weather near the Spanish Peaks

August Colorado Foothills Garden Scenes

/ Laura Lee Carter / 2 Comments

Although just north of here has received more than abundant rainfall this summer, we are very low on our Water Year measurement at only 11 inches so far, with less than two months to go. That has been pretty tough on my xeriscape garden & landscape.

But my Blue Mist Spirea bushes are bigger and brighter than ever!

And curiously, all the big sunflowers have sprouted on a hill below our home on the east side.

Our fountain & bird bathes continue to attract all kinds of birds, bunnies, chipmunks, bobcats, badgers…

…and, of course, deer. It’s so fun to look outside at various times during the day and enjoy their antics.

This year is in stark contrast to the much wetter August of 2021, when we had had twice as much precipitation by this time in the water year! GO SEE PHOTOS HERE:

My Early June Garden After a Rainy May

/ Laura Lee Carter / 4 Comments

Although we haven’t had the kind of moisture that Denver and Colorado Springs have had this past May (with over five inches!), we have had over two inches here with cloudy rainy days for quite a while now. Today is a good example. Here are some pictures of my plants and bloomers in my foothills garden in southern Colorado today.

Starting on the west end, we have some very happy yucca, cacti and evening primrose plants, although the flowers and fruit of the yucca were rudely eaten off by some kind of varmint. Note the cute little honeysuckle bush in the upper left. It always blooms too early in the year!

Next we have the plants that bloom around my Buddha. On the left is a native Penstemon volunteer still blooming, some catmint coming in on the right and a native Four O-Clock fighting its way through in the middle. That will have magenta flowers eventually… Love it!

What I’m most proud of is my yellow Columbine, because I’ve never had one bloom in my garden thus far. Although it is the Colorado state flower, it usually gets bitten off before blooming.

On the east end I have some lovely irises blooming with the West Spanish Peak behind them!

Overall I’m so pleased with what I have so far, because I know that those May and June showers will bring some great blossoms later on! I’ll keep you posted…

The end of a rainy July in my southern Colorado sky garden…

/ Laura Lee Carter / Leave a comment

After almost four inches of rain this month, my sky garden is a bit subdued this morning. Mount Mestas looks like it has a dollop of cream on top.

The Blue Mist Spirea is completely out now, but I’m afraid all this rain at once is giving my lavender some root rot!

The bumble bees are showing all my plants some love, but especially the Spirea right now.

Buddha is loving the rain!

And my late blooming magenta yarrow is finally catching up with its yellow brother…

This view from 2019 of the Spanish Peaks and the Sangres shows why we call it the “Sky Garden”

It’s lavender time in my foothills garden!

/ Laura Lee Carter / Leave a comment

If I had to choose one plant that LOVES it the best up here at 7,000 feet, it would be lavender. Every year my plants get larger and larger and ever more happy and beautiful!

They are just coming out now in all of their glory with my different colored yarrow plants!

And they mix so well with many different types of flowers and plants.

Lavender was one of the first plants I planted, before I even had a garden going south of our home.

This is my first plant in October of 2018. I have found that is smells wonderful and absolutely no critters are anxious to take a bite of it 🙂

This is that plant today!

It seems that there is a new lavender farm in our county called Spanish Peaks Lavender Farm, 10 miles northwest of Walsenburg, off County Road 521. I’ve contacted them for more information about their operation and I’ll get back to you with more if they answer me.

In the meantime, if you’d like to learn more about choosing the right lavender plants for your high country garden, please go here!

Our private superbloom: Navajo Tea in Navajo!

/ Laura Lee Carter / 1 Comment

Seven years past the first time I witnessed a superbloom here in the foothills of southern Colorado, we are having an even bigger one again, right around my home. We live in the Navajo Ranch area smack dab between the towns of Walsenburg and La Veta Colorado.

This is Navajo Tea also known as greenthread, the common names given to multiple species within the genus Thelesperma. This species is a native of the Great Plains and mountain states.

Thelespermas are used by a number of the southwestern Native American peoples as herbal teas, earning the plant common names like Navajo Tea or Hopi Tea. The plant can be boiled whole until the water turns a rusty color and used as a tea. Historically it has also been used as a medicinal remedy and for yellow dyes.

Here are a few local views of our superbloom:

Here is a hillside of flowers with the Spanish Peaks as a rainy backdrop…

Fields of flowers with Mount Mestas in the distance…

And just plain fields of flowers! What a grand spring surprise for us!

In spite of high winds & a foot of snow in May, these flowers are radiant in my foothills garden!

/ Laura Lee Carter / Leave a comment

This morning the Rocky Mountain Penstemons are smiling BIG TIME…

As I move from east to west this plant, that got eaten last year by I don’t know what, is raring to grow.

I love to watch the serendipity of plantings from years past. For example, I had no idea this combination of these little yellow flowers, the Penstemon pinifolius (red), the RM penstemon (purple) and lavender would look so good together this year. I’m not smart enough to plan that!

And these were all planted at different times too. At first I had too much purple and the interesting Knautia macedonica ‘Red Knight’ plant, so I added a yellow yarrow right in the middle. And in spite of high winds and a foot of snow on May 22nd, everything survived!

One thing I have learned, plants need to be quite resilient to survive the wild and windy weather up here!