Events

Member gathering and connection

Learn how enriching native plans can be!

   Presented by Brian Vagg

Learn the importance of the Soil Food Web and how you as a gardener can become a microbe farmer. We will discuss the interaction between plants and microbes as well as the tools we use to reintroduce indigenous microorganisms back into the soil profile. Discover how to use local inputs that are well suited to grow plants in your biome.

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The Landscaping with Colorado Native Plants Conference promotes the inclusion of native plants in our landscaping to benefit pollinators and songbirds, save water, and restore the beauty and health of nature in the places we live, work and play.

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Presented by George Miller

With the decades-long drought in the Southwest, urban flower gardens are suffering, along with pollinators that have come to depend upon them. Author George Miller will explain the use of drought-tolerant, low-maintenance native plants to create a yard that is a life-sustaining habitat for birds and insect pollinators displaced by development.

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Explore crevice gardens with Kenton Seth, crevice garden design expert. Learn to grow native plants closely with rocks, creating special microclimates for plants and wildlife. Crevice gardens give low-water design a new element, dealing with awkward garden spaces or making plantable, ecological alternatives to retaining walls.

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Discover crevice gardens! Growing plants closely with rocks, including native plants into niche spaces, creating special microclimates for plants and wildlife! Join master crevice garden expert, Kenton Seth, in a hands-on workshop creating a small crevice garden at a local public park. Learn the secrets of constructing a crevice garden from a pro!

THIS SESSION IS SOLD OUT!!

FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO REGISTER - MORNING SESSION

Discover crevice gardens! Growing plants closely with rocks, including native plants into niche spaces, creating special microclimates for plants and wildlife! Join master crevice garden expert, Kenton Seth, in a hands-on workshop creating a small crevice garden at a local public park. Learn the secrets of constructing a crevice garden from a pro!

THIS SESSION IS SOLD OUT

FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO REGISTER - AFTERNOON SESSION

Join us for a guided hike at Two Bridges Open Space near Franktown, CO.  The hike will feature flowering shrubs that are great for birds and pollinators.

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SORRY, NO MORE OPENINGS AVAILABLE

Get ready to expand your native plant palette while exploring two private home native gardens located in historic Golden, Co. with fellow native plant enthusiasts! Learn from the experience of the garden hosts as well as the other plant loving attendees to get creative ideas for your own natural landscape.

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Join us on a hike near Larkspur, Co. at a property with high prairie meadows and impressive cliff edge crevice rock gardens, featuring native plants that can grow in your own garden. Expect a gently rolling 2 - 3 mile hike in beautiful landscape featuring flowering native flora and identifying many of the native plants we love in Colorado!

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SORRY, NO MORE OPENINGS AVAILABLE

Whether you are new to natives or a seasoned native gardener, swaps are opportune ways to engage with like-minded gardeners and delight in sharing new plant finds. The Denver Swap & Giveaway is a collaborative event between Wild Ones, Colorado Native Plant Society, EarthLinks, and PPAN. Our collective goal is to fill native pollinator-friendly plants into our landscapes. GET INVOLVED! We need your help to make this event successful. Donate Seedlings Grow to share native plants or seedlings -- more information here. Need help potting up unwanted volunteers? Contact Robert Greer Volunteer Sign up for one of 3 shifts Share your experience growing and planting native plant species. Come ‘shop' Plant new native species in your yard and learn about new plants and best practices. Bring a friend ... or two! Join with other plant enthusiasts in sharing our excitement...and knowledge. Donate Financial contributions will underwrite other swaps and educational programs. Have other questions? Contact Peggy Hanson at [email protected]

Pollinator Plant Swap Saturday, June 18, 9 a.m.-noon Xeriscape Demonstration Garden, 300 Laporte Ave. Dig up, divide and donate pollinator plants grown free of chemicals from your garden. No plants to swap? No problem! You do not need to donate to take plants home. Please bring your own bag or box to take your new plants home. We welcome donations of any pollinator plants, including native & non-native flowers, trees, shrubs, vegetables, herbs & other edibles. We are highlighting native plants at this swap because of their importance for native pollinator conservation. Donating plants? Please review the following guidelines: • Label plants using provided plant tags or masking tape with as much information as possible, including: o common name o Latin name (for natives) o sun requirements (sun, part shade, full shade) o water requirements once established (very low, occasional, regular) • Plants must be grown free of chemicals to protect pollinators. This means no herbicides, pesticides, fungicides or synthetic fertilizers. • To protect our natural areas, we also cannot accept plant donations that are listed as noxious weeds by the CO Dept. of Agriculture. Questions? Contact [email protected]. This event is brought to you by: Audubon Rockies, Fort Collins Audubon Society, League of Women Voters, Nature in the City, People & Pollinators Action Network, and Wild Ones Front Range Chapter, Northern Chapter of the Colorado Native Plant Society and Wildland Restoration Volunteers  

Come on out on a summer morning to explore two private native gardens in Old Town Fort Collins, CO! Learn from the experiences of the garden hosts as well as the other native plant loving attendees to get fresh ideas for your own landscape!

