Tag: landscape

Posted on in Birds, Gardening, Nature, Photography

Photos Make Special Gifts

LAH_3950Today it’s time for my once-a-year photography promotion. Does someone on your gift list go wild for wildlife or bonkers for birds? Do they laud landscapes? Are they passionate about plants? How about giving them  a photo expressing their special interest?

You can visit my online store at mountain-plover.com, view my line of blank greeting cards here, or contact me directly for prints of any of my photos that appear anywhere on this blog. (Note that prints not in stock will take a few extra days.)

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Posted on in Gardening, Plant Profiles

Blue Mist Spiraea

Caryopteris clandonensis_Bluemist Spirea_XG_ColoSpgs-CO_LAH_5819Spring flowers have turned into berries and seed pods. Without their blossoms peonies are mere green bushes, and even the annuals are looking a bit peaked. Don’t despair, however. The show isn’t over yet. One of the best perennials (or small shrubs) for Colorado gardens is Caryopteris x clandoensis, more familiarly known as Bluebeard or Blue Mist Spiraea.

The latter common name can cause some confusion. Caryopteris isn’t a true spiraea. The “Blue Mist” part is spot on. The airy flowers in periwinkle blue really do seem to hover over the tips of the stems in a lovely cloud. The plants can reach two to three feet wide and tall. Foliage is a bluish gray-green, with long, soft, serrated leaves.

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Posted on in Botany for Gardeners, Gardening

What’s This Plant?

unknown plantWhat’s this plant? Gardeners aren’t the only ones who find themselves wanting to identify a particular flower or shrub. Hikers like to learn the names of wildflowers, new homeowners want their landscape labeled, and most of us just get curious at times. With my new job (answering plant-related questions, either identifying them or diagnosing a problem), I’ve been identifying a lot of plants lately (if you missed it, I’m now working for a gardening app), and I’ve learned some tips.

There are two approaches to plant ID. The easiest for a non-botanist involves noticing some eye-catching feature and then either flipping pages in a colorful field guide or searching the internet for that attribute. Most wildflower guides are arranged by color, simplifying this process.

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Posted on in Gardening, Landscaping, Weeds

Covering Your Dirt

Landscape fabric showing through mulch @ColoSpgs 2008oct16 LAH 068I’m out of town—very, very out of town. In fact, I’m in Swaziland, in southeastern Africa, almost 10,000 miles from home. If you want to know what my trip is all about, you can read the details on my other blog. Start here. If you want to read more, enter Swaziland in the search box at the top right of that page.

While I’m gone I’d like to direct you to this post my friend Carey wrote on landscape fabric, and why it’s probably not a good idea to use it in your garden.

Landscape Fabric – Why You Probably
Don’t Need or Want It

Carey is another former Colorado Master Gardener, and she is full of garden wisdom. In addition to her posts to Pikes Peak Gardening Help, she has her personal blog at Carey Moonbeam. You can see my links to both these sites at right.

See you next week.

Posted on in Birds, Gardening, Nature, Photography

Mountain Plover Photography

Instead of an interesting and informative article on gardening or birding, today I have a shameless advertisement for my photography business, Mountain Plover.

I usually sell my prints and blank cards in person, either at a speaking engagement or at a one of the craft boutiques so prevalent this time of year. However, I’m also happy to ship greeting cards and matted prints anywhere in the United States. (Overseas? Contact me.)

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Posted on in Gardening, Landscaping

Firewise Landscaping Help

waldo-cyn-fire_lah_1968

Just a quick heads-up. Do you live in an area in danger of wildfire? After the Waldo Canyon fire here, and many others around the West, we’re all more aware of the potential for disaster.

Firewise landscaping can make the difference between saving your home, or watching it burn. Carey, over at Pikes Peak Area Garden Help, posted an excellent list of links about gardening in a fire zone. Rather than repeat her efforts here, I strongly urge you to check out her post:

Landscaping in High Fire-Danger Areas

Posted on in Gardening, Landscaping

Hail Survivors

centranthus-helianthemum-penstemon-trio-003Colorado isn’t an easy place to garden. Drought, late frosts and early snow storms, soils of sand and/or clay… to grow anything here, you have to be stubborn—and so do your plants. Our recent storms were so destructive, I thought I’d post something about how you can avoid a lot of hail damage in the first place. At least for ornamental landscapes, the key to surviving hail is plant selection.

A tour of the garden after a major hail storm will reveal some plants that are totally destroyed while others have nary a bruised leaf. What makes some plants hail-resistant?

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Posted on in Humor, Landscaping

Merry Christmas!

xmas-lights_colospgs_lah_5805

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 Bird Profiles, Gardening, Humor, Landscaping, Plant Profiles, Surviving Winter

Garden Whimsy

Today is the 5th Thursday of the month, so it’s time for a break. I thought I’d post some fun garden photos I’ve taken over the last few years. No one ever said you had to be serious in your garden! I hope these put a smile on your face, and perhaps inspire you to create your own unique garden feature.

fashionable-gardening-shoes-carnegielib-16apr07-lah-754

To start with, how about some ladybug garden clogs? These are so cute, I’d hate to get mud on them! One of our Colorado master gardeners was wearing these.

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Posted on in Gardening, Landscaping, Public gardens

Be a Garden Tourist

bellevuebg_lah_6629Where does a gardener want to go on vacation? Probably somewhere with a beautiful public garden or two.

I make a point of visiting Colorado’s inspiring public gardens. I’ve written about many of them already, and I’m always searching out new ones. There we can see plants adapted to our area and get new ideas for our own yards. Once there, I invariably start making notes, taking photos, and mentally redesigning my perennial border. It’s fun, but not exactly relaxing.

When I visit gardens in other parts of the country (or the world), it’s a totally different experience. Instead of relating everything back to my own landscape, I unwind and just enjoy the gardens for what they are.

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