that are available at better nurseries / garden centers along Colorado's Front Range and are already being used in gardens and landscapes of all sizes.  My list focuses on woody plants — those that form the structure of the garden and are your greatest investment.

Nuts
Gambel oak, Quercus gambelii (nuts ground into a flour or meal)
Pinyon pine, Pinus edulis

Berries, best sweetened and cooked
Boulder raspberry, Rubus deliciosus
Golden currant, Ribes aureum

Chokecherry, Prunus virginiana

Sand cherry, Prunus bessei

'Pawnee Buttes' dwarf form of Prunus besseyi

Buffaloberry, Shepherdia argentea

Berries, sweetened for a lemonade-like beverage
Three-leaf sumac, Rhus triloba

Smooth sumac, Rhus glabra

Berries, fresh or dried
Serviceberry, Amelanchier utahensis is the native variety, A. canadensis is available commercially

Are there more choices? You bet. Native grape (Vitus riparia) hawthorns, thimbleberry and elderberry, not to mention all the perennials and herbs (often considered weeds) like horehound (Marrubium vulgare), mint, and chicory. These plants aren't as readily available for purchase, but might be fun to plan a foraging trip around.

Designing a landscape with edible natives means understanding the growing conditions necessary to keep the plants healthy, and combining them in ways to best show off their growth habits, foliage textures and  colors.
Have you been growing edible native plants in your yard?  I'd love to hear about it!

I've had Georgia on my mind . . .
. . . Georgia O'Keefe, that is!  Georgia O'Keefe was an important American Modernist who created lush, colorful paintings of flowers, landscapes, and found objects. Her large canvases are often an ode to just one small detail of the subject matter - which is fine for a piece of art - but doesn't work at all in the garden.  The reality is that a successful landscape is the sum of its parts.  It's easy to get caught up in the fun and excitement of creating a new landscape or garden - the colors! the textures! the fragrance! - and get distracted by these "shiny things" without enough thought or planning given to the big picture. A successful landscape depends on a logical series of steps that are important in and of themselves, and that build upon one another to create a cohesive whole.  How does one achieve that perfect whole, that successful landscape that complements your lifestyle and expresses your personal aesthetic?  The reality is that gardens take time and money.  

• Know your budget - what are you willing and able to spend now and in the future?
• Know your site - what are the opportunities and challenges presented?
• Know your lifestyle - how will you use your outdoor space?
• Know your capabilities - what are you willing and able to physically do - or pay others to do - to implement and maintain your landscape?
• Pay for the professional services necessary to make your dream an action oriented goal.  A plat survey, landscape design, soil or water testing, etc.

• Know the correct sequence of events that is necessary to build a solid and sustainable project. Don't omit or leap-frog around them.
• Know that proper preparation - often unseen in the finished project - is essential to the finished outcome.
• Pay for the best quality materials that you can afford.
• Pay for the best professional craftsmanship that you can afford.

• Know that your plantings will take time to mature and to reach their full potential.
• Know that your hardscape will weather and deteriorate with time.
• Pay to keep your plants vigorous and healthy. 
• Pay to keep your hardscape beautiful, safe and functional.

Join my fellow members of the Garden Designers' Roundtable for more discussions and insights on today's topic: Reality Check!


David Cristiani : The Desert Edge : Albuquerque, NM
Susan Morrison : Blue Planet Garden Blog : Easy Bay, CA
Andrew Keys : Garden Smackdown : Boston, MA
Susan Cohan : Miss Rumphius’ Rules : Chatham, NJ
Rebecca Sweet : Gossip In The Garden : Los Altos, CA
Christina Salwitz : Personal Garden Coach : Renton, WA
Shirley Bovshow : Eden Makers : Los Angeles, CA
Genevieve Schmidt : North Coast Gardening : Arcata, CA

A few weeks ago I wrote about American Sycamore, Platanus occidentalis, here and noted that it isn't a particularly good tree choice for this region.  Imagine my surprise when I discovered that London Plane Tree,  Platanus  x acerifolia (a cross between P. occidentalis and P. orientalis) has been planted en masse at the newly constructed Sloan's Lake jetty.  According to "Dirr's Hardy Trees and Shrubs", this is the most widely planted shade tree in cities worldwide. However, in his earlier (1977 edition) "Manual of Woody Landscape Plants" he opines that the landscape value is "limited" and that he would "hesitate to recommend this tree for anything."  My guess? This planting was designed by a landscape architect with little horticultural knowledge or understanding of the climate/growing conditions of the Denver area. But, hey, if they survive this could become a beautiful, shady promenade. 

multi-colored, peeling bark, characteristic of Platanus, is evident even on these young trees

double fruit was key to the identification of this tree (the fruit of P. occidentalis is single)

 I'll keep my fingers crossed!

