October 21, 2024
In my last post I shared the genesis of SummerHome Garden, a privately owned garden and public park in Denver’s Washington Park neighborhood. I visited in late September and spent a couple of hours early one morning taking pictures. The garden was so beautiful that I couldn’t squeeze all of my photos into one post, so here’s Part 2 of my visit.
SummerHome Garden is owned by Lisa Negri, who in 2019 bought the house next door to hers, tore it down, and created a waterwise garden in its place, to which she allows — and encourages — public access. Designed by horticulturist Kevin Philip Williams of Denver Botanic Gardens, the garden is filled with plants from Colorado’s Front Range and other steppe regions around the world. Steppes, for the unfamiliar, are semi-arid grasslands with cold winters and warm-to-hot summers.
Check out the plant list at SummerHome’s website for specific plant IDs. For now, let’s simply stroll among the beautiful plants.
A quick video tour of the front half of the garden
Ambling toward the back now, through the soft colors of autumn
Lisa isn’t a fan of Russian sage. She thinks it’s overused in Colorado. Nevertheless, it appears throughout her garden, she told me, because Kevin says it’s a gateway plant. For people unused to this kind of garden in a neighborhood setting, who feel it’s too wild, the presence of familiar Russian sage helps them accept the less-familiar plants too.
The tans and golds of autumn
The garden is an oasis and stopover for wildlife and pollinators like this bee.
A patinaed wind bell by Cosanti Originals hangs low over silver-green stems that echo its coloring.
Wide gravel paths offer easy access through the full, end-of-summer garden. But just as important, they make the garden “legible” to visitors.
Anyone can see this is a tended garden, with comfortable paths, boulder benches, water features, and thoughtfully chosen sculpture.
Grassy plumes bending over the path offer an invitation to run your fingers through them.
Snow-on-the-mountain euphorbia
Snow-on-the-mountain thrives in a crevice garden built alongside Lisa’s garage. Its heat-reflecting brick wall makes a warm microclimate for a pair of white desert willows and other marginally hardy plants.
Purple prickly pear clusters along one of the bigger rocks, as upright and peaked as a mountain.
Smaller cacti are tucked into crevices between vertical stones. At the back, a large rocky berm shows off yuccas, more prickly pear, hesperaloe, and more.
A small saucer pot hosts a spiny cactus adorned with fallen petals.
Hesperaloe, cactus, and other heat lovers soak up the sun here in the hottest part of the garden. The sharp drainage keeps them from rotting during winter snows.
Diagonally layered rock
A smaller crevice garden made with blocky stone edges the path.
Apache plume
Another video view
The sun on this cloudy morning was finally peeking through the trees.
Shafts of light started slanting into the garden, incandescing the grasses.
Two fountains run in the morning and evening, turning off during the heat of midday to conserve water.
Ceramic totem by Rita Vali
‘Sucker Punch’ chokecherry, a non-suckering variety, adds burgundy foliage to the medley of silver-green and tan. They’ll eventually grow into small trees 20 to 25 feet tall.
A last look at SummerHome, such a beautiful garden
My thanks to Lisa for sharing SummerHome with me, and for showing how to turn a garden into a public park that inspires, soothes, and preserves green space for human and wildlife visitors.
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Digging Deeper
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