A Note from The Gardener When I was eight years old, I refused to read. Reading wasn’t “doing” something. It meant sitting still. It meant waiting. It meant fanning the pages forward, impatiently, after every paragraph, as if I could hurry the story along. I couldn’t stay still long enough for my mind to get interested. One summer, my mother bought me The Yearling . She didn’t tell me it was required reading. She simply set me on the bed, waited until I turned the first page,

Most people think landscape design is about plants. They’re not wrong, exactly. Plants matter. We think carefully about which ones will bloom, which ones will thrive, which ones can survive a Colorado summer without throwing in the towel. But that’s not really what we’re doing here at The Happy Gardener. What we’re actually designing for is people . We Ask a Different Question Before a single shrub goes into the ground, we ask: What will be their experience? When someone pull

When I think of me, as just me, I forget I could be a tree. A tree accepts what it is given, doesn’t react to the small voices that come by now and then talking of all that could be and is not, with no meaning given to not being chosen to sit beside me, and only wonder if my sap is beginning to move the energy within me.                   When I arrived here from the nursery, they seemed to be talking about whether it would be this place or that, will there be enough room for

November might feel like the end of the gardening season—but for those in the know, it's actually the beginning of something new. It’s a time for reflection, imagination, and preparation. The nurseries are quiet, the rush is over, and now you have room to think. Tagawa and Pine Lane Nursery are peaceful this time of year. It’s the perfect moment to start dreaming—what do you want to replace? What new plants are on your wish list? Who can you talk to about next year’s plans? T