Designing A Landscape For Denver

I recently was interviewed for an online article about the challenges and opportunities of designing a landscape for the Denver area, which is also applicable to the whole Colorado front range. This fits nicely with the video I recently posted on the same theme.

Denver  Garden Design: How To Design A Landscape Uniquely Suited For The Colorado Front Range
by Bonnie Driscol

Here in the Denver/Boulder area, at the base of the Rocky Mountains, we have unique challenges for landscaping, starting with our unusual climate. According to Tom Altgelt, an award-winning landscape architect who designs landscapes and gardens in the Boulder/Denver area, “We have to contend with everything from high wind to hail. It is very dry and high up, with winter November through March.” We love those sunny winter days, but off and on, we have harsh weather for many months.

With our long Colorado winters, wouldn’t it be best if our landscapes were interesting and beautiful even during the cold months? As Altgelt remarks, “We may walk out into the garden on some mild days, and even on harsh days we can see the garden through the window.” This year-round interest does not happen by accident, and it is often missing, even from otherwise well-crafted landscapes. Tom offers three ways to create a beauty that flows and changes through all the seasons.

For Tom Altgelt, the first step is to sculpt the forms and shapes of the earth itself. “Ideally, the bare landscape will feel as though it has been sculpted by wind and water. We want the energetics of this sculpture to have a pleasing and dynamic flow and movement, so the eye will perceive forms that are beautiful, animated, moving, uplifting as it is animating us.” By artistically forming the bare land and rock formations, a beauty can be created that will last through the seasons.

Looking at photos showing examples of Tom’s landscapes, it is remarkable how similar a designed and created landscape can be to a dry creek bed with rock outcroppings found in nature. “In some ways we will work with what is naturally occurring here in our local environment and recreate some of that in the garden.”

Once the landscape is sculpted artistically, the next step is to include some evergreen plants into the larger sculpture, for color during the cold months. Both dwarf and larger evergreens are available to accentuate rock formations. “There are also various native drought tolerant broadleaf and blooming evergreen plants like the creeping mahonia that relate beautifully to boulders.”

The third step is to include deciduous plants that keep our interest in winter even after they lose their leaves. “For example, there’s the service berry, with a multiform windswept display of trunks and branching twigs. There are incredibly beautiful plants that are sometimes even more beautiful without their leaves or flowers.” The red and yellow twig dogwoods show off their colored branches in winter. There’s the Canadian redbud with the sculptural form of its bare branches. And, of course, the list goes on and on.

Altgelt comments that there are fewer trees and shrubs that will grow here, with our harsh climate, compared to New England or Germany where Tom began his landscape architecture career. “At the same time, It is remarkable what we can do here with perennials. After the long winter, they will come back up again in the spring, and this is an important component of beautiful gardens here.” When Tom first came to the Denver/Boulder area from Germany, he was surprised at how little attention is often paid to perennials in this region. When incorporated artistically into a landscape, perennials can really bring a garden to life!

The one element that is missing here is water. Because our climate is so dry, according to Altgelt, water in a Colorado garden can be especially appreciated. “A large and dramatic water garden in Florida may not be as special and appreciated as a far more subtle water garden here in Colorado.”

Although many of Altgelt’s designs are naturalistic, inspired by native forms and plants, he often expands beyond what is found naturally. “We start with what is unique to this area, and depending on the land and the desires of the client, we may also blend a foreign theme with a native theme, so the garden appears or feels as if it were almost transported from a different place.” For instance, a Colorado garden could, ultimately, have the look and feel of a Japanese garden, an Italian courtyard garden, an English cottage garden, a Moorish garden or a French formal garden. These foreign design modalities can be modified and adapted to suit Colorado conditions.

Altgelt then adds various man-made artistic elements-sculpture, a bench, a gazebo, a fence-which can add the human touch to the beauty of nature. Just as the house was added to the natural setting, these other man-made elements can harmonize with the sculpted earth, rocks and plants, as well as the architecture. “We can accept and respond to and elaborate on the beauty that was here to begin with, and the result is a uniquely Colorado garden.”