Commentor Cope shared Florida garden photos back in 20220 and 2022, but (as the poet tells us) The road goes ever on:
Disclaimer: I am no gardener. Growing stuff (hot peppers excepted) is not my jam. That said, my wife is the opposite. With her mobility somewhat limited, I have tried to help make her horticultural visions real.
In January of 2023, we moved into a house in Grand Junction, Colorado after 33 years of living in Florida (hi, Betty, hope you’re having a good day). This allowed us to plant things that my wife loves that we could not grow in Florida. Last fall, she purchased around 130 bulbs and we got them planted as well as starter peony, lilac, forsythia, lavender, pepper plants (jalapeño and Fresno) and a small blue spruce pine tree.
These pictures show some of our efforts as well as a couple of off-site examples of the local flora. Enjoy.
1) At top: Forsythia and pretty flowers and a young blue spruce were added to the front of the house. Rock is an abundant design element when one lives in a river valley in the desert. We have irrigation water that comes on in April and is turned off in the Fall, determined by the arrival of freezing weather. Most of our plants are watered by this irrigation water in two separate zones that are controlled by a Rainbird timer.
2) We planted bulbs along the side of the garage as well. This was after we replaced the 2” river rock that originally made up our side yard with artificial grass. We paid a few (4) thousand dollars to have the rocks removed and the artificial grass installed so the dog, Jesse, could poop and pee comfortably. The tilted skyline is the red rock cliffs of The Colorado National Monument. The small white things are solar powered lights.
3) I frequently take Jesse to a dog park (where she much prefers to pee and poop, go figure). These bushes caught my eye as we were leaving one afternoon. Those more knowledgeable than I are encouraged to identify them.
4) My wife’s flat out number one favorite flower is the peony. We planted four of them under a window of the house, wondering last fall if they would get enough light. Spoiler alert: they did.
5) The house has this lovely little Chinese Pear Tree (someone told me what it was) in the side yard. It provides great shade in the hot summer and looks pretty in the Spring but drops hard little berries in the Fall that I have to rake/sweep/vacuum up from the fake grass. The abandoned nest above the bird feeder has not found any new tenants.
6) Jesse’s other favorite place to relieve herself is at the home of one of my sisters. We go there often so she can play with my sister’s dog. This picture of her huge bramble of a rose bush only includes about 25% of it. The bramble houses numerous birds (mostly house finches as far as I can tell) and rabbits.
7) Another of my wife’s favs that would not grow in the Sunshine State is lilacs. This is the smaller of the two we planted. It gives a closer look at the artificial grass.
8) These red snapdragons are volunteers that found a home among the peonies. We had a large pot of snapdragons that I killed by not properly protecting over the winter. Maybe these are offspring of the departed, come to haunt me?
9) This is a closer view of the forsythia and plants seen in the first picture. These plants plus the spruce are on a branch of the irrigation system that isn’t controlled by the timer and I have to manually turn their water on and off using the valve in the round valve box in the foreground. Our neighbor’s lawn is real grass but doesn’t look so good in the winter. Our artificial grass looks great all year round.
10) The summer will fly by, I know. The colors will go away, the leaves will fall, the desert light will change in ways both subtle and harsh and I will be forced to rake/sweep/vacuum up the little hard knots of Chinese Pear Tree droppings. All of this is good. Of the many, many things I prefer about living out here over the relentless green of Florida is the changing.
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What’s going on in your garden(s), this week?
raven
Ozark Mountain Daredevils – Colorado song
sab
Air conditioning at new house doesn’t work. Apparently the old owner was a do-it-yourselfer so rhe coolant leaked out. We aren’t moving until the appliances arrive. But I am going to let some early morning air in to cool the place off a bit. Thankful that we are having weather where that is still possible.
The baby meyer lemon trees have already been moved.
OzarkHillbilly
I’ll bet you enjoy the drier air too.
sab
That really is a lovely little garden. I love the way the forsythias are allowed to do their own thing. My mother always trimmed hers into round bushes and it looked odd.
Jeffg166
@sab: I cut the forsythia to the ground and every year after it flowers to keep it open. Some years are better than others with what it does.
There was a very brief shower this morning at 4:30. It dropped a tenth of an inch. I will water pots and spot water a few other things. The rest of the garden is on its own. What survives survives.
OzarkHillbilly
@sab: I let our forsythia run wild. It’s dying now (after just 14 years) and I wonder if it would have been better to trim it a little from time to time.
satby
cope, you’ve done a beautiful job on your yard for your wife and Jesse! Glad all her favorites are thriving, they look great.
I removed two large forsythia when I moved in here. Though they’re pretty in the spring they sprawl everywhere if not trimmed. The previous owner had trimmed haphazardly while also tying them to the porch(!) because they covered the sidewalk on the side. They had a lot of dead wood too, so out they went. I put in two slower growing azaleas and that’s worked better, with tulips for spring color.
