April 2026 E-Magazine
- Jane Shellenberger
- 3 hours ago
- 6 min read
For over two weeks now the huge ‘Carol Mackie’ Daphne that’s right outside our front door has been delighting us and all visitors with its sweet scent. One of the first and best Plant Select offerings, it has put up admirably with very dry years and it never needs pruning or fussing over. Though I’ve heard these shrubs can die suddenly, mine is close to 25 years old.
Hummingbirds are showing up over two weeks early on the Front Range this year, lots of trees are blooming about a month early, and the birds and critters are thirsty. Last night I found a drowned squirrel in the horse’s stock tank.
We cleaned our birdhouses a few weeks ago (and Keith Funk gives some tips about birdhouses in his Gardening Q&AÂ this month), but putting out some clean, fresh water for them everyday may be the best thing we can do right now in this parched spring. Even the dandelions seem scarce here this year.
April is nesting month for most birds. It’s a good month to keep cats inside but Birds Be Safe collars are a great way to prevent bird kills because they make domestic cats more visible.
Those little bells on collars just don’t cut it.
February and March are gardening conference months. Idelle Fisher, our web designer, attended the Landscaping with Colorado Native Plants conference in Denver and has a summary for you here. I went to the Tree Diversity Conference which is always a treat and will give you a rundown next month. Our local chapter of the North American Rock Garden Society offered a packed full day of presentations on all aspects of rock gardening (for free!) that drew new gardeners as well as seasoned professionals. I’ll pass on what I learned there next month as well. (The RMCNARGS Spring Plant Sale is one of the best and will be held at Tagawa Gardens in Centennial on Sat, April 11 this year. Check our Plant Sale & Garden Tour Page for many more.)
Last month I mentioned that a Front Range Firewise Botanical Garden is in the germination stage. Jason Wiley is the force behind it so I asked him to write about it for us.
Lisa Sangelo, a landscape architect in Longmont, has written about doing LESS in the garden and allowing our yards to reveal their inner potential, shaping us as we shape them.
I’m happy to report that my neighbors rented a chipper and chopped up their entire huge brushpile into usable mulch last weekend. Now I’m looking around at the cleanup I can accomplish here. There always seems to be plenty of work to get to LESS work in the garden.
When you visit Denver Botanic Gardens be sure to check out the fantastic shows in the Freyer Newman galleries.
On right is a piece from the last show:Â Xochimilco: Work by Eduardo Robledo Romero.
Savor the spring!
- Jane Shellenberger
By Idelle Fisher:
I was fortunate to find an extra ticket to the 2026 Landscaping with Colorado Native Plants Conference in late February since it sold out a month early. It's great news for pollinators and wildlife that so many people are excited about planting more habitat in their landscapes. It was held at the CSU Spur campus which has planted native landscapes and gardens all along the riverfront open space. Free and open to the public year-round, CSU Spur has courses for adults, student field trips, family activities and event spaces.
The Land is Not Wild
Dr. Rosalyn LaPier, a Native American traditionally trained ethnobotanist, writer, professor and environmental historian, talked about the human relationship with plants. Indigenous people like the Blackfeet had intensive knowledge of plants and have adapted and shaped the landscapes around us over time. They created food and useful oases along their seasonal travel routes, transplanting Serviceberries, managing known patches of Prairie Turnips (Pediomelum esculentum) which were a vital root vegetable used for food and easily preserved, and tending grasslands to support Bison. Cottonwoods were one of the most utilized plants, revered and protected, and never cut down.
A Living Laboratory for Climate Ready Landscapes
By Jason Wiley:Â
Across Colorado’s Front Range, gardeners are facing a new reality. Wildfire risk, drought, and changing climate conditions are beginning to shape how landscapes are designed and maintained. Many homeowners want gardens that are beautiful and full of life, but are also looking for ways to reduce wildfire risk and conserve water.
The Front Range FireWise Botanical Garden is a proposed public garden concept that would bring those ideas together in one place.
Boulder is one of the largest communities along the Front Range without a public botanical garden. At the same time, the region sits in one of the fastest growing wildfire risk zones in the western United States. A botanical garden focused on fire resilient and climate adapted landscapes could help homeowners, designers, and communities see how gardens can respond to these challenges while remaining vibrant and inviting.
The goal is simple. Instead of reading about fire wise landscapes, visitors would be able to walk through them.
By Lisa Sangelo:Â
I’m stretched out in my hammock, dappled light through the Box elder warming my face, bird song vibrant, and there’s a soft breeze, warmer than usual for this time of year. Ah, nothing to do but wait for spring… but then I startle awake! A ride-on mower roars and guzzles, kicking up dust as it sets off across the neighbor’s half-barren corner lot, grass not yet high enough to meet the mower blades even at their low setting. Scheduling didn’t factor in the drought and recurring revenue is king. Next the blowers: more dust, higher-pitched roar, and onto the backyard. Nap thwarted.
We’ve made a lot of work for ourselves in the landscape industry with our traditions and norms. It's a paradox of grand proportions. As a landscape designer, I will see various projects and landscape ‘vernaculars’ (personal expressions of what a garden should be or look like) overlaid in a yard. Steel, plastic, and brick edgers, thin flagstones and concrete paver paths, Amazon Prime garden boxes, follies, and exposed irrigation rig-ups cover the site, well-intentioned efforts to create some kind of order and functionality. In all of this busy work, natural beauty, or its potential, can be overlooked as the eye and attention are distracted by illegible efforts to ‘make better’ the place. The result is less than a sanctuary and more than a hobby in terms of the work it creates.
Michelangelo saw his job as discovering and revealing the figure already in the stone he was carving, an approach apt to the making of a garden.
By Keith Funk
Q:  I have a wren house I want to put out this spring. Previous houses I’ve put up had wasp nests, I have heard of applying wax to the inside of the roof but haven't tried it. Do you have other suggestions?
A: One of the simplest and most effective tricks to prevent wasp nests in bird houses is to take a dry bar of plain, unscented soap and rub it across the inside roof of the birdhouse. You can also candle wax, paraffin wax, or beeswax onto the inside ceiling. Just like soap, the smooth surface prevents wasps from anchoring their nest. Wasps have trouble attaching their papery nest material to the slick surface. Birds don’t mind it at all.
Most importantly, avoid insect sprays inside birdhouses. They can harm birds and their chicks.
Gardening Events
Check our Colorado Gardener Calendar for our list of events including seed swaps, gardening classes, webinars, garden tours, plant sales, and conferences.
Coming up:
CSU Ext Jeffco Native Plant Master
Apr 4: Introduction to Hydroponics
Resource Central, Boulder
Apr 7: 6:30-8:30pm, Beneficial vs. Harmful Insect Species
Phelan Gardens, CO Springs
Apr 12: 2–3pm, Thinking About A Backyard Greenhouse?
View Calendar for more info » Do you have a Colorado Gardening class or event to submit to us? Fill out our form »
