I'm wondering who designed this landscape of the front yard of a new house in my neighborhood.
At first I was struck by horrible appearance of the soil, which looked like concrete overflow rather than the native soil around here. Then I noticed the aspen which is always planted in my neighborhood, despite seeing most of them dying. Then I was struck by how close they are planted to the house. Then the combination of the thirsty aspen with the dryland red yucca. But look closer.
What the heck is that? It's planted in full sun in unamended caliche...in the one-plant-in-an-ocean-of-emptiness style that is typical for Albuquerque. Could it be...yes, it is...a fern! or rather, three ferns (see the top photo). Quite the combination with the red yucca, wouldn't you say? Well, since it is something that is not in my landscape vocabulary, I'm really curious as to what kind of fern it is and how long it will last. Maybe I will be impressed, but that's very, very unlikely IMHO.
You nailed it on the ABQ "style" of isolated plants of the wrong species. Suddenly the "yucca in a gravel bed" isn't nearly so bad. But still bad - why not just add more plants? After all, many do not charge for plants on the old Denver / midwestern pricing model, esp. natives. Though I cannot imagine much of the money here was spent on anything but rock cover.
ReplyDeleteCaliche...I was lucky to have had granite bedrock!