For two summers now, I’ve been watching the garden across the street take shape, formal and zen-like behind a high, capped fence, soft and joyous along the border out front.
It’s the work of a sculptor, musician and garden designer named Kimmer. And although I am intrigued by the progress near my home, it’s Kimmer’s own garden, a few blocks south, that lures me with tendrils of color, texture and scent.
During almost the same period she’s been working on my block, she’s crafted a romantic landscape from two, almost three, city lots once knotted with bindweed. It’s bounded by supple trees with cut leaves, dark green on one side and silver on the other, espaliered into an arched fence that can’t really hold back the mounds of foliage — or Kimmer’s evident love.
“Come in, come in,” she says one dreary morning. “Smell this! Feel this!”
Three roses, skirted with a fringe of lavender, perfume the corner of her front porch with a fragrance so deep that it soaks right into my mood, reminding me all day of the joy in a sweetly tended garden.
Dana Coffield, The Denver Post
