Flora and Joy in Englewood

Last June, I was privileged to visit several gardens in the Denver area owned by horticultural professionals with connections to the city’s wonderful Denver Botanic Gardens. Home gardeners in the area know former Director of Horticulture Rob Proctor from his longstanding appearances on television, but he and partner David Macke have a stunning garden filled with colour, billowing borders and myriad beautiful seating areas.  I wrote about their garden here. Plant collectors and alpine enthusiasts around the globe know Panayoti Kelaidis, Senior Curator and Director of Outreach for the DBG. I blogged here about the fabulous hillside garden he shares with his partner Jan Fas. Today I’m going to introduce you to the charming, plant-rich garden of DBG Curator of Native Plants and Associate Director of Horticulture Dan Johnson and his partner Tony Miles in Englewood. Let’s get off the bus and check out the heavenly “hell strip”, that bit of civic real estate formerly known as “the boulevard”. You don’t even have to go into the garden to understand that the homeowners here have some serious horticultural chops. I see penstemons, alliums, foxtail lily, columbines and so much more.

Looking the other way, there are California poppies and bearded irises… even a little pink rose!

A magenta pool of delosperma meanders through the sedum and alliums. In the background are white prickly poppies (Argemone sp).

I love a garden that bestows a gift on the street, and Dan and Tony’s garden has a spirit of ebullient generosity that makes their neighbourhood a joyous place. Verbascums, irises, alliums and opium poppies….

…..occupy a niche garden against a pretty stucco wall along the city sidewalk.

Here’s the adobe-flavoured front porch! It’s as if every cool garden accessory shop in the southwest decided to open a pop-up store here at this house in suburban Denver.

Let’s amble past the tall, blue ceramic pot with its palm, standing in its own boxwood-hedged corner….

…. and climb the steps so we can get a better look at the slumbering Medusa with her euphorbia dreadlocks and try to count all the pots on the ground and hanging from hooks….

….. containing specimens of cacti…. Hmmm, I’ve lost count. So let’s just enjoy the view and the sound of the wind-chimes and all the splashes of colour…..

…. and fine workmanship that turns a few plant hangers into a work of art.

When I visit a complex garden like this, I often wonder how much time the owners actually take to sit down and enjoy a meal or glass of wine, but this is a lovely spot…..

….. with the splash of the fountain in the container water garden nearby.

Let’s explore the front garden a little, with its mix of perennials in the shade of a big conifer…..

……and its birdhouse-toting elephants.

Our time here is so limited and we need to see the back of the garden, which is just beyond this cool arch and gate.

The back of the house is more about getting right into the garden….

…. past the corn poppies (Papaver rhoeas)….

…. and the potted agave…..

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…. with the yuccas nearby.

What an interesting journey awaits, and we can go in a few directions. Let’s head towards the purple shed way in the back left corner.

I love this combination of foxtail lily (Eremurus) and perfectly coordinated horned poppy (probably Glaucium corniculatum, though these Denver gardeners grow some interesting glauciums).

There are several water features, big and small, in the garden. This ever-pouring bottle emptying into a shell full of marbles is so simple and lovely.

There are little points of interest on the way, like this lovely bearded iris with spiral wire sculpures….

…. that perfectly echo the airy star-of-Persia alliums (Allium cristophii).

I like this carved panel, tucked into the fence and adorned with honeysuckle.

A little further along the path, we pass a drift of orange California poppies (Eschscholzia californica) and penstemons. Note the urn water feature at the left, spilling into the small pond, which in turn spills into the larger pond below.

We come finally to the larger koi pond and its iron sculpture.

Unobtrusive nylon wires span the pond, thwarting all the fish-menacing birds that love a koi lunch.  Let’s head to the deck around the purple garden shed beyond. (By the way, if you love purple in the garden, be sure to read my blog on Austin’s famous tequila maven Lucinda Hutson and her purple house and garden.)

The shed walls feature artfully-screened mirrors that reflect light and the leafy garden (and some tired bloggers relaxing and enjoying the view).

There are also some very cool tentacled pots filled with succulents adorning the wall.

On the other side of the garden from the pond are beds filled with June irises, poppies and alliums and more interesting sculptures….

…. including a glass globe artfully displayed on a cool sculptural column.

One of the sad realities of a garden tour is that the day is very tightly scheduled with lots of wonderful stops along the way. If I’d had the time, I would have made my way back to Dan and Tony’s garden in better light (and with fewer of my fellow bloggers in the garden), as I did with Rob Proctor and David Macke’s garden. I feel as if I only absorbed half of what these artists have done in this colourful paradise in Englewood. But it’s time to head back to the bus, past this little shady corner filled with textural foliage plants and another sculpture.

As I walk under a conifer, I catch a flash of movement above. Looking up, I see a little wren having its lunch on the boughs.

