Subdivision: Anasazi Trails
Owners: Alwyn and Sunel Vanderwalt
Garden Type or Features: Pollinator garden beds, trees, native plants, beautifully hardscaped patio courtyards, vignette planting, arroyo slope-side pueblo style erosion control.
Artist in the Garden: Laura Robins.
Click here to download this garden’s Garden Plant List
Description: Sunel and Alwyn have gardened on this property for a decade. You may recall that their garden was featured in the 2021 Placitas Garden Tour. At that time the owners had just completed on their own an erosion control landscaping project on their south facing arroyo slope using Zuni Bowl soil sponges and meandering constructed pathways to slow and divert the flow of landscape water. Sunel loves to sit on a bench in this area in late spring looking at the mountain view.
Sunel’s perennial pollinator beds were a hit with the garden tour guests in 2021 and they will not disappoint visitors in 2025. The pollinator bed plantings, featuring a variety of native and adapted natives, have matured and provide a profusion of color throughout the growing season. They also supply food for a diverse pollinating insect population. Sunel has had her wildlife friendly garden certified by the Albuquerque Back Yard Refuge for the last three years. Her gardening philosophy has been inspired by author and professor Doug Tallamy who wrote “Bringing Nature Back Home.”
Sunel wants her garden visitors to know that she had to take a break from her regular gardening during the last three years to study for a new profession and set up a clinic office. Now that she is getting her practice under control, she is looking forward to focusing some of her energy back to the garden, which provided visual solace during her intense studying period. This garden already had good hardscape bones and many well-established plants, so Sunel’s gardening hiatus will hardly be noticed. The plants grew, and the wildlife continued to make its home at her garden. This is what Sunel desired. There are lessons learned from this time that Sunel and the garden volunteers will point out to fellow high desert gardeners who wish to co-exist with nature and all its amazing forces.
