By Deborah Lebow Aal I hate to be negative, but I see these garden blunders over and over and over again. I want to shout when I see landscapers working, knowing that the homeowner will eventually suffer the consequences of what they are doing. Here is a list of things that you should consider if […] Continue reading "Tips on What NOT to Do with Your Native Plant Garden"
Rhus glabra By Karen Vanderwall and Kristine Johnson Smooth sumac is a multi-stemmed woody plant or shrub native to the Front Range of Colorado as well as southwestern Colorado. A special feature of this shrub is that the leaves turn bright red in the fall, often forming wide brilliant swaths of scarlet across the landscape. […] Continue reading "Plant Spotlight: Smooth Sumac"
By Karen Vanderwall By the end of August, native plant gardeners sigh and can enjoy the fruits of their labor – beautiful blooms, numerous species of bees, hummingbirds, perhaps fluttering monarchs and feeling the joy, the pride of a successful gardening season. But wait – the season isn’t over yet! Native fall-blooming plants and shrubs […] Continue reading "Top Autumn Native Plants"
By Kristine Johnson Imagine a native plant garden. What do you see? Most of us picture colorful and attractive flowers, mostly of a certain shape and a certain height, but growing native plants is so much more than that. This article will encourage you to think a little outside the box to consider different types […] Continue reading "Overlooked Native Plants"
By Deborah Lebow Aal* I bet you’ve made some design mistakes with your native plants. I certainly have. I’ve put a red flower next to another clashing red flower, a tall flower in front of a short, and much worse. So silly. So, I asked a few very active Wild Ones Front Range Chapter folks […] Continue reading "Favorite Native Plant Combinations"
Linum lewisii By Karen Vanderwall With their many electric periwinkle blue flowers, blooming prolifically from late spring through summer, blue flax (Linum lewisii) is a native garden must have. Blue flexor Lewis flax can be described as dainty or airy or even delicate; its stems coming together into a vase shape with spaced small narrow […] Continue reading "Plant Stories: Blue Flax"
By Kristine Johnson Much as we experience the seasonal rhythms of weather during the calendar year, there are similar patterns in our propagation activity within Wild Ones Front Range. We track day length, temperature, precipitation and plant life-cycle timing. It can be helpful to explicitly name and describe the activities in our propagation season to […] Continue reading "The Propagation Season"
By Kristine Johnson I’ve written a series of articles for Wild Ones Front Range on precipitation harvesting, and I’ve recently interviewed Brad Lancaster, Jace Lankow and Luis Salgado–all water harvesting practitioners in Tucson, Arizona–for insights into the connections between native plant gardening and rain gardening. Look for that article in the national Wild Ones Journal […] Continue reading "Connecting Native Plant Gardening and Rain Gardening"
By Richard Phillips Quercis gambellii, the Gambel Oak (also known as Gambel’s Oak) was described and named by the famous English/American naturalist Thomas Nuttall in 1848. He named the specimen after its collector, William Gambel, who found it in 1840 near Santa Fe, NM when he was only 19 years old, during a pioneering trip […] Continue reading "Plant Spotlight: Gambel Oak"
By Deborah Lebow Aal Wild Ones isn’t only about native plants. Yes, plant choice is critical, but your overall gardening techniques and what you do before, during and after the planting of these native plants can have an equally large impact on your home ecosystem. So, here are our top ten tips for caring for […] Continue reading "Ecological Gardening Best Principles"