It seems that humans aren’t the only visitors that appreciate what this lovely Colorado garden has to offer.

Visiting Panayoti’s Garden

If you’re invited to visit Quince Garden in Denver, Colorado, you could always start your tour along the walkway to the front door. All those tiny plants embracing the risers of the stone steps will delight you….

… and no doubt you’ll admire the well-grown annuals: the ‘Mystic Spires’ salvia, and the blackeyed susan vines (Thunbergia alata) in pots at the front door.

You’ll be intrigued by the planters and troughs lining the walkway, filled with dozens of plants whose identities you can’t begin to guess at.

Your appetite whetted, you’ll surely be tempted to meander down the path of the hillside skirting the house, as we did in June during my Garden Bloggers’ Fling, on our visit to the home and garden of Denver Botanic Garden’s inimitable Senior Curator and Director of Outreach, Panayoti Kelaidis (aka “PK” to his friends.) Over his 30+ years at the garden, he designed the plantings for the amazing Rock Alpine Garden and helped with the design and implementation of Wildflower Treasures, the South African Plaza and the Romantic Gardens, among others.  He is also the recipient of the Award of Excellence from National Garden Clubs and the Liberty Hyde Bailey Award, the highest award from the American Horticultural Society.

Apart from travelling the world collecting and viewing rare plants, as he is doing this very moment in the Tibetan Himalayas, he writes a plant-rich blog called Prairiebreak (currently featuring rare meconopsis species from said trip). He also lectures everywhere (in more than 70 cities so far) mostly on plants that grow in the alpine regions and steppes of the world. Wikipedia defines a steppe as follows: “In physical geography, steppe (Russian: степь, IPA: [stʲepʲ]) is an ecoregion, in the montane grasslands and shrublands and temperate grasslands, savannas and shrublands biomes, characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes. The prairie of North America (especially the shortgrass and mixed prairie) is an example of a steppe, though it is not usually called such. A steppe may be semi-arid or covered with grass or shrubs or both, depending on the season and latitude.”  So passionate is Panayoti about this topic that he recently co-authored a book called Steppes: The Plants and Ecology of the World’s Semi-Arid Regions, along with Michael Bone, Mike Kintgen, Dan Johnson and Larry Vickerman.

We wandered down the hill past the silvery yuccas…….

….. and the statuesque Scotch thistle (Onopordum acanthium).  We could see rain and the odd fork of lightning in the distance, but not one drop fell on the garden.

Flanking the path were little planters filled with cacti and succulents. And there were sentry-like spires of giant silver mullein (Verbascum bombyciferum). Panayoti particularly likes this mullein, and has written with his usual wit about finding it growing on Turkey’s Uludağ.

Look at this! So darling. But the gardener knows the provenance of each of those little treasures.

In the hottest, unirrigated part of PK’s hillside, cacti were in flower, like this pink prickly-pear (Opuntia sp.)

Here it is with Onosma taurica, a European plant – clearly drought-tolerant – that I saw in a few spots in the Denver area.

More giant silver mulleins, and a place to sit and relax as well.

Panayoti’s garden seemed to be a happy marriage of plant-collecting on a refined scale and Gertrude Jekyllesque cottage-gardening.

Desert species were at home among plants with similar cultural needs from the world over.

I loved these table-top displays of special cacti from PK’s 300+ collection.

Brilliant pink desert penstemon (P. pseudospectabilis) added a rosy note to the various cactus species.

Desert penstemon is just one of many native penstemons I coveted on my visits to gardens in Denver, as I wrote in a previous blog. Check out that lovely pea gravel.

Where the soil was a little richer, there was amsonia.

Salvias, too.

Altai onion (Allium altaicum) was in flower, front. Behind were plant stands filled with a pretty collection of cacti and succulents. (Not sure what was happening behind the mesh screen.)

After visiting the botanical garden at Würzburg, Germany in 2016, Panayoti swore he would have his own Asphodeline taurica…. and here it was, looking very fetching with orange rock roses bringing up the rear.

Near the bottom of the hill, there was a starry cloud of crambe and a brilliant yellow mullein (Verbascum olympicum, I’m guessing.)

Everywhere in the cottage garden at the bottom of Panayoti’s hill, brilliant orange horned poppies (originallyGlaucium grandiflorum x flavum hybrids) flung themselves around with abandon. As a lover of colour, I particularly admired this hot pairing of the poppies with a fuchsia-pink rose, cooled ever so slightly by cobalt blue Veronica austriaca.

Amidst all the self-seeding wonderfulness, there were more of the collector’s curio cabinets, this vignette backed by a luscious purple smoke bush.

