Gardening in a New Place

One of the greatest things about Facebook is keeping in touch with friends you worked with and seeing what they’re doing - especially their retirement projects.

When I posted about this blog on Facebook my friend Debbie Boam, who I first met in the early 1980s when I interviewed her for a Foremost News article, told me about her retirement present to herself… a beautification project at her Colorado home.

Debbie and Ian Sacks purchased the Colorado home about four years ago and then learned they were faced with a “must do” project.  They had a 100 x 40 foot berm that separated their home from the street and it was full of a thistle that is on Colorado’s Noxious Weed List (there are five types of thistle on this list).  By law they needed to remove it so Debbie began planning a berm replant that would eliminate the eyesore the area had become in between the between the beautiful patio she and Ian had installed and the street.

It was a huge project, requiring much research and hiring talented landscapers with good labor.  The project was intense – it took four men working 10 hour days to dig and pull out the thistle.  Then Debbie and Ian brought in really good soil that suits the high desert conditions in which they live, added irrigation and netting to keep the desirable plant seeds and replanted the berm with deer resistant native flowers.

“The whole process is demanding,” Debbie says, “but after living in Texas for 25 years where beautification was emphasized – including aerial seeding of the highways – I wanted to bring that beautification to our Colorado home.  I’ve always loved nature, plants and the outdoors, but my garden in Austin was much smaller and a more traditional with a mix of herbs and perennials.”

While the project was took a lot of time, energy and resources the results are worth it   “I can hardly wait to see what spring and summer will reveal with our new crop of wildflowers,” Debbie says.

Gardening in a new climate and on different soils means learning about what grows well where. However there’s one garden addition that works well both in Texas and Colorado — the Bottle Tree.

Debbie sent me a photo of their berm in winter and will be sending more pictures for publication in the summer. Meanwhile, enjoy these pictures from her Texas garden.