Design fail!

this "lawn" is about two feet wide

Wouldn't this planting strip be so much MORE if it were filled with billowing ornamental grasses,  colorful perennials, and texture-full shrubs?


They managed to get it right on the other side of the walkway, so what went wrong here?


A wasted opportunity is now a waste of resources, too.

Best plants. Favorite plants. Go-to plants.  This month's edition of the Garden Designers' Roundtable is all about the plants!  Be sure to visit our web site for a wonderful introduction to this topic and the links to today's participants.

Most landscape designers keep a mental Rolodex of plants on call for specific sites and uses.  This file is constantly being updated and edited as new plants are introduced to the market and others fall out of favor. However, there are some plants that I know I can depend on; they are hardy, relatively trouble free, and have multiple growth (cultural) or decorative qualities to recommend them.  So, without further ado, here is my list of go-to plants:

Deciduous Trees                                         

Deciduous Shrubs

Evergreen Trees

Evergreen Shrubs

Perennial Flowers, Grasses and Groundcovers

It's peak time for garden clean up; we've certainly been going at it like mad dogs here in The Art Garden! Now, what to do with all of the waste? If you want to live a greener lifestyle, then please, please, please don't put it out for the trash guy!

There are better alternatives than sending all of this organic matter to the landfill. I compost garden trimmings and kitchen scraps on a regular basis, but my spring clean-up overwhelms my system (which I recently described here) and storage space. Therefore, I’ll go to Plan B…
...Take it to a recycling facility that will use it for their compost making business. Gather up your branches, dead perennial tops, ornamental grass clippings, etc. and head to Mountain States Wood Recyclers at 2300 W. Radcliff Ave (303-789-3356). There is a minimum fee, but it’s worth it knowing that all that stuff will be recycled and “reborn” as compost, the gardener’s best friend!

Don't live in the Denver area?  A simple "yard waste disposal" Google search may introduce you to a valuable resource in your own community.

The Red Forest, by Australian artist Konstantin Dimopoulos, is a public art piece very recently installed at the base of the Millennium Bridge at16th Street and Little Raven in Denver. I like it very much, and can't wait to observe it on a windy day (plenty of those around here!). The vibrant color adds energy to a bustling pedestrian plaza, and the large scale, grass-like forms are right at home here.
 Unfortunately, I think the site selection  is an incredibly poor match for this piece. The artwork is linear - to the extreme - and it is lost in the busy (and linear)architecture surrounding it: brickwork, riser-less stairs, window frames, etc.  It's also crammed between walls and  a stairway, denying the artist's intent that the sculpture be interactive.

I'm a big fan of public art, so it's especially disappointing to see such a near miss...  

The Red Forest was fully funded by the Riverfront Park Community Foundation.

Anemone hupehensis

"That's really what art should do, I think. Make suggestions, not absolutes.  Dealing in absolutes is propaganda. You have to leave people with enough room to make their own legitimate judgments." - -  G. Willow Wilson, author.

Girlfriends Night Out at Echter's Garden Center is a Party With a Purpose!
Join me on April 15th, 5:00-9:00pm, in this beautiful, flower-filled venue to benefit the Vera Bradley Foundation for Breast Cancer, supporting cancer research and treatment.

Local restaurants and caterers will offer wine and food samplings as you stroll through the greenhouses and enjoy live musical entertainment. Other businesses will showcase their jewelry, handbags and accessories, body care products, financial advise, travel opportunities, and more! I'll be available to answer your questions about landscape design, plant selection and care, and the latest garden trends for 2010. Door prizes and special discounts will be part of the fun.

Tickets are $15.00, with $10.00 of your ticket price going directly to the Vera Bradley Foundation. Echter's is also donating 15% of the evening's sales. Tickets are limited, so call 303-424-7979 in advance to purchase yours.

Bring your girlfriends for a special evening; you won't want to miss this Party With a Purpose!

Jim and I have been busy in the garden during the past few weeks doing the annual “Spring Clean-Up.” This included pruning some woody shrubs and trees and cutting back all of our ornamental grasses and perennial flowers. Hopefully, you have been able to take advantage of our few nice weather days this month and have been attending to some of these garden chores as well. (If not, then aim for a deadline of April 10th!) There are some woody plants that I will also cut back severely, but not for a month or so. These include: Russian sage (Perovskia), Powis Castle sage (Artemesia), butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii), leadplant, (Amorpha canescens), and St. Johnswort (Hypericum). Although Hummingbird mints (Agastache sp) are an herbaceous perennial, they should also be cut back a bit later in the spring.

