Welcome to The Colorado Rocky Mountain English Country Sculpture Garden
Tour 4 ~ September, 2012
One Glorious Month
Boom! There went the economy. Early winter, 2008. For whom the reeds toll.
While putting this gallery together it came as something of a shock to realize that almost 4 years exist between the photo above, taken in December of 2008, and the rest of the photos you see, all taken in the glorious month of September, 2012. During which time I had not taken a single picture of or in the garden – or so it now appears by my photo files. These were the darkest of the depression’s Dark Ages and I simply could not afford the time nor expense of a luxury like gardening. Not that I didn’t enjoy time within it, just that by necessity I had indefinitely suspended my role as gardener in order to grapple with a recession that hit with such a devastating hammer blow in the autumn of 2008.
The garden’s nature reserve encompasses practically every form of living thing, from bears and deer, to insects and birds, plants, trees, grasses – a huge variety species creating a microcosm within which all seems to thrive – a virtual back garden Noah’s Ark. Wait just a few moments and something will catch your eye – be it a mountain eagle, a deer, a fox, a grass snake. Practically everything wild thing in the valley seems drawn to the Rocky Mountain English Country Sculpture Garden – and that’s just fine by me, we feel the very same way.
Throughout the 4 years my role became that of an impassive spectator, confined to watching from the sidelines as the garden evolved and matured with each passing season. From time to time I would wade in with a spot of much needed pruning but that was about it. The garden was left fallow, and it needed no prompting from me to seize full advantage of my absence by ripening quite nicely by the time I was able to resume my meddling in the spring of 2012.
Kris anoints her toes in Woody Creek water.
This month, this golden month of September 2012, will live long in my memory for reasons quite unrelated to the garden, but it was and is the place where I love to spend my time when not sculpting (or blogging). At the time these photos were taken The Colorado Rocky Mountain English Country Sculpture Garden had blossomed into the riot of color which I hope these pictures adequately portray.
So lovely to have the old garden back…
I must admit that it took much getting used to – this concept of a garden peaking in August and September, but that is the strange truth of the matter here at 7,600 feet above sea level. It’s even stranger to think of how barren the landscape around these parts looks in my birth month of April (not helped one bit by its nickname; the mud season. When I think of the daffodils, tulips and multitude of spring flowers adorning England at this time of year my homesick pang (we expats all get them) bites all that bit deeper.
Elky’s Corner, viewed from the Arbor Bench.
I want to sit in that beautiful garden and have a cold glass of vino-collapso!!!!