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FrontRangeLiving.com -> Garden -> Virtual Tour
 WHEN
THE SEASON IS OVER: A Virtual Garden Tour Looks Back
By Niki Hayden
If you missed some of the spectacular garden tours this summer, visit our
virtual tour for a glimpse of a few private gardens. Spring rain brought a brief
reprieve from our drought and peonies, roses, iris and early bulbs were flush
with bloom. Mountain gardeners celebrated a season without major wildfires and
foothills gardeners basked in a cool, wet spring for roses. Here are a few
highlights.
In the mountain gardens, columbines of all kinds bloomed at altitudes of 8500
feet. The cool nights and damp mornings preserved their blooms longer than
usual, with a rainbow of colors. The town of Eldora celebrates July with a
garden tour. In the last few years, gardens have sprouted throughout this tiny
mountain town. Neighbors exchange gardening knowledge as well as plants. You’ll
see perennials pop up from one garden to the next. From coral bells to lupine,
Turkish veronica to alpine poppies, some blooms appear more vividly in a
mountain environment, especially poppies and columbines. Seasoned mountain
gardeners swear that global warming is altering the climate to such a degree
that they can observe flowers blooming far earlier that they remember from the
past.
 There’s such a vast array of flowers that bloom in Eldora, it’s no wonder
that longtime residents are astonished. Plants that once might have been
borderline in terms of hardiness, like lady’s mantle and purple coneflower,
have made inroads.
 This was the summer for peonies and roses. The heavy spring rains percolated
deeply into gardens, and gardeners who have scrimped on watering for the last
two years of drought enjoyed a flush of bloom. Long established peony plants
were studded with blossoms, many so heavy that they bent over with the blooms
sweeping the ground.
 Bulbs, too, were revived. Foxtail lilies—once considered too tender to
brave a Colorado foothills winter—now are common fare. Paired with peonies,
they make a dramatic display, the hot colors of the foxtails in neon yellow and
orange, strikingly accompanying the deep pinks and reds of peonies. Roses, too,
took off with spring rains. By the end of June, roses were massed in the gardens
of rose lovers. Old roses like Victorian Memory, a found rose of indeterminate
origin, and other old garden roses, filled romantic gardens with their
distinctive, heady aroma.
Garden tours open private gardens to the public. In some cases, a remarkable
garden comes to light. Perhaps it’s a walled Chinese garden, or a garden of
meditation spaces, a native’s garden that rivals the most extravagant
traditional
 border or even a garden of miniatures. Often the gardener is unaware
that he or she tends such unique plantings.
 This year, companion plantings took on a sophistication and subtlety that no
one could overlook. A bleeding heart with chartreuse leaves rose elegantly
alongside blue columbines, which also had chartreuse centers.
 Coralbells with
variegated, bronze and rippled green leaves set off their foliage as colorfully
as most blooms. Gardeners are increasingly as intrigued by leaf color as by
blossom color. Texture, too, is important. Variegated iris leaves are planted
among mosses. Hairy leaves reside next to waxy.
 And while a few large gardens are spectacular enough to include a bridge
similar to that found in Claude Monet’s French garden, many gardens now are
small and intensely private. While a large garden may have a sweep of daylilies
lined up along a thin ribbon of river, a small garden shows off each plant as if
it’s a diamond in a setting of three.
 Judging from the increasing number of garden tours each year, the passion for
growing things hasn’t been blunted by drought. When given a chance, Colorado
gardeners design remarkable gardens that, each year, experiment with new plants,
remarkable designs and a wider palette of colors and textures than most of us
can imagine. For those who open their gardens to us, we owe a debt of gratitude.
You give the rest of us ideas and courage to widen our repertoire and expand our
horizons.
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