Colorado Gardener Articles

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2 days ago
4 min

OCTOBER 2024 E-MAGAZINE

OCTOBER 2024 E-MAGAZINE It doesn’t feel much like Fall yet though the trees are getting colorful. The grasshoppers have discouraged me...

4 days ago
5 min

Mixing it Up with Spring Flowering Bulbs

By David Salman: Plant a surprise this fall. Get some spring blooming bulbs into the ground in October or November, water them in and...

4 days ago
4 min

PUMPKINS ARE KING

By Penn Parmenter: Pumpkins are King in the Parmenter mountain gardens. We love everything about them and have grown them for over 25...

Sep 27
3 min

SPLAT®

SPONSORED CONTENT Marking trees with a “No Vacancy” sign for bark beetles, ISCA®’s SPLAT® Verb goes to work at Tahoe National Forest As...

Sep 9
5 min

Free Seed Store!

By Penn Parmenter: Right now seed is hanging heavy and abundant in your garden; all you have to do is go get it! It’s the greatest...

Sep 7
4 min

September 2024 Newsletter

August sailed by quickly. It’s been an interesting summer – certainly one to test those “drought-tolerant” plants. Heat stress is...

Sep 6
3 min

Building the Seed Bank

By Maggie Gaddis: Now is the time to think about starting next year's garden from seed. As summer flowers senesce, keep an eye out for...

Sep 6
4 min

The Sweet Taste of Sour

Flavored Vinegar in the Spotlight By Deb Whittaker: Move over Pepsi and Coke. After 5000 years, vinegar drinks have morphed into the...

Aug 2
2 min

Jim Borland 1946-2024

By Keith Funk: It is with a heavy heart that I announce that Jim Borland, a towering figure in the world of horticulture and beloved...

Aug 1
7 min

August 2024 Newsletter

AUGUST 2024 E-MAGAZINE Like most people, I've been avoiding the hot sun as much as possible during this very hot summer. But I see a lot...

Jul 31
4 min

Late Season Plant Shopping

How to pick a plant By John Murgel. Summer is here and most gardeners are working on keeping things growing and happy in the heat. Still,...

Jul 28
3 min

Report from the Steppe Symposium

Rooted in Stone: A Geologist Connects with Gardeners By Lee Recca: Dr. Bob Raynolds kicked off the Global Steppe Symposium by taking us...

Jun 30
1 min

July 2024 Newsletter

The Heat is On…. Of course, the heat has been on for weeks now. Other parts of Colorado have been rained and hailed on but in the Hygiene...

Jun 30
4 min

Not all who wander are lost

Some are just trying to get away from the grasshoppers By John Hershey: When you live in Colorado, there are certain things you can count...

Jun 30
3 min

DATURA

Dangerous Beauty by Paula Ogilvie I’ve grown datura for many years and have become complacent about it in my yard. A vigorous grower with...

Jun 1
2 min

Give Kale a Chance

By John Hershey: Yes, give kale a chance! Not “give peas a chance”. If it’s cheap garden puns you want, I’m afraid you’ve come to the...

May 31
1 min

June 2024 Newsletter

Hard to believe it’s June already but there we have it. I just bought a new electric lawnmower, taking advantage of the state rebate. ...

May 31
8 min

Bring the Wild Pharmacy to Your Home Garden

By Sara Stewart Martinelli: The diverse ecosystems of Colorado are a treasure trove of native medicinal plants and trees - a living...

May 31
3 min

Fireflies and the allure of light

By R. Gary Raham: As sunlight fades on a warm summer evening, there is something magical about lights floating through the air blinking...

May 22
1 min

Birds-Be-Safe Cat Collars

Excerpt from Jane's April 2024 E-Magazine Editor's Letter: And then there are cats. First let me say that I have two and they do go...

May 1
3 min

Allergies Season is Here

What’s really getting up your Nose By Paula Ogilvie For many people the sneezing season began in mid-to-late February when elm trees...

May 1
4 min

PHLOX

Photo: Plant-growing.com PHLOX Caution! Flammable! By Panayoti Kelaidis Garden phlox come in three general categories: tall ones that...

Apr 24
2 min

May 2024 Newsletter

Garden Phlox What’s Getting up Your Nose & Making You Sneeze When to Plant Warm Season Veggies Fernleaf Peony The bright and bloomy month...

Apr 5
3 min

April 2024 Newsletter

I am loving this so-far cool, wet spring. The bees are visiting all the cheerful blue chionodoxia flowers that have spread around in my...

Apr 4
7 min

Year-Round Gardening in Colorado

Year-Round Vegetable Gardening in Colorado is Possible with a Cold Frame or Hoop House By Idelle Fisher : Cold Frames are basically a...

Mar 15
2 min

Plant Select Offerings for 2024

At least 10 years ago I was at a late spring, small early evening event at Harlequins Gardens in North Boulder. I strolled over to their...

