A s anniversaries go, it probably isn't one a lot of gardeners
like to remember. The days were warm and the nights cool; with
nice weather people didn't take the calendar too seriously. Just
when we thought we'd have a beautiful fall, the weather turned
nasty.  Temperatures dropped suddenly, tumbling to a chill 16
degrees on Oct. 10 last year. Plants froze, and so did sprinkler
systems. When the weather warmed, fountains of water geysered
up, turning our yards into a parody of the Las Vegas strip.  "We
saw a good number of systems frozen in the area. They didn't
start spewing until they thawed out," said D.J. Caldwell,
Account Manager with Foothills Landscape Maintenance
(flmcolorado.com/). That's when damaged backflow prevention
valves erupted with water, and calls to landscape companies
skyrocketed. As the calls poured in, supplies ran short.  "Last
year caught the Front Range off guard. A lot of sprinkler supply
companies couldn't keep up with the demand for replacement
parts, and people had to wait two or