Xeriscape Demonstration Garden Part 2

Years ago (around 2001) I entered into a xeriscape garden contest in San Antonio. Winners would receive a gift certificate to your favorite nursery and hold a sponsored garden tour. I won one of the prizes and prepared for the tour. The extension agent came out with the xeriscape garden tour sign along with aluminum plant tags. We had a good time talking plants, adding labels and pumping up my ego. I was even going to wear a tie to the awards ceremony. My hat size had increased by 1/2 size.

Before the tour began a neighbor who recently moved from Denver came to visit the garden. She began shaking her head. What did this mean asking myself. Had I mislabeled or grown a non xeriscape plant? hmm? Finally she stepped forward and replied that these plants should not be in the same zone. A mistake? What?! What you talking about willis? She informed me that one of the xeriscape principles was to grow like plants in the same growing zones, meaning plants with the same light/irrigation requirements. Say what? What do you know I said to myself. Then she told me about the Denver Botanical Gardens demonstration xeriscape garden and the seven principles. It made a lot of sense. Two years later I moved to Colorado Springs and further investigated the gardens. Definetly changed the way I looked at landscaping and design.

Delosperma keladis 'Measa Verde' Ice Plant with Gazania I believe

Just as my neighbor informed me about growing zones, the Xeriscape Demonstration Gardens in Colorado Springs is set up into different zones. Primarily this garden is broken into three water zones, none, low, and moderate . Click on this link for plant information CSU Xeriscape Garden , for Zonal Information and choices for your own gardens.

Picea pungens 'Globosa' Globe Blue Spruce, Picea abies 'Nidiformis' bird's nest spruce, Penstemon spp. (not labeled), and  Cerocarpus montanus 'Mountain Mahogany'. This bed would be in the low water zone.

Penstemon pinipholius (Pineleaf Penstemon), Teucrium aroanium (Creeping Germander) low water garden

Daphne burwoodi 'Carol Mackie Daphne' with native stone.

The stone available for landscaping in the springs is unbelievable, flagstone, field stone, cobblestone, large river rock, decomposed granite in different colors, and that's just a start.

Picea punguns 'Colorado Blue Spuce', Sambucus canadensis 'Aurea' probably in the moderate water zone. For some reason these plants aren't on the plant list online.

 This would be a low water zone. The plant in the background is a Apache Plume. The Apache Plume Photo on the last post came from this shrub. As you can see it is quite large in captivity. I believe the foreground plant to be Buffaloberry-Shepherdia canadensis.

Moderate water zone, Peonie and Blue Spruce.

Part three will conclude with alternative lawn measures, no water gardens and various other goodies.

Xeriscape Demonstration Garden - Part 1

Fallugia paradoxa-Apache Plume

Apache plume shows her positive side, her white blooms and silky swanky seed heads. What more could you want, maybe a little more decorative foliage? Donna from GTGW made a nice post this week on context. It's true the above photo is primarily focused on the blooms and seed-heads. However the photo really doesn't show the plant in it's full form. But, man!!!! Is that gorgeous or what?

This post is primarily focused on my trip to the Colorado Springs utilities demonstration garden near Garden of the Gods. I got this editorial off the gardenvisit web site:

The Colorado Springs Utilities Xeriscape Garden is designed to demonstrate the seven principles of Xeriscape in a wide variety of designs. The garden incorporates many different gardens styles that are arranged by water requirement so visitors can get a good idea of what styles can be achieved and what plants will thrive with different amounts of water. The garden displays more than 500 varieties of trees, shrubs, grasses, perennials, biennials and annuals that grow well in the Colorado Springs area. 

Throughout the garden there are several stations explaining the seven principles of xeriscape. 

1. Plan and Design  2. Soil Amendment  3. Efficient Irrigation 4. Appropriate plant and zone selection 5. Mulch  6. Alternative turf  7. Maintenance.  Xeriscape programs were initiated to save water in areas that are beginning to run out of water resources and need to conserve.

I really don't want to turn this into an encyclopedia post so I will leave a link for more info if you want to be more informed. Personally the main xeriscape principle for me is proper plant and water/light zone selection.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xeriscaping

These three photos were taken 'outside' the main garden, by the parking lot and water utilities office.

The garden is broken into light/water zones and labeled as such. These plants are in the Moderate Water Zone. Most everything is labeled well and explanatory

The garden is located just above the Garden of the Gods park, what a background for a garden!

