By Jan Midgley In dry lands with few woody plants, grasses are the foundation of the landscape both functionally and aesthetically. But why should we include them in public and private designed landscapes? The small, wind-pollinated flowers are not as showy as the flowers of forbs (flowering herbaceous plants that are not a graminoid – […] Continue reading "Grasses are the Foundation"
Asclepias tuberosa By Karen Vanderwall Most gardeners and many lovers of the outdoors are familiar with milkweeds. Showy milkweed, our most common native here in Colorado, is tall with clusters of pink flowers. Or perhaps you’ve noticed the orange flowers of the less common more compact milkweed, the native butterfly weed, Asclepias tuberosa. Most milkweeds […] Continue reading "Plant Spotlight: Butterfly Weed"
Compiled by Deb Lebow Aal Recently, I asked a few of our more active members what they wish they had done differently when starting out with their Colorado native plant gardens. And, I got an earful! Here’s hoping that this will help you out along your journey to Coloradoscaping your yard. Mary said what I […] Continue reading "Things I Wish I Hadn’t Done When Planting My Native Plant Garden"
By Karen Vanderwall Popping into a local nursery one day a few years ago, a very interesting tall ornamental grass caught my eye. With closer inspection I noticed that the seed heads resembled blond eyelashes – it was spectacular! The grass was ‘Blond Ambition’, a specific cultivar of blue grama grass*. Upon further reading I […] Continue reading "Plant Spotlight: Blue Grama Grass"
By Deborah Lebow Aal, with help from Robert Greer, Jan Midgley and Jonathan Sciarcon This is a revised version of our most popular toolkit entry. Gardening in the shade with native plants requires quite a bit of creativity on the Front Range of Colorado. We did not have many native trees here on the plains, […] Continue reading "Colorado Native Plants that Tolerate Shade"
Review by Richard Phillips Author Zoe Schlanger is a well-known writer for The Atlantic who got burned out reporting on climate change issues. She found that she could use her love of plants as a basis to report on the evolving science of plant intelligence, though she finds that plant scientists are generally averse to […] Continue reading "Book Review: The Light Eaters"
By Paul Alaback and Kristine Johnson Why Use Multi-Stemmed Trees? When we think of creating a native garden or landscape in the semi-arid West, we often conjure up an image of a dry prairie with many wildflowers and grasses, all adapted to hot dry conditions. While some places were historically prairie, all around Colorado we […] Continue reading "Multi-Stem Native Trees and Large Shrubs for Colorado Landscapes"
By Karen Vanderwall This month we are featuring the Colorado native: New Mexican Privet. Upon first learning of this shrub, I envisioned a privet – a dense, tough shrub trimmed into a hedge for a privacy screen. Well as in many cases, and this one is a good example, a plant’s common name can be […] Continue reading "Plant Spotlight: New Mexican Privet, Forestiera pubescens"
By Kristine Johnson This year, Boulder County members will have the privilege of visiting the garden of Jean Morgan in Louisville not once, but twice, in April and again in September. We are so fortunate that she is being so generous with her time and her space so that more of us will be able […] Continue reading "Visiting the Garden of Living Legend: Jean Morgan"
Book Review The American Chestnut: An Environmental History (University of Georgia Press, 2021), by Donald Edward Davis, PhD By Jonathan Sciarcon, Ph.D. Although American Chestnut (Castanea dentata) is not native to Colorado, Donald Edward Davis’ recent book, The American Chestnut: An Environmental History, holds lessons for those of us who care about the role native […] Continue reading "The American Chestnut: An Environmental History"