“You don’t have to be a master gardener or have endless time to create a garden you love.”

— Ann at Go West Gardener

ABOUT GO WEST GARDENER

Hi, I’m Ann. When I moved to Colorado, I thought I had this gardening thing down.

I grew up in a family of green-thumbed gardeners in Michigan. I worked in a thriving garden center for multiple summers. I had grown big, colorful flowerpots in the Midwest.

I totally had this.

Until I totally didn’t …

I wanted to plant the flowers I loved from my Mom’s garden.

It seemed like a good plan until:

I couldn’t get my shovel in the ground because the clay soil was as hard as concrete.

What the !?!

And I experienced the “joy” of hail pounding my plants from the sky.

And I discovered what our high-altitude sun, hot temps and drought can do to flowers that crave water.

(Hint: It ain’t pretty.)

And that’s when I realized:

I’m coming at this the wrong way.

Just like I had to adjust my baking recipes for altitude here in Colorado, I had to think differently about gardening too.

So, I dug into classes and hands-on practice.

I became a master gardener and a western garden writer. My articles have appeared in magazines like Colorado Green, Colorado Builder and Bloom Gardens.
I continue to find ways to learn. Collectively, I have 200+ hours of formal western garden training.
And I’ve transformed my flower gardens to be more in tune with what Mother Nature throws at us in the wild, semi-arid West. (20 years of seeing what works and what doesn’t, friends!)

For the last decade, I’ve helped friends transform their flowerpots and gardens.

Now I want to inspire you.

There are lots of resources out there for flower gardeners in other regions of the country.

But for people who are getting the hang of gardening in the semi-arid, high-elevation, gotta-have-some-moxie West?

Crickets.

I created Go West Gardener, so you can get results faster with western flower gardening — and have fun doing it. You’ll find tips like:

How to choose flowers well for our unforgiving western climate
How to break the expensive cycle of trial and error for things you can control (no more replacing plant after plant!)
How to spend less time (and money) watering, so you can spend more time enjoying your garden

Translation:

You DON’T have to do this the hard way.

Whether you’re getting the hang of flower gardening or you’re new to Colorado, Utah or the intermountain west, I’m here to help guide you, so you can skip the:

“Crap, why didn’t anyone tell me this?” phase

And go straight to hearing:

“Wow, your flowers look A-MA-ZING!”

(That never gets old!)