Subdivision: San Francisco Hills Road
Owner/ Designer: Savannah Boone
Garden Type or Features: Historic rural Placitas location with a charming rustic Caribbean ambience, orchard and vegetable growing, pollinator/bee keeping, naturalized plant and tree specimen transplants throughout property, hoop house and air pruning gardening beds.
Artist in the Garden: Corky Baron
Description: Savannah’s garden was a popular destination for gardeners of all interests at the May 2017 tour. She has since retired from Southwest Airlines and has upgraded the landscaping, constructed a protected beehive enclosure, and is still employing alternative gardening methods such as the air pruning raised vegetable beds. Most of the new plants are naturalized or transplanted from shoots from existing trees and shrubs (Lilacs, Russian Olive, New Mexico Privet, Mimosa), or started from seed in her hoop house raised beds using a combination of soil and straw.
Savannah is a passionate gardener and traveler. She learned to garden while growing up on the Island of Antiqua, where she met her late husband Hawkeye, a sailing buff and carpenter. They returned to the States 20 some years ago, first in California before settling on this remote Placitas land. Except for native juniper trees, Savannah gradually created the garden and orchard you see today along with her husband’s help. Now she has plans for a new direction, imagining and designing additions to her property for horticultural education and as a meeting place for local gardening groups.