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Join us for a tour of the major renovation of Cherry Creek between Quebec and Iliff Streets.  The creek was rerouted and the land on both sides was re-landscaped and planted with native forbs, grasses and trees.  The bike path through the area was also revised.  Come see how professional landscapers and horticulturalists create a natural meadow and riparian habitat.

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Enjoy exploring a Wild Ones Front Range member's garden and neighboring Roosevelt National Forest at 8200' between West Boulder and Nederland. Start by touring the host's personal garden and overview of the adjacent forest property. Then discover the wildflower and pollinator diversity on one of two different level hikes!

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Venture out to Lyons, Colorado, known for its natural beauty, and tour the newly established Rocky Mountain Botanic Gardens, with its founder,      Garima Fairfax. Garima will guide us through the garden zones, which represent 5 ecoregions of Colorado: Foothills, Prairie Grassland, Montane, Riparian and Southwest.  Discover and consider new native species that you can incorporate into your own garden landscape!

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Spend a lovely summer morning connecting with fellow Wild Ones Front Range Chapter members while enjoying the on-site breakfast and beverages! We will chat about our chapter's accomplishments and growth, and swap native plant gardening experiences with each other. Stick around to tour our mixer host site at Ekar Farm, including the native demonstration garden we have created in partnership with this sustainable Denver urban farm. 

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Embrace the botanical delight of two members' gardens as we enter the beauty of Colorado's fall season!

Join your fellow native gardeners to explore two Wild Ones Front Range members' native gardens in Southeast Denver and Centennial, CO. Mingle with fellow native plant enthusiasts and learn from the experiences of the garden hosts as you get ideas for your own landscape.

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Hosted various seed collection and cleaning events in preparation for the fall seed swaps

Fall is in the air and that means it’s SEED SWAP time!  Whether you are new to gardening or are a seasoned native plant gardener, you’ll find something of interest at the Native Plant Seed Swap & Giveaway.  We’ll have a variety of seeds including annuals, perennials, shrubs, trees and grasses ranging from easy-to-difficult to propagate.  One plant can produce hundreds of seeds so there is always plenty to share.

Swaps rely on community participation—so please participate!  It’s FUN!

Donate native seed

Harvest your Colorado native or regionally native seed and bring it to the swap—provide it to volunteers at check in to be stocked in display.  Native plants evolved in the area along with the insects and other wildlife that rely on them.  If in doubt, inquire whether you have native.

IMPORTANT:  To ensure your harvest is added to the inventory available, package seeds in envelope by species, (jars are fine for larger quantities) and label as follows:

Latin Name, Common Name, Elevation & City or County Collected, Collection Year, and Your First Initial and Last Name.

 Please collect responsibly.  If source plants evidence disease or bug infestation, please do not share the seed.  Also, take care not to share noxious weeds.

Volunteer

Sign up for one of 2 shifts HERE.

Share your experience, help others learn.  Newbies are welcome, we’ll have experts onsite to help with the tough questions.

Come “shop”

Find seeds of native plants to add to your garden—for free!  Propagation tips will be available. 

Feel free to bring your own clean containers if you want to make your own seed mix.

Bring a friend or two—the Coffee Shop will be open during the event to visit

Having trouble explaining your enthusiasm for native plants to friends and neighbors?  Ask them to join you on this outing and they’ll see you’re not alone…it’s infectious.

Donate

Financial donations made today will be pooled to cover event costs and fund the organizing partners’ missions.  Donate HERE.

Have other questions?  Please contact Peggy Hanson

Sponsored by People and Pollinator Action Network, Denver Audubon, Colorado Native Plant Society Metro Denver Chapter, The Table Public House and Wild Ones Front Range Chapter

2020 Native Seed Swap in Denver  

Join us for a native plant seed-swap event!  Bring seeds you have collected to share with others and take home some new ones for yourself.  More details to be provided soon.

Join us for a native plant seed-swap event!  Bring seeds you have collected to share with others and take home some new ones for yourself. More details to be provided soon.

Spend an evening with Kenton Seth as he discusses native landscape design. Kenton will walk us through his process in creating the Denver/Front Range Native Landscape Design Plan for Wild Ones and also illustrate his design style by sharing other projects from his portfolio.

The Zoom link for this program will be sent to registrants the morning of Wednesday, November 30th.

Registration has closed for this program.