JPL
Lovely photos!
eclare
I guess I’m the only one here who hates forsythia. So of course mine thrive.
159 for the sta,ps.
I hope your blue spruce does well. A fungus that causes needle cast or drop has killed off most of them in my area (SE IN USA). I have one small one left which I spray with an antifungal mix. Not sure how long it will last. We had to cut a 40 foot one that was absolutely gorgeous before it got infected.
delphinium
Lovely flowers and shrubs, and what a great mountain view! Also, really liked the contrast of the tree with the mountains and sky in the last picture.
Jeffg166
@OzarkHillbilly: Cut it to the ground. Make cuttings from it to plant if it doesn’t respond to being cut down.
eponymous
Thanks for the photos. I think the orange flower above is sphaeralcea, Desert Globemallow…? I lived a long time in Arizona, and also love the adobe/stucco look of buildings.
That $9900 in the 4D bar was just begging for a completion, so I just put in $100.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone 😊 😊 😊
Anne Laurie
As I’ve said before… I’m not a big fan of yellow flowers in general, but forsythia (& daffodils) make my heart sing after a long grey/brown New England winter!
Best places for planting them, around here, seem to be as ‘windbreaks’ where the sprawling branches will obscure unsightly views even when they’re not in bloom. When we moved into this house thirty years ago, the house on the corner had a massive two-story-high row of forsythia that blocked it from the neighboring two-family (which, we would discover, turns over regularly between owners who use the ‘second’ space for relatives or for renting… so it can be noisy & cluttered). We don’t have much space to spare, but I’ve nurtured (neglected) a few forsythia bushes in the ‘waste strip’ parallel to the heavily trafficked road, where they’ll block the worst visual clutter from the storage depot slightly downhill.
The other great local spot for forsythias: We’re hilly, so there’s lots of homes situated at the top of a small artificial ‘rise’ (where the roadway was blasted through decades prior). Forsythias have a gift for clinging to life in pockets of dirt on those rises — the flowers are a day-brightening ‘bouquet’ in March / April, and the green sprawl doesn’t show up much against the general tangled mix of brush and grasses the rest of the year.
oldgold
With the June bugs smoldering in their graves and the garden slugs rendered comatose by liberal offerings of premium beer, as is my custom, I planted West of Eden on the Fourth of July.
Gvg
It was really hot yesterday and I was helping mom in her garden. Cooled off in the pool afterwards. That was the only nice part. I over did it. Need to go this morning again. It’s getting too much for her and she loves it so. Funny because she came to gardening late, after I was grown, just before she retired, and went full obsessed almost overnight. Dad doesn’t get in her way, just stands back….
I am not a morning person, and don’t want to get going.
prostratedragon
Four thumbnail sketches: “A Day in the Life of a Washerwoman,” Florence Price; Kevin W. Bumpers, piano. Maybe she has a little garden.
kalakal
Thanks for the lovely pics. I always enjoy seeing stuff that won’t grow here in Fl.
When I lived where forsythia grow I used to trim it back after flowering, I wasn’t shaping it as such, just stopping it from becoming a giant sprawling mess. It seemed to like it
O. Felix Culpa
Hi neighbor! Waves from New Mexico. Love your garden pix. We moved into our new old house last year too. The previous owners showed no signs of being into gardening, so apart from a few mature trees that predated them (a desert willow, mimosa, and apricot) and a few random plants, we had pretty much a blank slate. So I’m turning the front into a waterwise pollinator garden, which is coming along nicely.
The previous owners had also installed allegedly dog-friendly artificial grass on one side of the house, which our dog of course refuses to use, preferring the sidewalk. Oh well.
Ramalama
Love the view of the mountains there and your narration with the photos.
i lived in Boulder for a few years. Loved the mountain views. Not crazy about how arid it was. But you seem to have enough what with your peonies and lilacs, both of which I’m super partial to. Your wife has good taste!
delphinium
@O. Felix Culpa: The pollinator garden sounds cool-hope you send in some pics! I’m an East Coast girl at heart but find the desert to be amazingly beautiful as well.
Trivia Man
@O. Felix Culpa: “water wise pollinator garden” – what en excellent combination of words.
O. Felix Culpa
@delphinium: You’re speaking to a lazy person, but maybe next year. Want to give the plants a chance to fill out.
@Trivia Man: Thanks! Not original to me, though. :)
pieceofpeace
Your house is lovely and the last photo of the tree against the Colorado landscape is stunning.
cope
@OzarkHillbilly: I do.
cope
@delphinium: Thank you. That tree is across the arroyo that runs behind our house.
