The photos below are views of Long’s Gardens not necessarily associated with iris. We hope it gives you a flavor of what we are all about. New photos are added on an irregular time table as time permits and photos happen. Please check back for new additions.
Cheetah, our new office cat, hard at work
An 8 hour old fawn
Red Tailed Hawk guarding one of our buildings
The ever popular Trout working hard at her job.
Hot times near Boulder, 2012. Two different fires within a week. Luckily they were put out quickly.
Early fall colors
Early fall colors
Deer picnic at Long’s
Lesser Goldfinch harvesting sunflower seeds
The landscape architect’s vision of the renovated frontage
Our frontage before the Broadway Reconstruction project
The actual completed new frontage as it now appears
The new historical information sign in front of our place.
Elizabeth Black (one of our Silver Lake Ditch users) was the driving force in an exhibit of the history, art, photographs and educational material of the irrigation ditches in Boulder County. While the exhibit has closed, you can still see an abundance of information on this wonderful exhibit check out the website at www.DitchProject.org.
Our new solar panels on our office building installed by Namaste Solar Electric here in Boulder.
What is it? It’s not a spaceship but an official National Weather Service precipitation gauge. Catherine changes its tape once a month to send in to the NWS for the official record. It is officially known as Boulder #2 and has been on our property for over 20 years.
Long’s Gardens as seen from Mt. Sanitas to the west of our place. Long’s Gardens is the large open space in the center of the photo. By the way, it’s pronounced San‘-ah-tas, as in Sanitarium. The mountain got its name from the former Boulder Sanitarium at its base. Say it right, sound like a native!
Our faithful workhorse – 1946 International Harvester Model H tractor. Workhorse is appropriate, Everett Long purchased this tractor to replace the garden horse.
Carrie, our Prairie Home Companion greeting customers in the office. Carrie came to us by way of an auction to benefit our local independent radio station, KGNU.
Watering the newly planted iris. We use movable overhead sprinkler pipe for all our watering. The water comes from the Silver Lake Ditch, which runs along the mountainside to the west of Long’s Gardens.
We’re all one big happy family here. These are some of our resident deer herd, young and old. These are wild deer, not tame, not our pets. They can get spooked easily and will defend their young, so don’t try and pet them.
The much photographed, painted and popular people pleasing poppies. They continually try to out shine the iris.
Fox gloves at Long’s. All of these were collected by our former resident foxes, mainly for entertainment of the young foxes. They also collected shoes, nerf toys and baseball gloves. We kept finding these gloves in the field and decided they needed to dress up a section of snow-fence.
The iris in the digging field are planted and growing to put on a good show in the spring. The bright green is annual rye and vetch for cover crop, giving the ground a rest from iris (the foreground and background have yet to sprout in this photo).
Frosty fall
What?! Snow in November?
Snow is still here in February, how unusual. Makes it hard to attack those weeds – oh, shucks!
For several weeks in the winter of 2008, our back drive was not too usable due to our latest project, the installation of a new geothermal heating system in the office. These are the lines from three 250′ deep holes joined together for the line to the inside ground source heat pump. What it means is that we no longer use any natural gas for heating the office. As a bonus, we get cooling in the summer. On sunny days, our solar panels provide the electricity we need for heating and cooling. The trench is now buried, and road base is in place so vehicles no longer disappear into the clay. We are very happy with the work done by Blue Valley Energy Solutions.
A snow storm one April nicely flocked the yucca. The yucca and the iris enjoy a waterful gift like this.
Crabapple blooms and apple blossoms in May
The peonies are putting on a pretty performance.
Garden guardian
The first of the lilacs in bloom
Traffic control at Long’s
A field of buckwheat cover crop in bloom. It provides green manure for our fields and food for the bees.
The bees are enjoy the buckwheat and their new solar powered bear fence.
One of the foxes’ toys. We played a game where we set Teddy in a nice spot, the foxes come and, after a night of revelry, left him in the field, we find a nice spot, the foxes play and so forth. It was entertainment for all concerned.
Iris danfordiae
Iris danfordiae
Iris reticulata
Iris reticulata
Our first irises to bloom are these gems, Iris danfordiae and Iris reticulata , both small bulbous irises planted in the fall. While we do not sell these irises, they are easily found in garden centers or by mail order in the fall. They want to grow and supply a nice bit of color in late winter to early spring. These bloomed in our yard the beginning of March. They top out at 4 inches in height.
One of our former resident foxes enjoying some Colorado sun on the chicken house roof . Sorry Foxy, you’re about 50 years too late for the chickens. A few years ago, the foxes in this part of town contracted mange and are no longer with us. We have seen foxes in other parts of town, so they may be back here with us in the future.
Car wash at Long’s Gardens
Recently we had to remove about 30 mature Black Walnuts that had been killed by the Thousand Cankers disease. We had one of those trees cut off high with a three fork trunk preserved. As a memorial to these trees, planted by Catherine’s grandparents, we had this tree carved as an Great Horned Owl in the attack position. Local artist, Lueb Popoff, (www.hollowlogonline.com) did an outstanding job. We have named the owl, Juglans, since he was carved from a Black Walnut, Juglans nigra. Be sure an look for him next time you’re here – he will be looking at you!
This is our newly rebuilt wall with new iron fence and sandstone sign. The original wall, built some 90+ years ago, was in need of repair. As part of the Broadway Reconstruction project and our new sidewalk, the wall was rebuilt to its former glory by John Merims and crew of Aspen Grove Stone Masonry. The new iron fence, by Eric St. Germain of Loop Fence (now English Garden Fence) is untreated so will require little or no maintenance, making it very sustainable as well as beautiful. It mirrors the design of the historic loop wire fence along the rest of our frontage. The sandstone sign was made by Tribble Stone Company and provides the finishing touch to the wall. We are very excited and pleased with this work of art and will probably talk your ear off if given a chance. Check out the Broadway Reconstruction page for photos of this project.