Mar 15
2 min

March 2024 Newsletter

New Plant Select list for 2024 & Tree Diversity Conference Wrap-up It seems fitting to wish you Happy Almost Spring on the cusp of the...

Mar 15
3 min

2024 Tree Diversity Conference Wrap Up

Urban environments are the most stressful for trees but where they are most wanted and needed. Especially in light of climate change,...

Feb 22
2 min

February 2024 Newsletter

Greetings Readers! Summer at 7th Ave & Detroit gravel garden, Denver. Unlike woodchips, deep gravel retains moisture without rotting the...

Feb 22
2 min

Pruning Grapes, Two Common Methods

By John Martin A single well-trained vine growing along about 12 feet of trellis or fence line can produce tens of pounds of fruit for...

Feb 22
4 min

The Untapped Power of Gravel Gardens

By Kenton Seth Photos: Julie D Lehman, Horticulture & Open Space Manager at At Denver Parks & Rec Many garden terms elicit mixed,...

Jan 11
4 min

Cows, Horses, Blackbirds & More

The plains landscape where I live near Hygiene is decidedly horizontal, especially in winter when late day shadows of trees or people...

Nov 15, 2023
4 min

To Build Veggie Garden Soil, Just Add Leaves

I’ve been walking my daughter’s dog around Old Town Longmont where there are lots of big, old, splendid trees. The streets are thick with...

Sep 15, 2023
1 min

September 2023 Editor’s Letter

SEPTEMBER 2023 NEWS Hello Colorado Gardener Readers, It’s amazing to see how green it is here at this usually brown & dusty time of year....

Sep 13, 2023
2 min

Bumpy & Warty Knuckleheads

By Paula Ogilvie: Once upon a time, smooth, round, orange pumpkins were the go-to for scariest jack-o-lanterns. Along with 20-pound...

Aug 25, 2023
4 min

Editor’s Letter: Harvest 2023

It’s been a good long run—27 years. When my plant-loving mother died in 1996 she left me enough cash to pay the first three printing...

Aug 24, 2023
2 min

The Super Genius Planting Method

By Bob Nold: Many years ago I was an advocate of a method of planting which involved removing all the soil-less mix from the root balls...

Aug 24, 2023
4 min

A Heartfelt Path: Carl Jung, Nature & the Aging Gardener

By Marilyn Raff: Decades ago, my husband and I returned to Denver with our three-year-old son and one-year-old daughter after a four and...

Aug 24, 2023
4 min

Growing a Successful Garden in Challenging, Unpredictable Weather

By Larry Stebbins, "The Garden Father" As a long time gardener I make decisions based on the weather—the short term, day to day...

Aug 24, 2023
2 min

5 Botanical Allies for Winter Wellness

By Sara Stewart Martinelli: If you want to have a garden that’s both beautiful and useful, there are countless plants that can be strong...

Aug 24, 2023
4 min

Proverb Update: It’s actually better to be a gardener in the garden

By John Hershey: Lately it has become trendy among certain “influencers” to quote this pithy aphorism: “It is better to be a warrior in a...

Aug 24, 2023
4 min

The Overlooked Understory

By Panayoti Kelaidis: Everyone loves trees; we still have people complaining about the removal of a hollow weeping willow from Denver...

Aug 24, 2023
5 min

Trees in the Apocalypse

By Kenton Seth: When I was a youth in a town surrounded by obvious desertification, I was steeped in that predictable and cynical...

Aug 24, 2023
4 min

Poison, Food & Medicine

By Mikl Brawner: If you read through the List of Poisonous Plants in Wikipedia and see how many are common in our everyday lives, you...

Aug 24, 2023
3 min

Colorado Grasshoppers: Snap, Crackle, and Hop

Amazingly Diverse Colorado Grasshoppers By Eric R Eaton: As is the case with many categories of insects, grasshoppers suffer from the bad...

Aug 24, 2023
4 min

Plantoids and GrowBots

By R. Gary Raham: Robot Explorers Inspired by Plants I confess: even biologist/gardeners can be a little zoocentric—biased towards...

Aug 24, 2023
3 min

Easy Alpines for Colorado Gardeners

By Mike Kintgen: As summers get hotter and hotter, alpines may not be on most gardeners’ radar, yet here are five easily grown, Colorado...

Aug 22, 2023
4 min

Do You Know How To Eat What You Grow?

By Penn Parmenter: Thirty years ago I found a book that completely changed my perspective on growing and eating food. It started...

Apr 15, 2023
4 min

Reverence for the Dark Garden

By Eric R. Eaton: Gardens are places of peace and comfort for us during our waking hours. The bright colors and lush fragrances of...

Apr 14, 2023
6 min

STRETCHING OUR WATER

By Mikl Brawner: Colorado’s climate is classified as semi-arid high desert. We know that water has always been our Achilles heel, our...

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