Tuesday, April 28, 2020

The Shinn Garden, 2019 Garden Bloggers Fling Finale

This is my last blog post on the gardens we visited during the 2019 Garden Bloggers Fling in the Denver area. I didn't quite stretch my Fling coverage to last a year—like I have in the past—but I came close!

This is the view of the garden that greeted us as we got off the bus...

Conifers and flowering perennials.

Peonies blooming in June!

The black iris were so, so, good.

There were even a few verbascum.

If I were to tell you this was the garden our Fling itinerary that I was most excited to see would you be surprised? Your shock would be understood if this was all there was...

But it was not. There were crevice gardens! I first learned of the Shinn's garden back in 2015, when I wrote a story on crevice gardens for the Oregon Assoc of Nurseries magazine, Digger (here). While researching for that story I had the chance to talk with Kenton J Seth about some of the crevice gardens he's built and this was one we discussed.

He even sent me photos of it's construction back in 2014. Look closely at the rocks here and you can match them with the photo above and those that follow.

Rock placement in process...yes that's Kenton.

And the finished construction.

It looks a bit different now, doesn't it?

Yep, that's our bus.

I knew I wanted to write about the practice of crevice gardening in my upcoming book—Fearless Gardening—which I was writing during the time of the Fling. I asked Carol Shinn if I could use a few of the photos I took that day, in the book, and maybe chat with her, post-Fling, about the garden. She was very encouraging and we went on to have several wonderful email conversations in the weeks that followed.

Having moved from Tucson, AZ, Carol claimed to be done with spiky plants but I noticed a few snuck into the garden.

That cool succulent rosette in the center of this image is an orostachys of some sort.

Titanopsis calcarea

Likely Saxifraga paniculata cartilaginea ‘Foster’s Red’

Echinocereus triglochidiatus, I believe.

The newest crevice garden which looks like it's still being filled with plants.

Looking back at the front garden before heading to the back garden.

And maybe now is a good time to share little more background on the garden, from our Fling materials: "I bought my first plant, a hellebore, at the farmer's market while we were staying in an apartment waiting for the move-in date for our new Colorado home [they moved here in 2006}. The front was an outdated lawn with an interesting flower border and junipers. There were also junipers in front of the house blocking the windows. The back was overgrown with cottonwood/poplar hybrids.

I soon learned about rock gardening and that has become one the focuses here. We started with granite and sandstone boulders in several areas. Later we experimented with a bed of horizontal layers of sandstone, and then a bed of vertical basalt."

Here is the bed of horizontal layers of sandstone mentioned above.

Arenaria ‘Wallowa Mountain’

After studying this section of the Shinn's garden I think I'm even more tempted to make a horizontal crevice garden than the standard verticle.

It's just so good! And takes up even less space.

Also, Carole shared that the rain tends to run off the horizontal layers rather than soaking in like it does with the vertical layers. As someone who lives in a winter wet climate that sounds intriguing to me.

Squished but happy.

Well folks, I hope you enjoyed this last garden of the 2019 Garden Bloggers Fling.

I know some of my fellow "Flingers" got a little tired of rocks and crevice gardens but I did not, not by a long shot. I treasured every one of them, but especially this one. I was so excited to see it in person, and even more so after meeting the owners, Carol and Randy. The Shinns were so welcoming, here's hoping we can get back to visiting gardens in person soon, there's nothing quite like it for inspiration (well, except maybe blogs, and books...).

Weather Diary, Apr 27: Hi 69, Low 49/ Precip .05

All material © 2009-2020 by Loree Bohl for danger garden. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.

25 comments:

  1. Can see why this garden was the most-looked forward to on the trip. Truly stunning and special. I like the look of the horizontal vs vertical crevice garden too. Hate to ask (again) but could I use a couple of your photos for an upcoming talk on dryland gardening please?

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    1. Could you email me about your photo usage? spiky plants at gmail dot com.

