It could be that we've "quieted down" because our gardens are "waking up". Our Rocky Mountain winters at 10,000 feet are very, very long. To cheer us up, I've begun to germinate about 235 new species from seed under lights in a spare, cool bedroom. Every day something new pops up and --- IT'S GREEN! What a beautiful color green is! Aside from our evergreen conifers, we see green (without white) for just 4 short months. To get Mountain View Experimental Gardens moving along quicker than nature's schedule, we remove the snow on the interconnecting garden paths starting in mid- to late March. This time we didn't start until early April because of the excessively abundant snow. It's wonderful exercise! No need for a membership at the local rec center! We pick the sunny days for this activity and it is so pleasant to hear our birds singing, especially our pine grosbeaks, when we stop to catch our breath. When the job is finished, we make a daily tour to see what new things have emerged at the edges of the gardens as the sun warms the rocks and the snow slowly recedes. This is a much-anticipated activity and is very uplifting at a time when Klaus is still having to shovel the snow off our roof and I have to don snowshoes to take our kitchen waste to the compost pile. I have posted a series of photos at the NARGS forum at http://nargs.org/smf/index.php?topic=657.0 The gardens are "officially" open to visitors for the 2011 season. We are not done with snowstorms. In fact, there are 12 inches of new snow predicted for this weekend. That means we'll have to reshovel the garden paths, but that's just our "early spring conditioner" to get us in shape for those high-altitude wildflower hikes in July. I live for the Green Season!!! Jane HendrixMountain View Experimental GardensPeak 7 Area - Breckenridge, Colorado U.S.A.Elevation: 10,000 feetUSDA Zone 4Website: http://www.picturetrail.com/hendrix
---------- Original Message ---------- From: [email protected] To: "the Electronic Rock Garden Society Alpine-L; postings copyright by authors." <[email protected]> Subject: [Alpine-l] Springtime photos Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2011 12:07:04 +0000 (UTC) The silence on Alpine-L is deafening! Here we seem to be in the midst of another miraculous spring (albeit we have had almost no precipitation): it has been quite cool with light frosts (although one night into the low twenties did fry the early magnolias ten days ago: many in shadier aspects made it through, however, and there are some magnificent Magnolia x soulangeana blooming again!). Right now the flowering trees are mostly at or near peak (all the plums/pears/peaches/cherries/crabs/redbuds/etc. etc. making for lively streetscapes.) The bright but cool days encourage everything to bloom their heads off and last forever. Things have been in such suspended animation I've had a chance to capture some things that often go dashing by, so to speak. I posted this link on the NARGS forum, but I suspect not all of you are dedicated forumists yet: http://public.fotki.com/Panayoti/denver-march-2010/ And I bet that your own gardens are all starting to explode as well! Hope you all too are having an enchanting April! Don't you love springtime? Panayoti Kelaidis Denver, Colorado (USA) Zone 5
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