Deb Paulson appreciates the opportunity to see how other green thumbs organize their gardens. She’s a “chaos gardener,” meaning she plants what she wants into the ground and sees what thrives. But she took the chance to learn about other techniques on Saturday during the 2025 Gardens on Tour in Durango.
“This is a highly tended garden, obviously, and big,” she said on a tour of Durango Hot Springs at 6475 County Road 203 north of Durango. “Others (in the tour are seeing) little postage stamp gardens that people have put their hearts and souls into.”
But despite her preferred gardening style, she still learns a lot about other approaches to gardening during the Saturday, she said.
She said she wouldn’t have any idea how to grow certain flowering plants or how to organize them in her own garden if she hadn’t attended the tour on Saturday.
Growing vegetables takes a lot of trial and error. But Paulson seemed up to the task
“It’s more natural. And my gardens, and I’ve seen other gardens, and that’s what I really love, is they sometimes mix vegetables and flowers,” she said. “If you have a lot of property and you don’t have a lot, you can still have a pretty nice place.”
She added that every garden is “different and interesting.”
Mary Ellen said she was on the garden tour to get some inspiration. She is a recent graduate from Fort Lewis College and she is interested in big flower blooms that match her and her fiancé’s home’s colors.
She prefers “meatier,” darker colors that would match with the tone of her home.
“I’m trying to go on a real life Pinterest journey away from the screen,” she said.
She liked seeing the good use of mulch and water retention in garden beds at the Durango Hot Springs.
“I’m trying to make my house beautiful like this,” she said.
She added that she’s glad Durango has community-focused events such as the Gardens on Tour because it builds community and allows people to meet and talk to one another.
“It’s important for the community (to have) events like this,” she said.
The 2025 Gardens on Tour, organized by the Durango Botanic Gardens, featured a self-guided tour of nine “hand-selected gardens” around the Durango area on Saturday. The Durango Hot Springs was a sponsor of the event.
cburney@durangoherald.com