Now, what to do with all of the waste? Please, please, please don't put it out for the trash guy!
There are better alternatives than sending all of this organic matter to the landfill. One option is to compost it. Check out this CSU Extension Service page for complete instructions and troubleshooting tips. I compost garden waste and kitchen scraps on a regular basis, but my spring clean-up overwhelms my system and storage space. Therefore, I’ll go to Plan B…
...Take it to a recycler that will use it for their compost making business. Gather up your branches and bags of debris and head to Mountain States Wood Recyclers at 2300 W. Radcliff Ave (303-789-3356). There is a minimum fee (just like taking it to the dump, but cheaper!), but it’s worth it knowing that all that stuff will be recycled and “reborn” as compost, the gardener’s best friend!

Soil is the solution. For too many years we have been content to give just a passing thought to the soil in our gardens. Sure, many of us have a basic grasp of the concept of soil texture--- the proportional content of sand, clay and silt in a given soil ---but too often we just assume that because we’re in Colorado we are working with clay. We also assume that a simple, standardized formula for applying organic matter is the miracle cure for every site. Not so fast.

I believe that as we embrace the concept of regional landscaping, soil will prove to be the core focus around which all else revolves. Plant selection, water management and other resource allocations will all be more tightly tuned to work harmoniously with existing site conditions. Therefore, it’s time to ramp up our knowledge and understanding of soil.

Did you know that soil is classified and given very specific, identifying names just like plants? Names like Ascalon-Otero complex, Nunn sandy clay loam and Big Blue clay loam. Did you know that there are more than 20,000 different kinds of soils and that more are being discovered every day? (My brother-in-law, a soil scientist with the NRCS, is currently mapping Humboldt County California, an area notorious for its rugged redwood forests and marijuana plantations. That’s an adventure!) This chart* shows the correlation between plant classification and soil classification:

Plant Classification= Soil Classification

Phylum= Order

Class=Suborder

Subclass= Great Group

Order= Subgroup

Family= Family

Genus= Series

Species= Phase

*adapted from The Nature and Properties of Soils, 8^th edition, Nyle C. Brady

Once you identify the specific soil in your garden you can learn more about its characteristics. Only then can you make meaningful decisions about how to best manage it. Call the CSU Cooperative Extension in your county for information on their soil testing services and dig in!

You may also be interested in this upcoming event:

The third annual Sustainable Landscaping Symposium will take place at Denver Botanic Gardens on Thursday, March 4, 2010, hosted by the Front Range Sustainable Landscaping Coalition, Denver Botanic Gardens, and the Associated Landscape Contractors of Colorado (find them in the Links section of this page). This year’s theme is Down and Dirty: The Scoop on Soil.

The keynote speaker this year is David Montgomery. Mr. Montgomery is a Macarthur Genius Grant awardee, a geomorphologist, and the author of the acclaimed book Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to hear him speak in Denver – you will find him both thought-provoking and inspiring.

Other sessions will feature:

• Panayoti Kelaidis, Senior Curator and Director of Outreach at Denver Botanic Gardens, on how our soils have shaped life along the Front Range ;
• Kelly Grummons of Timberline Gardens on living soils;
• a panel discussion including Jim Borland , Mikl Brawner, and other horticulture and urban agriculture experts from our region
• extended breaks to give you the opportunity to meet and network with each other and visit with our sponsors.

For just 3 weeks, we are offering a special ‘stimulus rate’ – a full day registration for the discounted price of $75 ($10 off this year’s regular rate). This includes a continental breakfast and buffet lunch. The discounted rate is only available now through January 31, 2010.

Please visit www.botanicgardens.org and find this event in our online calendar, or call 720-865-3580 to take advantage of this discount. The registration fee will go up to $85 on February 1. Registration after March 1 will be $100.

Note: parts of this post were originally written for/published in Colorado Green magazine and have been reprinted with permission.

Today I’m joined by twelve fellow landscape professionals from across the US to discuss the concept of regional landscaping and to celebrate the diversity of plants and design across the nation. Much has been said in the past few years about the homogenization of America; that the proliferation of large, corporate developments have driven out the small retailers, boutique restaurants, and interesting architecture that make neighborhoods, cities, and regions unique. The same can be said about our landscapes of wall-to-wall turf grass lawns and tightly manicured foundation plantings. This is changing, and regional landscaping is alive and well here in the Denver metropolitan area!