 Does that wet you appetite? More on Part II

The June Swoon

It's Summer Time with the June Swoon

 

Cindy and I just returned from a visit to our son in Colorado Springs and mother in Wyoming. Every where we went the high temperatures followed, mid 90's in Colorado and Wyoming. And of course when we finally got home the temps have been in the 100's for 8 straight days. Summertime. The living is easy, and the fish are jumping according to Louie and Aretha. Maybe they are right about the fish jumping, but the easy living part I would have to question. 

First stop was the Springs and a west exposure hillside home without air conditioning. Three young bachelors living together without a live-in maid. Get the picture? Cindy spent all day cleaning, of course the son and I had to catch up on things. Our time together was very special and I enjoyed the fellowship a lot.

Then the fun began: three nights with no sleep, Mollie our border collie cut her rear legs and had to go in for a 600.00 vet visit. Got home at 1 a.m. to be followed by the Wyoming trip the next morning. As I was leaving I was having shortness of breath. Thought it was the altitude. Arrived in Wyoming for two days and enjoyed visits to the natural beauty I used to think was downright ugly as a child. Grudgingly, I was still struggling with breathing and occasional fever. On the day we were leaving, my temperature was 102. My mother made me go to the ER. Thank God she was right, I had viral pneumonia. We stayed an extra day and drove back home 900 miles the next day. Now I'm in two modes of recovery, from the virus and my shoulder surgery. But it's not so bad. It's summertime, and the fish are jumping. And the garden is on a June Swoon.

I used to have the title of golf course superintendent, which means I love to play golf, supposedly. You know, make your hobby your job. Well there was a time of the year where you game reached it's level of diminishing returns. We called it the October Swoon.

When I got home early this morning I was trying to catch up on bloggerville and came across Susan in the Pink Hat post on  the blog Ink and Penstemon. The subject matter was about how this time of the year can be depressing. You work all winter and spring and enjoy the fruits of your labor in the spring and then the June Swoon comes. Heat, wind, humidity in my case, and the conception we need to have continuous color. As the garden sulks and shrinks our winter dreams begin to wade or I should say melt. It is depressing. The June Swoon.

 Even the hell strip has shown levels of stress as you can see. I think its time for me to look at different choices or levels of perfection. Such as more heat/drought tolerant native species which I saw while on my visit.

Sphaeralcea coccinea (Scarlet Globemallow) growing in asphalt.

Sedum and blackfoot daisy?

 

calochortus gunnisonii (Sego Lily)?

Greetings from Wyoming

More news from the front range in the next post.

Wordless/Wildflower Wednesday-Pollinators Week

National Pollinators Week
This is also Wildflower Wednesday at Clay and Limestone so go over and see Gail and other posts on wildflowers.

Echinacea angustfolia 'black sampson' with unnamed insect

Asclepias tuberosa with Monarch

Asclepias asperjula-Antelope horn Milkweed

and a roadrunner in a pear tree!

GGW Show the Motion

Our household has decided to enter the monthly photo contest at Gardens Gone Wild. The theme this month is Show the Motion. If you want to look at the entries, view at June Entries GGW.

These are the photos that we felt might work, but you never know. Our choice was the last one.

Foilage Follow Up in June

 

No that's not King Kong standing behind that giant mullien, that's a toad! It's the day after garden bloggers bloom day, so that means it's foliage followup. Pam at Digging hosts this "follow up" extravaganza.

Coleus

Panicum amarum 'Dewey Blue and Calomagrostis 'Carl Forester"

 

Calamagrosits 'Karl Foerster'

 This photo is from the past post on GBBD, think it works here also.

Mellow Yellow - Garden Bloggers Bloom Day June

Mellow Yellow. Rudebeckia hirta and goldstrum, Achillea millefolium 'terra cotta', Stipa tenuissima, and Peroskovia.

It's that Time Again. Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. 

It's time to literally go around the world and check out other garden bloggers and what's bloomin' in their neck of the woods. Click over to Carol at May Dream Gardens and check them out and leave a comment with your blog link so others can follow your adventures.

Rudebeckia hirta, Echinacea purpurea, Stipa tenuissima, and Peroskovia.

Daisy Collage, Leucanthemum

Echinacea purpurea, Veronica Sunny Border Blue

Sunny Border

Hell Strip

Adios amigos