A boomer makes the best of solar

Seven years ago, writer Laura Lee Carter and her husband moved from the college town of Fort Collins, Colorado, about 50 miles north of Denver, to the more rural southern part of the state. As she puts it, and as her pictures prove, they retired in solar style

This story is about transforming this sad, dry piece of ground in March of 2018 …

To this in three years.

March 2018 — The secret was in the terracing and hardscaping at first.

Then… in August, 2019.

John relaxing with his guitar after work.

Luckily I had my husband Mike and my brother John to do the heavy lifting, but they helped a lot with the vision and design too. The process of this transformation had a life of its own really. We would do one wall and then that would lead to thoughts about other transformations. Why did we use gravel? Because that’s all we could get around here.

When we started out I had no idea what we could create, but we just keep at it and it continues to improve, especially with the native voluntaries coming in more each year. We get more Blue Mist Spirea mini-bushes each year, more early purple penstemons, and these lovely little lupines in June.

The endless native sunflowers.

I finally named my garden after my brother who knows so much about gardening and is so willing to do the hard work it takes to make it GROW! Ask the critters, the birds, the bees, the bunnies, the beetles, the hummingbirds, and the salamanders (lizards?) if life is better with us around. We aim to please…

The brief but colorful story of my garden below the Spanish Peaks in southern Colorado!