After attending one of the educational talks I gave on fire-resistant landscaping in the spring of 2025, these clients hired me to put in a garden that not only met the design guidelines, but also their particular tastes. As part of my community role Fire Adapted Colorado Neighborhood Ambassador, I’m trained to understand home hardening. With my background as a Master Gardener and Landscape Designer, I was very excited to help these new homeowners create a beautiful garden that sets the example for Boulder as to what a fire-resistant garden can look like.

Being mature clients, they offered quite a bit of gardening experience as to preference of colors and plants, however, were open the large variety of low-flammability and native plant options available. The simple design is accented by the plant selection and groupings of the plantings. The finishing detail of hand-placed rock mulches was completed with intention to create fire breaks and keep maintenance simplified.

“We moved to Boulder September 2024 to a home with no landscaping, We attended a class on sustainable fire resistant landscaping taught by Alicia Curtin, owner of Desert Bloom Landscape Design. Alicia helped us pick out all the plants and totally designed our yard, She is a true artist and we would highly recommend Desert Bloom and any opportunity to work with Alicia. We love our new yard!” - Tracey & Bill O