SUBLETTE COUNTY — Mariffe Cagay Herd is a very adventurous gardener, and her adventures earned her this week’s Sage and Snow Garden of Beauty Award, the sixth of the 2024 season. Her beautiful gardens on Black Hawk Trail in Barger are huge and filled with tried and true Zone 3 plants, but she also grows many others that are not often grown in Sublette County’s climate zone. She picked up some hydrangeas this spring and they are flourishing. Three different varieties of apple trees made it through the winter and look very healthy. Her elderberry bush has survived three winters and is growing well. This spring, she picked up sunflower seeds intended for bird food and sprinkled them throughout her gardens, and they are all full of big, yellow blossoms. Three blueberry bushes have survived our alkaline soil after two years. 
In her native country of the Philippines, moringa is a common medicinal plant, and her little moringa plant survives in the greenhouse. Comfrey, peonies, phlox, iris, native sunflower, yarrow, campanula, coneflower, flax, goldenrod, columbine, lacy phacelia, poppies and lupine are perennial flowers sprinkled throughout her large yard. Besides sunflowers, Mariffe and her daughter Chloe planted zinnias, cosmos, snapdragons, petunias, and sweet potato vines in pots and a stock tank for continuous color this summer. Bok choi, arugula, lettuce, orach, spinach, beans, cilantro, cabbage, onion, and chives grow among the beautiful sunflowers and other flowers. Her daughter is waiting patiently for the raspberries to produce berries. There are gooseberry and currant bushes and rhubarb plants tucked in nooks and crannies. 
Besides huge outdoor gardens, Mariffe has a small greenhouse for growing tomatoes, peppers, and squash. Mariffe hand waters much of her large gardens, usually in the late evenings. She says it is a way to help shrug off the burdens and worries of the day and fill her heart with peace and gratitude. Her husband, Troy Herd, concurred that gardening is good therapy, as it is for many gardeners.