Dear Gardening Friends:
Where did this year go? Several of you mentioned that you were
afraid you were no longer on our mailing list since you did not receive a
spring newsletter, but the truth of the matter is that we expanded way too much
this year and we have been running to catch up ever since. John and I are still feeling overwhelmed and
lagging behind but we really feel we need to take the time to let you know how
much you are appreciated. Thank you to
all the faithful gardeners who have been with us since we started in Longmont
10 years ago. Thank you to the
gardeners who have discovered us along the way. Thank you to the new customers who discovered us this year. A special thanks to those of you who have
recommended us to your friends and family.
No matter how much we spend in advertising in newspapers, it is never as
productive as your kind words. So many
of our new customers this year were recommended by previous customers. Also,
thank you to those customers who made suggestions on not only how we
could become more visible, but on ways to improve. So once again, thank you, thank you, thank you.
So what have we been doing this year
that we are so behind? First of all we
increased our floor space by one full greenhouse and we took over the whole
outside area where the roses where located last year and filled it not only
with roses but shrubs, evergreens, and fruit trees. The total area is full as we continue to locate shrubs that do
well here as well as in high altitude areas.
We continue to locate native and xeric plants to try as well as new
introductions for the adventuresome gardener who wishes to try something
new. We have almost doubled the number
of perennials we carried last year. We
started working on our web site, www.utetrail.com, and although it was not
completed by the time we started planting, we feel that we got a good start
even though we were not able to keep the plant listings updated with our recent
finds. We increased our parking area,
and have an outline of what we want to do for our outdoor areas. It is our goal to add gardens so that you
can see how the plants look growing in a natural setting. Our dream is to one day have a place where
you can come not only to locate plants you wish to purchase, but to sit, relax,
and enjoy the gardens. We spent more
time in classes this winter at the Denver Botanic Gardens in an effort to be
more helpful and offer suggestions. We also hired a crew of young adults to
help us plant and kept them on to help with our customers. What they lack in planting experience, they
more than make up for in a helpful and willing manner as well as an interest in
learning as they go. They are a
constant source of amazement to me after hearing many complaints about the
ability of the youth of today to work hard and be polite. They have been a blessing to us at a time
when we realized we had far exceeded our ability to plant everything we had
ordered. We recently installed
telephone service and our ultimate goal is to offer you the convenience of using your debit or charge card.
John and I have learned many lessons
this year (some of them involving that dreadful specter of aging-we just can’t
accomplish as much as we did 10 years ago).
We hope that we can build on these lessons in the future and continue
our shared love of the garden with
you. John and Mary
Grasses
After taking a course at Denver
Botanic
Gardens this winter, we got so
excited about
the possibilities of inter-planting
grasses within the garden, that we really expanded our selection. Grasses look great in formal or informal
settings, they look great in the wild-flower garden or inter-planted with
roses. There seems to be no limit to
what they add to the garden in terms of foliage, winter interest, vertical
accents and movement.
Quote "There are many tired gardeners
but I've seldom met old gardeners. I know many elderly gardeners but the
majority are young at heart. Gardening simply does not allow one to be mentally
old, because too many hopes and dreams are yet to be realized. The one absolute
of gardeners is faith. Regardless of how bad past gardens have been, every
gardener believes that next year's will be better. It is easy to age when there
is nothing to believe in, nothing to hope for; gardeners, however, simply
refuse to grow up. Thomas Jefferson said once, "Though an old man, I am
but a young gardener"."...Allan Armitage