October 03, 2026
I struck up a conversation with landscape architect Wendy Booth at a garden event a few months ago, and we connected over a love of garden design and a shared interest in social media. (I’m hoping she’ll join the gardening community on Instagram; if she does, I’ll share her ‘gram so you can follow.)
Wendy is the founder and recently retired owner of Ivy Street Design, a boutique landscape architecture and garden design firm here in Denver.
Waterwise front garden
She invited me over to see her personal garden in North Park Hill this week, which was a treat. She’s been growing her garden over the past 10 years and has three distinct spaces to play in. Let’s start in the waterwise front yard, which faces a busy street but also a wide green parkway. Here Wendy has encircled a buffalograss lawn with tough, sun-loving perennials, shrubs, and trees for screening and color.
Along the front porch, a deep bed anchored by a redbud tree can also be enjoyed through a large picture window in Wendy’s living room. Thanks to that big window, the garden feels like it’s part of her living room — it was a fabulous view.
A low rippling fountain adds a feeling of serenity and no doubt brings in the birds.
A skinny raised bed along the porch provides an opportunity to grow colorful annuals like zinnias and cosmos. A red rose continues the hot color scheme — better than pale colors in Colorado’s bright sunlight, Wendy says — and a towering pampas grass screens the house next door.
Everyone who’s met me in a garden here knows that conifers are my lust plant. ‘Hillside Creeper’ Scotch pine is a new one I’m coveting, though it’s likely too big for my tiny yard. But it’s perfect for Wendy’s yard, making a 3-foot-tall fluffy foundation screen. The wine-red shrubs behind it are ninebarks, another new-to-me plant I love.
‘Lady in Black’ aster was in full bloom and alive with bees.
By the sidewalk, pitcher sage (Salvia azurea) holds its sky-blue flowers on upright stems.
A powder-blue yucca, maybe banana yucca, will add height and structure as it matures.
Notice how deep the planting beds are — better for screening, lawn shrinking, and of course more fun growing more plants.
Eryngium — look at the color on this! Wendy has offered me seedlings, yay!
Agastache was attracting moths on this cloudy late afternoon.
So cute
Fluttery
Agastache and boltonia
I will be growing agastache next season for sure. I tried it a few times in Austin, and it never thrived there — too much heat plus humidity, I think.
Boltonia gets pretty big and does a nice job screening the road.
Kentucky coffeetree, a new-to-me tree that’s on Colorado’s recommended list for shade trees.
Moon carrot foliage
Dwarf plumbago. Wendy says it’s a thug, but it does a great job of ground-covering in either shade or sun.
Pink cosmos, an annual flower easily grown from seed. It can also be a thug, as I remember from my Texas gardening days (it grows well there too), but who can resist the prolific flowers?
Hummingbird trumpet blazing away — another future plant for me
Last look at the entry garden
Shady back garden
Now let’s tour the shady backyard garden, which has a completely different vibe. Whereas the front has a lot of native and pollinator plants and a waterwise focus for its hot, full-sun exposure, the plants back here thrive in deep shade.
A big elm in the center of the lawn spreads its limbs over the garden, shading a pair of sage-green Adirondacks.
A blue pot fountain bubbles near the back porch.
Wendy uses upright pines to screen the alley, though she’s lost a couple this year — casualties of the heat and drought? Anemones add sweet pink flowers, though they’ve stubbornly turned to face the alley in their quest for more sun.
Peaceful vignette
Anemones — I see you
A climbing euonymus greens up the fence. Wendy likes these diamond trellises from IKEA for giving vines support to climb.
‘Rozanne’ geranium
‘Carol Mackie’ daphne, with its cream-edged leaves, makes a pretty foundation shrub.
Beautiful foliage
One more
A covered patio with a fireplace overlooks the garden.
A delphinium or two succeeded this year, a flower Wendy covets.
The shades-of-green back garden is a serene counterpoint to the color and energy of the front garden.
There are flowers back here too though, especially along the fence. I love this vignette of dwarf blue spruce with a pink rose and lavender rose of Sharon.
Let’s exit through the gate into the vegetable garden along the driveway.
Side-yard vegetable garden
The side yard is all cottagey exuberance. Raised Corten beds hold tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, and more, along with self-seeding annuals like marigolds, cosmos, zinnia, and tithonia.
It’s all very charming.
Marigolds and nasturtium
Nasturtium flowering in late September!
Zucchini
Tithonia
Pitcher sage and gaillardia
We debated over whether this was Queen Anne’s lace or something else in the carrot family.
Queen Anne’s lace flowers — or their doppelganger
It’s always fun to see what a designer does in their own garden, where they can cut loose and take chances. Thanks to Wendy for sharing hers with me!
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