Denver metro

Making a Thornton front look like more than a garage door

Thornton frontages are mostly garage, and a few pumpkins by the door will not fix that. We arrive with whole uncarved pumpkins and work the whole front, so it reads from the street rather than from your doormat.

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A Colorado porch pumpkin display running the length of a front walk near Thornton.

The three car garage is the front of your house

Most newer Thornton houses lead with the garage. The front door is set back beside it, often under a small overhang, and from the street the garage is simply the biggest thing you see. Decorating only the door in that situation is a waste, because the door is the part nobody looks at. We treat the garage apron and the strip beside it as the stage. A group at the corner where the garage meets the walk, a second smaller group at the door, and the two read as one piece from across the street. Hay bales earn their keep here because they give height against a large flat door where there is no rail or planter to build on. If your garage faces west and takes the afternoon sun, we keep the fruit off the hot concrete.

Small stoops and long driveways

The front stoop on a newer Thornton build is usually just deep enough for a doormat. There is no porch floor to fill, so anything we place at the door has to sit on the concrete pad or on the step edge without blocking the swing of the door or the path to it. We keep a clear walking line every time, because these entries are narrow and a parcel left at the door still needs somewhere to land. The driveway is the other half of the picture. It is wide, it is flat, and it is the easiest surface in the metro to build on. Flat ground means the pumpkins stay exactly where we set them, so a Thornton display tends to hold its arrangement longer than one on a Golden hillside.

Young trees and wind straight off the plains

Thornton sits out where the metro meets open country, and there is very little between your front yard and the plains. Newer streets have young trees that give no real shelter yet, so the wind arrives at full strength. In practice that means light items move and heavy items do not. Pumpkins are fine. Mum pots, anything tall and anything with a flat face will walk across a driveway in a strong autumn blow. We build low and wide here rather than tall, we set pots down in the lee of the bales or the garage return, and we stake what needs staking into soil rather than leaving it standing loose. If a front comes through and pushes the display out of shape, re-staking after wind is a service we offer, so let us know.

What the season does to a display out here

We deliver from mid August to 31 October, and out here the two things that age a display are sun and snow. Late August on an unshaded south or west facing frontage is hot, and fruit sitting directly on baking concrete softens on the underside first. We lift the larger pieces onto a bale, or set them on grass where you have it. Snow is the other one. A wet early snow will flatten a mum and half bury the smaller pumpkins, and when it melts the arrangement is rarely where we left it. Re-staging after snow is a service we offer and we will come out and rebuild it. At the end of October nothing gets collected. The display belongs to you, and what you do with it in November is entirely your call.

Questions from Thornton

What do the packages cost in Thornton?

Little is $350 for 18 to 20 pumpkins. Full is $695 for 30 to 35 plus two hay bales. Fairy Tale is $1,200 for 50 to 60 including two jumbos and two bales. Thornton is in the metro zone, so add $100 delivery to whichever package you choose.

Will the display block my garage or the front door?

No. We agree the layout with you on the day, and we always leave a clear path to the door and a clear line for cars coming in and out. On a wide Thornton driveway there is usually enough room to keep the whole arrangement off the apron entirely.

Are the pumpkins carved?

No. Everything we deliver is whole and uncarved, which is why a Thornton display can go up in August and still look right at the end of October. Uncut fruit sitting on a dry surface lasts far longer than anything that has been opened up, especially in this much sun.