MichiganderGail
@eclare: me, too. Dislike them and have been ignoring, sometimes actively trying to kill them since I moved here almost 30 years ago.
A Ghost to Most
Welcome. 100° in Colorado ain’t nothing like 90° in the humid lowlands.
Gloria DryGarden
@O. Felix Culpa: omg you have chilopsis! Hard to grow in Denver, because it needs zone 678, takes a wall, wind protection, extra heat, etc, microclimate tricks.
want to see pix of your ongoing pollinator g. They sell a bunch of stuff as water wise, that requires weekly! Watering! Jeepers, that’s a princess. Have you been to plants of southwest, in Albuquerque?
Gloria DryGarden
@Trivia Man: it’s what we call it, here. “water wise.. pollinator”
It’s what we try to do, are encouraged to do out this way. Rainfall out in the short grass prairie is often not enough for those water wise things. There are catalogue listings for the more extremely drought tolerant, actually xeric plants, that are less like princesses.
a friend who wrote a xeriscape book says it shocked her when she learned some folks have unwatered areas. I’m shocked that they sell us these beautiful garden ideas that take oh so much water. I’m shocked when folks want to need to water every week.
nature has done natural rainfall for eons..
that said, some plants are just so worth it, so beautiful, one has to have A sweet princess area, w plants (planties ) that need water, mulch, the shade of a rock. 9-14” rain is no joke, esp w 2-3 months long dry spells, where rain is a distant memory, or a few freckles on a sidewalk.
O. Felix Culpa
@Gloria DryGarden: Yes, Plants of the Southwest is one of my main suppliers, along with High Country Gardens (when they’re having a sale).
Gloria DryGarden
@cope: I don’t think those fabulous red and yellow things are sphaeralcea, but I recommend it, as a double x plant, w really pretty but small pink or orange flowers all over it, late summer.
I need to see pix of the leaves. And height…Will you post leaf pix? Also, Take pix of leaf and flower to your local nursery, they’ll know. I’m guessing they are some fabulous specialty thing that needs z 6, 7…Or some rose (not in July) or kind of poppy. So folks in z 5, Denver, mostly don’t have it, yet. But so desirable. Pls tell us when you find out.
btw, less of a princess, but great for pollinators, are the penstemons. There is a red one, more xeric, short but fabulous, and some warmer zone ones that will flourish in g junction. Some need a bit of water, others need less.
love the red snapdragon. Sometimes they overwinter, and I see yours are by a wall, which can help, until summer heat cooks them. They do re-seed nicely in watered areas. My darker red ones have not come back, but I try..
blue spruce is a water thirsty princess that grows in the mountains. I have one. I water the heck out of it. I forgot to do fall and winter watering this year, and lost a bunch of huge limbs to the wind/ blizzard. It’s a nice tree, though.
( my first year here I had a dream about my spruce tree ripping out of the ground. I’m pretty sure the plant angels, or the tree itself, got wind of my very low water ideas, and sent me that dream so I would know to water it. Research confirmed it, it needs loads of water)
Gloria DryGarden
@O. Felix Culpa: yes, when there’s a sale! I’ve trekked Down there, gotten cuttings from the trimmings in the demo garden, incl something they can’t sell anymore, it’s on the list, but gardeners pass it on, tanacetum crispum, fantastic leaves, really doesn’t flower, but, on the list cuz the regular tanacetum, well, you know.
crispum used to be in the catalogue, 25 years back.
I have a sumac from hcg, was labeled as the regular tallish one, but it turns out it’s low grow. Sprawling across a pathway, huge horizontally. I’m going to have to cut it back, which I don’t like.
O. Felix Culpa
@Gloria DryGarden: I’ve planted 3 different types of penstemon: rocky mountain, James, and a third I don’t remember and will have to look up.
Gloria DryGarden
@Anne Laurie: I don’t like yellow much either. It’s great, necessary, even, in spring, and fall, and I’ve been taught to put a splash of yellow in a flower pot or bed, to make the other colors pop.
that said, I wish I could keep forsythia alive, I’d enjoy it in spring. Others water enough, or have it by a sprinkler system, so I see it around.
StringOnAStick
@cope: I think the plant you asked for an ID on is the hardy shrub rose “Joseph’s Coat”. It looks a little scraggly because I bet it’s not getting much water at that location but if you water it, it will become a big bramble like the yellow rose you discussed in another photo.
You moved back to where I was born and raised, and where my grandparents ran a fruit orchard for decades (out on 27 1/2 rd, towards the airport). I left for the Denver side for college, stayed until near retirement then moved to Bend, OR. I had the best veggie garden of my life last year using biodynamic methods and converted all the turf grass areas into water wise pollinator gardens. I love the climate, similar to yours but not quite as hot.
stinger
@eponymous:
Fun! I love it when I can do that! And thanks on behalf of American democracy!