Since 1980, when Denver Water first coined the term Xeriscape, to today’s hue and cry of “sustainability,” the selection of commercially available native and adaptable plants for landscaping has exploded. Thanks to the efforts of folks like Panayoti Kelaidis of Denver Botanic Gardens, David Salman of High Country Gardens, and the Plant Select program, we now have plants chosen from regions around the world that specifically reflect our high plains biome. Extreme temperature fluctuations, high winds, low humidity, high UV exposure, and soils lacking in organic matter are all challenges to plant survival here. These new plant introductions enrich, enliven and expand our native plant palette and allow us to be truly creative in designing our outdoor environments while maintaining a conservative approach to water use. Here are a few of my favorites:

Fallugia paradoxa, Apache plume



Dalea purpureum, prairie clover



Helianthus maximiliana, Maximilian's sunflower



Agastache rupestris, Sunset hyssop

Zauschneria garrettii Orange Carpet, creeping hummingbird trumpet

With the new abundance of appropriate plant choices has come the question of “appropriate design.” Is it important to create and advocate a regionally specific design style for landscapes and gardens? No; I disagree with this concept for several reasons:

1. The idea of an entire city, or even just my own neighborhood, consisting solely of reproduction prairies would be just as aesthetically sterile as a sea of bluegrass lawns and junipers. Diversity of design creates visual complexity, richness, and interest. Just as bio-diversity creates healthier ecosystems, design diversity contributes to a better quality of life.

2. I also believe that good landscape design is site specific. Trying to produce the same kind of garden for a small, shady, tree filled, urban home site that I would create for a large, open, sunny, wind-swept suburban site is ridiculous! Plant selection as well as the way space is organized and used is always fluid, always changing from place to place.

3. Last, but certainly not least: I’m being paid by my clients to create a landscape for them, one that reflects their lifestyle and their preferences. Need to accommodate kids and pets? Check. Want to reflect your home’s mid-century modern architecture? Can do. Prefer to keep it low maintenance? No problem.

Personal, functional, beautiful, and eco-friendly are always my goals as a designer. With regionally appropriate plants as my medium, I can sculpt the gardens of my (clients') dreams.

Here are photos from three local parks that all use regionally appropriate plants yet have very distinctive design styles:

Kendrick Lake Park, in Lakewood, is the premier showcase of xeric plants in a garden like setting.

Commons Park, along the Platte River, replicates a native prairie/riparian environment. The European style entry serves as a transition from the adjacent urban neighborhood.

Centennial Gardens, also in the Platte River Parkway, is an example of very formal garden created with xeric plants and regional hardscape materials. Although not typical for this region, formal design principles can often be used successfully in small spaces or with spare, contemporary architecture.

The following photos are private home sites I designed that incorporate regionally appropriate plants that are site and owner specific:

The new home of an avid gardener on a small urban site. A wide spectrum of plants grouped to reflect similar water needs.

New planting for a low maintenance, live-in landscape.

Lots of shade, drainage issues, and a love of veggies guided the design for this garden.

Thanks for visiting me here at The Art Garden, and I hope you’ll enjoy more of this virtual tour celebrating regional diversity. Click on the links below to continue the journey. Happy gardening!

PS The photo at the top of the post? That’s my backyard!

Susan Cohan/Susan Cohan Gardens (Chatham, NJ) at Miss Rumphius’ Rules

Michelle Derviss/Michelle Derviss landscape Design (Novato, CA) at Garden Porn

Tara Dillard (Stone Mountain, GA) at Landscape Design Decorating Styling

Dan Eskelson/Clearwater Landscapes (Priest River, ID) at Clearwater Landscapes Garden Journal

Scott Hokunson/Blue Heron Landscape Design (Granby, CT) at Blue Heron Landscapes

Susan L. Morrison (San Francisco Bay Area) at Blue Planet Garden Blog

Pam Penick/Penick Landscape Design (Austin, TX) at Digging

Laura Schaub/Schaub Designs Fine Gardens (San Jose, CA) at Interleafings

Susan Schlenger/Susan Schlenger Landscape Design (Charlottesville, VA) at Landscape Design Advice

Genevieve Schmidt (Arcata, CA) at North Coast Gardening

Ivette Soler/(Los Angeles, CA) at The Germinatrix

Rebecca Sweet/Harmony in the Garden (San Francisco, CA) at Gossip in the Garden