This photograph was taken in a 4200 sq. ft. perennial garden on one of the estates, for which we provide landscape management.

After my meeting with Hoichi, I have begun to look at our gardens in a different light. He is right, we Americans are more involved with now, bigger, better and faster and infrequently wonder how the gardens we love, developed. Our clients want to see the gardens now when we install them, when in fact, true American style gardens take 30-50 years to begin to show their true colors.

This particular section of the gardens we work in was begun in 193o and was originally a vegetable garden. The owners of the estate at the time, brought in teams of horses and handlers to remove the rocky soil to a depth of 2' in this part of the three acre property and replace it with loose, rich friable soil. There are no pictures of the garden at that time, however, local history tells us that the area was heavily logged at that point in time.

Now in 2007, the garden is surrounded by 70 foot tall, towering Norway Spruces which must have been planted about the time the garden was started. These towering Spruces offer protection from both the drying summer winds and the intense winter winds, while providing shade for the garden about 30% of the time during the day as the sun traverses the sky. Ideal growing conditions for the resident perennials such as Butterfly Weed(Asclepias), several varieties of Poppy(Papaver)Knockout Roses, Butterfly Bushes(Buddelia), towering Dephiniums, Sedum, Sea Holly(Eryngium), Mountian Bluet, pictured here(Centaurea), Black-eyed Susan(Rudbeckia), Iris, Anemone, Yarrow(Achillea), Stella D'oro Daylily(Hemerocallis), Climbing Hydrangea(Hydrangea petiolaris), Clematis, Baby's Breath(Gypsophila), tree and shrub form Peonies, Mt. Pinks(Phlox subulata) and wild Foxglove(Digitalis)

I love to work in this perennial garden as the color, fragrances and textures change each and every week. In fact, when my sister passed away two years ago, upon my return from Denver, I worked in this garden for about a week straight. The owner does not visit much in the fall and with the sound of the adjacent dam and creek filling the air with the soothing sound of rushing water, I had time to reflect on both my sister's life and mine.

Gardens truly have the power to heal both the body and the soul.