A Gardener's Year at Descanso, Part Three

Celebrating a year of labor on land, and its beautiful botanical results. 

May, 2024

What a Spring! The wet winter, intermittent showers, plus May Gray and June Gloom, brought the gardens at Descanso into a kind of rolling super-bloom.

 

May Day -- Toxicodendron removal suit



The Gate refurbished as a trellis. 
May Gray brings our reward for mulching the matilijas and weeding out Natives.





A magnificent riot in the Rose Garden:








June, 2024


The Old Train Station gets de-commissioned: new beds with boulder borders are laid out in its place, along the Promenade. 





Meanwhile throughout June, the New Train Station and Train Garden were a-building on Nature's Table. Work intensified right up to the opening day, July 3.



July, 2024
Gardening in miniature -- learning-by-doing this brand-new horticultural style.






August, 2024 

"Brown is also a color." -- Legendary gardener Piet Oudolf

To round out our year of labor, we got 90-100-degree temperatures this summer. Our
 work was put into refurbishing the Ancient Forest. Invasives and bracken were hauled out; redwood suckers tamed; ferns endlessly transplanted to make room for the dozens of new cycad specimens we planted. The forest now looks more awesome than ever, like an eerie time-warp into the Jurassic:







"Come to me, all ye who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you mulch."

Happy Labor Day!


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