By Richard Phillips Datura in Full Bloom (All Photos by Vicki Saragoussi Phillips, unless noted otherwise) One of my wife’s (Vicki) favorite plants is poisonous. I was supposed to write an article about the Maximilian Sunflower (Helianthus maximiliani). In bed last night, I spent wakeful interludes making a mental list of what I needed to […] Continue reading "Datura: An Unnatural Native Plant"
by Karen Vanderwall People living along the Front Range are becoming more aware that conserving water and establishing native habitats is vital to managing our regional drought and supporting local pollinators. The City of Fort Collins is innovating and leading, locally and nationally, by weaving together the built environment and natural ecosystems. Driven by community funding […] Continue reading "The Nature of Fort Collins"
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"
The absolute key to getting the public (including our spouses, municipalities, and skeptical neighbors) to accept and appreciate ecological landscaping by Kenton Seth Colleagues and mentors have all made passing comments—usually in the parking lot after a breakfast meetup, or later at night after a few glasses of wine—that there is a trick to making landscape designs […] Continue reading "Cues To Care"
By Deborah Lebow Aal Yes, I am going to write about the pounds you put on this winter (wait, did we have winter?). No, I am not. Winterfat, Ceratoides lanata or Krascheninnikovia lanata, also known as white sage, lamb’s tail, and sweet or winter sage, is an underused native plant in Colorado gardens. I recently […] Continue reading "Plant Spotlight: Winterfat"
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 Kristine Johnson with assistance and photos from Theodore Johnson Mencimer Why Install a Rain Garden Last year, I wrote about the “why” of rainwater harvesting, and Pam Sherman reviewed Brad Lancaster’s well-known books on rainwater harvesting. Brad is very much the “how.” I also mentioned rain gardening in my article on multi-stem trees–which should […] Continue reading "Rain Gardening: Thinking About Next Steps"
One Colorado Newbie’s Experience Article and Photos by Karen Vanderwall This is the first in a series of articles focusing on the experiences of members creating a native garden from the beginning. When we first moved to Fort Collins three years ago, we came with the knowledge that water was a precious resource here. We […] Continue reading "Starting a Native Garden from Scratch"