photos of plants
Has the fat little cherub with the bow and arrow left you lonely this Valentine’s Day? If no one will be sending you roses, why not buy yourself a Bleeding Heart?
Bleeding Heart (Dicentra spectabilis) is an old-fashioned perennial aptly named for the row of heart-shaped flowers that dangle along each wiry flower stalk. Airy leaves in sprays reminiscent of a coarse fern appear in early spring, rising on stems that form a clump that can reach two to three feet, given the right conditions.
(Don’t miss my previous post on loose-leaf lettuce varieties.)
What can be crisp or soft and buttery, grows stiffly erect or low and floppy, has pointed leaves, rounded leaves, ruffled leaves or smooth leaves, comes in light red, wine red, chartreuse, grass green, or forest green, can taste delicious no matter what it looks like?
Lettuce, of course.
We’re all familiar with the lettuce varieties that show up in the produce aisle—classic iceberg, red or green leaf lettuce, romaine, and butterhead. If you are willing to grow your own, that’s just the beginning.
Last 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”).
After 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.
Red, green, plain or fancy, tall, squat, and very delicious, lettuce is my favorite crop. Because I plant so much of it, I’ve experimented with dozens of varieties. And since there are hundreds to choose from, I’ve only scratched the surface. I’m always open to your suggestions.
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.
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.
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?
It’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.
“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?
Mountain Plover 