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  2. I would love to see maybe some incidents of horizontal stacking built into the edges of your front garden. The rock and crevice gardens were so interesting and clearly make for happy plants in that climate. I can't say I'm a fan of seeing them adjacent to lawn tho -- the juxtaposition for me is a little jarring. But apart from that quibble, yes, I find them stunning too!

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    1. I heard your lawn comment from a few people, it should bother me, but it doesn't...I wonder why?

      Here's something that does bother me though...mixing rock styles. That's the major issue with my working a horizontal crevice garden into the front garden. It's round river rock out there, both the small rocks covering the ground and the large "accent" rocks used for building up the agave plantings (and thus drainage). So basalt or some other thin sharp-sided rocks aren't going to look right mixed in, at least to my eye.

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  3. OMG, these gardens are extraordinary. Kenton is one of the most talented humans when it comes to the creation of slab by slab, crevice gardens. He is an artist, and also a very humble and thoughtful person who easily chatted with me years ago when I lived in Denver. He sees the beauty of each cut or piece of stone. The Shinn's artistry with their plantings create a delicate beauty. This was a match made in crevice garden heaven. I'm smiling.

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    1. Did you ever have the opportunity to see the garden in person Sheila?

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  4. can't wait for your book.

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  5. I don't think I would tire of crevice gardens. I would like to have the opportunity to try. ;) I love all of these plants that live in these circumstances. They might as well come from the moon as from where I live.

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    1. Isn't garden travel fun!? (even virtually....)

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  6. I loved this garden so much! And what a bonus to get construction shots-it adds another layer to my appreciation. Seeing your Fling posts over the last several days made me sad that there is no Fling this year-even though I wasn't going. Of course I wasn't going because of other potentially expensive travel plans for this year, and I'm not optimistic about them coming off either. Now I have to make a decision about next year-do I want to miss Fling 2 years in a row ? And the fact that I have done little or no travel in 2020 has pumped up the travel budget.

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    1. I share your sadness even though I wasn't going either. At least your travel budget is growing. We've had to absorb a major cut to Andrew's salary, so who knows what 2021 will look like for travel.

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  7. Wow, I can see why this was your favorite - it's fabulous!

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    1. I don't know that I would say it was my favorite garden that we saw, it was however the one I was most excited to see...as I had backstory on it prior to our arrival.

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  8. Now that's a crevice garden! And there were peonies too. I'm so sorry I missed it.

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  9. I'm also intrigued by the horizontal crevice garden. It may be more harmonious for a small garden. This last fling garden had wonderful examples of this option. It should work for someone like you who loves spikey plants, I'm excited to see what you create in your own garden.

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  10. This is a gardener with an affinity for rocks! Best crevice garden I have ever seen.
    rickii

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  11. I like all the rocks. Here a crevice garden is just too hot for too long (fried plants) but for a colder climate like Denver or a wetter winter as in the PNW, it would work very well. Beautiful garden with lots of interesting plants. Thanks for giving us a tour.

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    1. Fried plants are no good! But the idea of a crevice garden would seem to work in your environment, a long cool root run for the plants. The trick would be figuring out what could take the heat up top.

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  12. Coming from rock country myself, I adored seeing all the clever rocky gardens in Denver. Thanks for sharing your in-progress photos of the Shinns' crevice garden. And I somehow missed the horizontal crevice garden when I was there.

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  13. This was a fabulous garden. I love the crevices. You got some great shots.

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  14. I had never even heard of a crevice garden until the last year or two when reading on of your (?) blog posts. I really like the idea and have been waiting to incorporate it somehow into my own garden. As you mentioned above - choosing the right plants here in CA (even the SF Bay Area) would be key - and/or select the right orientation if that's an option. The one drawback about using rock in the garden in any serious amount is the relatively high cost (unless you're lucky enough to have a free supply) I've come to think of rocks/boulders in the garden as very heavy lego's. They can always be re-arranged.

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