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"
By Karim Gharbi While I appreciate the advances in horticulture that have allowed us to feed 8 billion people, that appreciation does not extend to the pesticide industry. This idea that we can dominate nature with “quick fixes” like insecticides or herbicides is hubris. Mother Nature developed the tools to self-regulate long ago, we need […] Continue reading "Attracting Beneficial Insects with Native Plants"
By Kristine Johnson While many members of Wild Ones Front Range are totally on the DIY (do it yourself) bandwagon–for various reasons or for various portions of our space–we may also reach out for help from professionals. Native plant landscaping can feel daunting. So how do you find someone who is a good fit for […] Continue reading "Questions to Ask a Native Plant Landscaper"
Many Colorado Native Plants boast similar attributes to common landscape plants but with better ecological benefits. Continue reading "Toolkit Highlight: Plant this, Not That"