Category: Gardening

Posted on in Gardening, Landscaping, Xeriscape

A Garden Catalog for Colorado

high-country-gardens-catalogLast week I was complaining about catalogs full of tempting, desirable plants that simply will not grow here in Colorado. Today I want to introduce you to a catalog full of tempting, desirable plants that love it here.

Most experienced local gardeners already know about High Country Gardens, but if you don’t, you should. Based in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, New Mexico, this company specializes in perennials suited for the high, dry gardens of the western U.S. In fact, a lot of their stock won’t do well in “average garden conditions” (a phrase that means “conditions in gardens that are not in Colorado”).

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Posted on in Gardening, Landscaping, Veggies

Gardening in the Zone

usda-zone-mapAfter all the bustle of the holidays, I finally have a chance to brew a cup of tea, snuggle into my favorite chair, and open that stack of garden catalogs I’ve been accumulating. As I skip past the annual seeds and browse through pages filled with gorgeous photos of lush, evergreen shrubs and flowering trees, the frustration begins to build.

See, they have this little box, usually inside the front or back page, or perhaps on the order form. It has a map of the U.S., with colored bands forming a predictable rainbow in the east, but looking a bit more chaotic in the west. This map tells me that most of the plants in the catalog will not survive my Colorado winters.

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Posted on in Gardening, Surviving Winter

Planning Ahead

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It’s the beginning of a new year, and time to dream about the upcoming growing season. Do you want to add some permanent plantings?  Are you imagining flower beds brimming with annuals? Will you be buying from catalogs? (Get that order in early before they run out of that must-have variety.)

With the Christmas decorations packed away for another year, I finally have time to take a deep breath, brew a cup of tea, and begin to think about spring. I start by making a list of topics, and then mark down what will need doing, and when.

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Posted on in Gardening, Surviving Winter

A Garden Retrospective

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With the bustle of Christmas over and the new year just ahead, it’s time to take stock of our lives, and that includes our gardens. Now, when the ground is frozen, plants dormant, and hopefully under an insulating blanket of snow, we have time to catch our collective breath and consider our garden from a broader perspective.

Let’s start with the positive. What worked this year? What do we want to do again? In my garden, I trialed a new variety of carrot (my old standby was no longer available). It was an unqualified success. ‘Prodigy’ is a terrific carrot, a uniform bright orange and amazingly tender considering how huge each root is. I cooked the ones I’ve pulled so far (the rest are tucked under mulch in the garden, waiting their turn), and they were tender and delicious. I intend to grow it again.

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Posted on in Humor, Landscaping

Merry Christmas!

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How to decorate the yard for Christmas? It seems that every neighborhood has a few residents who go all out. They must spend days putting up elaborate displays to ensure that theirs is the most illuminated house on the block. We only hang a string of white “icicles” across the front of our house, so one of our Christmas traditions is to drive around and enjoy the lights around town.

The last photo is not one I took. It actually appeared last year on a blog called “I’ll Treasure This” but is once again making the rounds of the internet. Maybe you haven’t seen it yet—it sure made me laugh. Now why didn’t we think of that?

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Posted on in Gardening, Media Reviews

The Human Side of Gardening

greenprintsIt’s the time of year we give gifts, and by now, we probably need all the help we can get in picking out just the right thing. If there is a gardener on your list who already has all the spades, gardening gloves, and yard ornaments they can ever use (or even if they don’t), I have the perfect suggestion.

Give them a subscription to GreenPrints: The Weeder’s Digest.

Years ago my husband introduced me to this magazine, and it’s still one of the best gift ideas he ever had. There are plenty of “how-to” garden magazines out there, filled with photos of weed-free, perfectly pruned gardens, exotic plants (at least to a Colorado gardener), and bug-free vegetables. It’s enough to make an honest gardener throw in the trowel. (Sorry. Couldn’t resist.)

This magazine isn’t like that.

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Posted on in Gardening, Plant Profiles, Surviving Winter

Ho, Ho, Holly

ilex_holly-berries“Deck the balls with boughs of holly” might work well in Merry Olde England, or even in the eastern U.S., but it’s not very practical at my house,  just north of Colorado Springs, Colorado. We have too much sunshine, the air and soil is too dry, and our soils are too lean and too alkaline. Holly won’t survive winter’s dessicating winds. At least, that’s what I learned when we moved here.

So imagine my surprise a couple of weeks ago when I was out for a walk in a near-by subdivision, and there were two bushes, covered with green leaves and red berries, planted in the strip of soil between the sidewalk and the street. Could it be?

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Posted on in Gardening, Plant Profiles, Surviving Winter, Veggies

My Favorite Herbs

thyme_blkforest-co_lah_7184While most of my garden lies dormant for the winter, I’m still picking fresh herbs to use in my cooking. Last year I planted thyme, oregano, rosemary, basil, and sage in large pots, and this fall I hauled them into a sunny spot indoors. The plants are thriving.

As I snipped some rosemary for last night’s dinner, I started thinking—while my in-ground herb garden is spacious, I only have room for a limited number of pots. So, which herbs do I consider essential? And which cultivars do I like the best?

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Posted on in Gardening, Humor

A Cure for Garden Pests

flamingo-eaters-1Has your garden been assaulted by a plague of pink flamingos? Are your furrows full of gnomes? Maybe your problem is something as simple as a dreary winter landscape. Don’t despair, help is on the way. Even though traditional remedies may fail, extensive research has revealed a guaranteed solution to all of these garden woes.

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