After a little swing back up the hill towards the rear of the house, all the eclectic xeriscape lollapalooza suddenly became very refined, with a luscious, traditional June border filled with meadow cranesbills, red valerian (Centranthus ruber), pink gas plant (Dictamnus albus var. purpureus), roses and a white-flowered fringe tree (Chionanthus) and dark-leafed ninebark (Physocarpus) in the rear.

This rosy, romantic June confection proved a lovely backdrop….

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And this is Jan’s iris, ‘Afternoon Delight’.

At the back of the house, an alpine garden wall rises from a patio filled with pots of plants and two chairs. Because, of course, there would be lots of time to sit and relax in a garden this easy to care for…….

A sunken pool features yellow flag iris (I. pseudacorus) backed by that beautiful wall….

…. in whose crevices and niches choice alpines thrive.

The brilliant hues of South African ice plants (Delosperma, formerly Mesymbranthemum) brighten up the rocks.

This is Delosperma Fire Spinner®, one of the best plants to come out of the Plant Select® program that Panayoti helped launch through Denver Botanic Gardens.

You can hear Panayoti talk about the ice plants in the Plant Select program here.

I loved the artful way the plants combined with each other in the garden…..

…. though clearly there was careful forethought even in the little informal vignette of Aethionema and Helianthemum nummularium, below, one of thousands and thousands here.

Even though much of Panayoti’s garden bakes in sunshine, there is a shady corner, too. Here there was goatsbeard (Aruncus dioicus), heucheras and ferns…..

…. and a shimmering white martagon lily (L. martagon f. album).

Back in the sunshine, sage mixed with centaureas and Madagascar periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus) graced a pot. Unlike many ‘collector’s gardens’, Panayoti loves all plants, common and rare.

A dish of succulents rested in a bed of thyme…..

….. and a white umbellifer (I won’t try a name) consorted with an echium.

Digitalis thapsi looked demure in this setting.

Alas, it was time to return to our tour, and I found my way back to the cottage garden, where larkspur (Consolida ajacis) was in bloom.

Annual white lace flower (Orlaya grandiflora) made a pretty partner to herbaceous Clematis integrifolia.

White lace flower hails from the Mediterranean and is increasingly popular in North American gardens.

When I first started gardening seriously in the 1970s, I cut out photos of English cottage gardens with beautiful flowers falling over each other in an artful tumble.

I was reminded of those first inspirations on Panayoti’s sunny hillside, where cottage gardening mixes with decades of plant collecting and a fondness for containers.  That slender red-leaved plant contrasting so nicely with the horned poppies is red orach (Atriplex hortensis ‘Rubra’).

As PK wrote of it fondly in one of his blogs: “Perhaps that explains my love of marginal weeds, those I can more or less manage. Isn’t it better to have Atriplex hortensis in its furious red manifestation, or red amaranth or Clary sage rampaging on the fringes of your garden. or Verbascums of the bombyciferum persuasion. These suck up space, and self sow, but you can eliminate them. And they give the crabgrasses a run for their money.”

Then it was time to climb the path past the mulleins and head back to the bus. But first, a photo keepsake in front of that gloriously gaudy poppy-rose combination.

And a personal note of thanks to finish up. Thirteen years ago, I visited the Denver Botanic Gardens with my husband and innocently told the young lady at the front desk that I planned to photograph there. Before I could add that I was a garden writer and photographer, she said: “That will be $200 for the photography permit.” I sputtered a little and tried to correct the situation, adding I wasn’t a wedding photographer, but someone who planned to write about the plants and publicize the garden itself. When that didn’t work, I dredged up a name I’d heard or read about and asked: “Is Mr. Kelaidis here?” She phoned his extension and he appeared moments later, waved us in with a flourish, and gave us a private 90-minute walking tour, waxing poetic about the garden and its employees at each and every turn. What an introduction to DBG and its charms! Twelve years later, Panayoti was horticultural guide on an American Horticultural Society tour of New Zealand in which we participated. So I saw a lot of PK over those three weeks and enjoyed watching him thank all our garden hosts profusely, choosing just the right words each time to acknowledge the unique features of their gardens and make them feel special. For example, this was a little thank you he made to owners John and Jo Gow at Connells Bay Sculpture Park on Waiheke Island, near Auckland. (I blogged about this amazing garden last year.)

I followed him with other intrepid botanizers (and my dear, patient husband) up Ben Lomond overlooking Queenstown, where he pointed out tiny dracophyllums and raoullias.

We posed in our life jackets together as we headed out in zodiacs onto tranquil Doubtful Sound.

So it was a distinct pleasure to greet Panayoti and Jan in this amazing garden, and to discover that, despite all those weeks of travel climbing mountains in Tibet, Turkey, South Africa, Kazakhstan, New Zealand and dozens of other plant-rich places in the world, there is still time for the gardener to be at home surrounded by the plants that give him and all of us such deep pleasure and pride.