Category: Plants

Posted on in Gardening, Seed Starting, Veggies

Timing the Garden

Seeds in baggies_LAH_6137The calendar may say “Spring” but here in Colorado it’s still winter. Still, the first signs of spring are there if you look for them. Days are getting longer. Birds are wearing their courting feathers and breaking into spontaneous song. Buds are swelling on bare branches. And gardeners are reemerging from their winter hibernation.

Hopefully, you’ve already tested any stored seeds for viability, then placed your seed order or picked from the racks at your local garden center. When your packets arrive, store them in a cool, dry place. I like to sort mine into zip-lock baggies, then arrange the bags in a clear plastic shoebox. Colorado is naturally dry, but reusing the bags of desiccant that come in products such as new shoes and purses will help in more humid regions.

(more…)

Posted on in Gardening, Landscaping, Plant Profiles, Xeriscape

My Favorite Plant for Colorado Gardens

Prunus virginiana - Chokecherry@BoulderCO 2006may12 LAH 003If I could create one perfect plant for the Pikes Peak region, what would it be like?

Of course, I’d want it to be attractive. It should adorn itself with cheerful spring flowers, good-looking foliage, and intense fall color. I’d add persistent fruit or berries to feed the birds and provide winter interest.

My perfect plant should be easy to grow; I’d want it to thrive in our native soils with little or no supplemental water. It must be hardy to at least 8,000 feet, and still handle summer heat waves.

(more…)

Posted on in Gardening, Soils, Veggies

Digging Dirt

Winter beds @home LAH 7Ahh, March. Snow is still quite likely, but on some days our intense, high elevation sunshine beckons me into the garden. There, I’m greeted by one of my favorite smells—the aroma of humus-laden soil. The ground is no longer frozen. Let the growing season begin!

I’ve had my current garden for twenty years now. In that time, I have never stepped on the soil in my boxed beds. After an initial double-digging, the soil remains uncompacted, perfect for planting. Additionally, a soil test last year showed that I have plenty of humus—too much, actually—so I don’t even need to add compost for a while. Aside from adding a side-dressing of nitrogen, I won’t have to dig this year.

(more…)

Posted on in Gardening, Seed Starting, Veggies

To Seed or Not to Seed?

Pepper cotyledons vs leaves LAHGardeners seem to come in two varieties: those who buy seeds, and those who buy transplants. Which are you? Are you the do-it-yourselfer who prefers to start your plants from seed, nurturing each and every flower and vegetable from infancy? Or are you more the no-nonsense, practical type who figures that there’s no point in fussing when you can so easily purchase transplants? There are pros and cons to each approach.

(more…)

Posted on in Gardening, Veggies

Three Favorite Tools

garden-toolsImagine with me for a moment. You’re shipwrecked on a beautiful “desert” isle. There’s good soil, the rain falls for 30 minutes every afternoon, starting precisely at 3 o’clock, and the temperatures hover between 65° at night and 80° at noon. In fact, it’s so lovely, you kind of hope you won’t be rescued!

There are no grocery stores, but you’re not worried. You salvaged a few months’ worth of food from your sinking ship, the local reef fish seem to leap into your homemade net, and you “just happened” to have packed a complete assortment of vegetable seeds in your waterproof luggage. (I told you we were imagining.)

(more…)

Posted on in Gardening, House Plants, Plant Profiles

Beyond Roses

rose_bundlesHeading to the store to buy a dozen red roses for Valentine’s Day? How cliché! Everybody gives roses. Unless you know your sweetie is a rose aficionado, don’t follow the herd—dare to be different! Break out of your routine and expand your horizons. There are a lot of other flowers out there feeling pretty unappreciated right now.

Carnations
Carnation 'Moondust' - wikicommonsI admit, I really don’t care that much for roses. I would much prefer a bouquet of carnations. They last twice as long—or longer. I think they smell better, too. And there’s something… unassuming about a dozen humble carnations in a plain white vase that appeals to me. (My husband is delighted I like carnations, as they’re much cheaper, too.) You can go for red, pink, white, or a combination perfect for Valentine’s Day, but they come in yellow and orange too. Other colors (green is popular around St. Patrick’s Day) are artificially induced. Placing a white flower in a vase of colored water does the trick.

(more…)

Posted on in Gardening, Green Gardening Tips, Nature

IPM: Pest-eating Vertebrates, Part 2

Mountain Bluebird_Johnson'sCorner-CO_LAH_2843Last month I explained how amphibians, such as frogs and toads, and reptiles, such as snakes and lizards, are beneficial to our gardens. This time I’ll focus on birds and mammals. Inviting these wild animals into ours gardens is yet one more way that we can control the pests that dine on our flowers and veggies.

Birds
As an avid birder, I have up to a dozen feeders scattered around our yard. It may seem as if I’m doing the birds a favor, but it’s really the other way around! While most birds attracted to feeders eat seeds, many of those same species switch to bugs, with their higher protein content, during the breeding season.

(more…)

Posted on in Gardening, Humor

Is Your Garden in Danger from Gnomes?

gnome2-klbI’m taking a break from blogging to bring you an important message from the Utah State University Extension. There seems to be an annual increase in gnome numbers immediately after Christmas, so this is timely information.

Growing conditions in Ogden, Utah, where this video was created, are very similar to those along Colorado’s Front Range, so I’m sure you’ll find this advice very helpful.

Please sit back, relax, and learn how you can deal with invasive garden gnomes!

Gnome Management in the Garden

Posted on in Gardening

Great Garden Advice

NGA websiteNeed some know-how on how to prune your lilacs? Want to cultivate the best-tasting carrots? Looking for a way to garden from your yard-less apartment? No matter what your gardening question might be, the National Gardening Association (NGA) has answers.

I first learned about this amazing nonprofit organization back in the early ’80s. My savvy husband subscribed me to their garden magazine, Gardens for All. It came on folded up, printed on thin, oversized paper… clearly a low-budget operation. But the information was first-rate.

(more…)

Posted on in Gardening, Green Gardening Tips, Nature

IPM: Pest-eating Vertebrates, Part 1

Eastern Collared Lizard_DesertMuseum-AZ_LAH_4796Here it is the middle of winter, and garden pests are out of sight and out of mind. Yet, we know that those critters are out there, waiting for warm weather to bring out the first sprouts of spring—just so they can gobble them up! It’s a very good thing, then, that there are other creatures biding their time, waiting to eat those garden pests! I’ve already talked about bug-eating invertebrates. This time I’ll focus on those animals with some backbone, so to speak. Being biologically minded, I’ve sorted these helpful vertebrates by which taxonomic class they belong to.

Amphibians
Toad_ColoNat'lMon-CO_LAH_3622One of the most helpful animals to welcome into your garden is a toad. Like frogs and salamanders, their close relatives, toads eat tons of bugs, and they don’t need a pond to live in. Experts say they eat up to 100 bugs every day, and while they don’t discriminate between “good” bugs and bad ones (they’ll nab anything that moves), it’s nice to see cutworms, grasshoppers, flies, and slugs disappearing into their wide jaws.

(more…)