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 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"
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"
By Jonathan Sciarcon* A fellow Wild Ones Front Range Board member asked me to write an article for this month’s newsletter on “damn yellow composites” with the request that I make it funny. While I appreciate her belief that I can write comedically, the truth is that I was not even aware of the term […] Continue reading "Learn to Love Yellow Composites"
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"
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"
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"
By Vicki Saragoussi Phillips So, you’ve planted your native plant starts and sowed your native plant seeds, what’s next? Remember the five senses? Don’t forget to take some time to immerse yourself and celebrate your contribution to caring for the planet by creating a sustainable biodiverse habitat in your own landscape. As your garden is […] Continue reading "Remember the Five Senses in Your Native Plant Garden"
QUESTION: Do I need to keep dead perennial stemsfor three years in order for them to be of benefit topollinators?ANSWER: While it seems like “new” information, the three-year timeline for perennialstems is derived from the life cycle of stem-nesting pollinators. Your first reaction might be,“Three years!,” but it isn’t as dramatic as it would seem—you […] Continue reading "Ask CSU Extension Anything: Keeping Dead Perennial Plant Stems for Insect Nesting"