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Spring is an exciting time, a season of anticipation and growth. We find ourselves stepping outside early in the morning to breathe deeply and take in the wonderful smell of spring. As we move beyond the confines of our back or front door and into our own growing space, we think about the possibilities, the many possibilities of what can be.
In these times of reflection take advantage of your creativity when it is at its peak. Use this time to create your own garden space, a "room" to enjoy beauty in its natural form. The creation of a garden room is easier than you think when you consider the basics of what a "room" is; ceilings, walls, floors, furnishings, activities and a door or portal to enter. Consider these six steps in the design and construction of your garden room.
* Enclosing your garden room: garden walls are whatever you use to define your "room space." They can be fences, screens, columnar junipers, a pergola or lilac bushes. Dividers within your room can be containers filled with colorful annuals or herbs. Create a sense of enclosure within your outdoor space, and you have the basics of a garden room.
* Floors: if your garden room will include a concrete patio slab and you would like a splash of color, consider painting it or maybe hire a professional to stamp or stain it. If you are creating a space within another part of the yard, the materials can be flagstone, brick, gravel, or wood mulch. Find colors and textures that create warmth. This will give your garden room a feeling of coziness.
* Ceilings. Some prefer a ceiling of sky, others might want a structure that protects the room from the weather, still others might want to grow grapevines or other hardy vines up the walls and over the top of their space. The use of your garden room will directly impact your choice of ceilings, so think about this detail carefully.
* Cooling of your outdoor room is essential. Your location and choice of walls or ceilings will make the biggest impact on temperature variations within your room. In general, find a location that gives you some afternoon shade in the heat of the summer and allows for air circulation.
* Furnishings in an outdoor room can be extravagant or one-of-a-kind flea market finds. This is your opportunity to be whimsical, formal, funky, or serene. The choice is back to your original intent of what you want to use your garden room for. If it is your private sanctuary, include favorite photos or sculptures that have special meaning. If you use the garden room for entertaining you will need places for guests to sit and place their food or drinks. If it is a place for relaxing or reading, a hammock, garden swing, or rocking chair would be inviting.
* Like the front door of houses, the entrances to gardens make a strong first impression. Your garden room entrance can be an arbor, rose-covered trellis, or a meandering path made out of river cobble, flagstone, or dirt. Whatever approach or entryway you decide upon for your garden room, it should complement the existing structures and overall theme of your garden space.
The possibilities are endless when designing your garden space. You are only limited by your imagination, and at times budget. Embrace the balance an outdoor space can add to your life. Know that when you complete your garden room, it will be uniquely and distinctively yours.
Q. Is there a way I can reduce my power bill with changes to my home landscape?
A. Reductions in energy use are brought about by protecting your home from the winter winds and shading the home from the summer sunlight. Through the proper use of trees, shrubs, vines and man-made structures you can modify the climate around your home that will effectively reduce winter heating bills as much as 25 percent and summer cooling bills as much as 50 percent. For more information see Fact Sheet #7.225, Landscaping for Energy Conservation.
Q. I have a sloped area in my back yard that is located underneath a picture window that faces south. What can I plant to provide interest?
A. Sloped areas are great locations for a rock garden. Add moss rock of various sizes and insert them into your amended soil so that 1/3 of the rock is buried. Places rocks in a natural way, and be sure to include many sizes to prevent erosion. Plant a variety of clumping, low growing, low water perennials that spread slowly. Be sure to repeat some of the species several times to make the garden look natural. Good drainage is necessary. The rock garden or rockery should not be larger than can be easily maintained.
Q. I have a small area of turf that leads to our back yard. I don't have an irrigation system so the area is neglected and usually browns out every summer. What can I plant there that requires low water and can grow in part shade?
A. Ground cover plants are good alternatives to turfgrasses. They provide a variety of textures and color and help reduce soil erosion. After removing your turfgrass, amend the area with organic matter to improve the drainage. If this is a heavily-traveled walkway, consider adding stone pavers to create a path and plant your selected groundcover around the pavers. Some examples of low growing, shade tolerant ground covers, are: kinnikinnick Arctostaphylos uvaursi, periwinkle Vinca minor, pussytoes Antennaria parvifolia, or sweet woodruff Galium odoratum. All new transplants need water the first year until the root system has established, consider placing a low emitter soaker hose in your planting area for the first season.
Bleeding heart, clematis, coreopsis, daylily, iris, lupine, penstemon, peony, rhubarb and zinnia are some flowers and shrubs that are less attractive to deer. A more complete list can be found on our website at Deer Resistant Plants.
If you are new to gardening, start with some basic tools. These include a round point shovel with a long handle for heavy digging and lifting, hand pruners, an "asparagus" knife or weeder to remove deep-rooted weeds, a garden trowel for planting and a lawn or leaf rake.
Vegetable root crops are easy to grow and are usually the first and last to be harvested. Root crops can even be stored so that they are available almost all year. Beets, carrots, radishes, onions, turnips, Jerusalem artichokes, kohlrabi and rutabaga are all root crops that are frost tolerant and adapted to our short growing season. Root crops are also ideal for small gardens because they take up very little space and can even be grown in containers on the patio.
Plant Select (R) is a cooperative program of the Denver Botanical Garden, Colorado State University and the landscape and nursery professionals throughout the Rocky Mountain region. Their goal is to seek out and develop for distribution outstanding plants for the high plains and intermountain region. One selection is the Cheyenne™ Mock Orange (Philadelphus lewisii Cheyenne(tm)). It is a shrub that will grow to 7 feet tall and almost as wide. It blooms in early summer with 2-inch white, very fragrant blossoms. The parent plant has been growing in Cheyenne, Wyoming at the old USDA field station.
The authors have received training through Colorado State University Cooperative Extension's Master Gardener program and is a Master Gardener volunteer for Larimer County.
Fact Sheets are available at the Larimer County Extension Office, 1525 Blue Spruce Drive, Fort Collins, Colorado, telephone (970) 498-6000, or contact us by e-mail at larimer@coop.ext.colostate.edu
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