Sat./Sun. Nov. 8 & 9
9:30am to 3:00 pm
Find artisan jewelry, stylish shoes, clothing and accessories, local artisan and other special art and craft pieces, antiques, linens, kitchen stuff, CDs, books.
You never know what you’ll discover from Eve’s personal collection! Eve has spent her life as a treasure hunter, seeking beauty, quality, authenticity and value, in every realm, from experiences to plants to art to earrings! Bring your friends!
CASH ONLY![Read More]
I confess. I am definitely a plant hoarder. Every year, I amass a formidable collection of plant starts, and then spend evenings through the season walking around my garden, little pots in hand, trying to find a few square inches where I can fit them in. Then I make tags and put them in the spots I’ve found (or created by taking some other plant out). If the critters don’t pull them out, most of those tags wait months for the magical moment when the weather is mild enough for me to plant them – October at last![Read More]
All summer and fall, Mikl and I have been collecting seeds from our own gardens and from wildlands where we have collecting permits, and at this point, most of that collecting is done. After spending last Sunday cataloging our seed collections, I’m delighted to report that so far, we have collected at least 85 species, most of them local natives. We can’t sell you the seeds we collect (the USDA won’t allow it), and besides, we need them for growing our plants for you. But we have excellent wildflower seed mixes from BBB Seeds in Boulder.
I’ve been shopping at my local Farmers Market on Saturday mornings, and have been really impressed with some of the gorgeous, large vegetables some of my favorite farms have grown this year. Most notable were the huge fennel bulbs and the stunning, large, firm heads of purple radicchio. But the garlic bulbs I found at the market have been, to be blunt, puny. And most are sold without variety names. Some were not properly cured. Small bulbs with small cloves are just fine for use in the kitchen for the next 3 to 5 months, but they are not suitable for planting. 
Berlandiera lyrata is an amazing blooming champion. Native to south-eastern Colorado as well as the SW region, Berlandiera really does emit a strong aroma of chocolate or carob all morning.
I love the succession of ephemeral flowers in my garden: the spring-blooming bulbs that begin the wake-up call to the garden and pollinators, the delicate pasque flowers (Pulsatilla, primroses (Primula), Jacob’s ladder (Polemonium), bluebells (Mertensia), voluptuous peonies and many more.
You, as a Harlequin’s Gardens community member, have made a tangible difference by choosing neonic-free plants and non-toxic pest management, choosing native and waterwise plants, building soil health, supporting local ecology, creating bird and pollinator habitat, and all while getting outside and beautifying your outdoor space! You deserve our gratitude and applause!
Harlequin’s Gardens will start our 34th season in 2026, and we couldn’t be prouder that your work, and ours, is making change.
Dalea candida, White Prairie Clover
On Saturday morning, I headed down to Kendrick Lake Park in Lakewood to participate in our local rock garden society’s annual fundraiser, the members’ sale. I always donate some plants, and I always come home with some, too, though I vow not to! It’s also a great time to catch up with friends and fellow members of the Rocky Mountain chapter of NARGS (N. American Rock Garden Society)[Read More]
By Eve Reshetnik Brawner
On Saturday, I had the great fortune to participate in a botanical field trip to Wyoming with a small group of rock gardeners – members of the Rocky Mountain chapter of the North
American Rock Garden Society. The exploration was led by the incomparable, world-renowned rock gardener and plantsman, Panayoti Kelaidis, whose knowledge of the high steppe region and alpine plants is encyclopedic.
[Read More]
The cool, cloudy and rainy days of this year’s uncommonly long spring brought us many blessings – among them, a spring superbloom, both in the natural world and in our gardens. Now we are headed into a season of intense heat and sun, and probably not a whole lot of rain. There are many stunning plants we can add to our gardens that will bloom non-stop through the summer and beyond. We still have loads of these annuals (plants that complete their life-cycle in one season), as well as choice, long-blooming perennials (plants that return year after year from their roots).
[Read More]
I recently attended a public conversation on the subject of ‘Avant Gardening’ at the Longmont Museum. Host Emily Maeda, co-owner of Tree of Life Landscaping, conversed with accomplished front range horticulturists and landscape designers Bryan Fischer and Kevin Phillip Williams about what constitutes the current avant-garde in gardening. I didn’t really feel that their discussion was conclusive, but the question has been in my thoughts. I now realize that in my mind, the definitive answer is habitat gardening.
We are grateful to have one day to acknowledge the value of the Earth. Wendell Berry said, “Earth is what we all have in common.” Pope Francis said we all have a shared responsibility for protecting the Earth, our common home, and he urged us to care for the environment. It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?
If we poison our water, choke our air with carbon dioxide, kill off the diversity of beings, and in general make our living environment weak and unhealthy, we won’t have a decent home for our children and our children’s children.[Read More]
Lately, I’ve been taking most of my walks in my Longmont neighborhood. It’s rather charming, with impressive mature trees and mostly older homes, some (like ours) a hundred-year-old or older. Nearly all the houses are what my cousin Charlie, when he visited us from the East Coast, called ‘right-sized’ – neither big nor tiny. A few historic homes that belonged to bankers and wealthy merchants are the exceptions. And with these mostly modest homes, there are a surprising number of quite nice gardens.
But in the past two months, I’ve been searching the neighborhood in vain for displays of spring-blooming bulbs in front yards. A little clump of daffodils here, two or three hyacinths there, and an almost complete absence of crocus, snowdrops, glory-of-the-snow, Siberian squill; no ‘botanical’ iris, no species tulips (except at our friend Leslie’s place). What gives?
[Read More]
Ribes aureum, Currant
We have shrubs and Perennials you can plant NOW!
If your soil is thawed and you can dig a planting hole, now is a great time to plant our hardy, over-wintered shrubs and perennials!
These shrubs have been over-wintered outdoors, not inside greenhouses or shipped from the west coast. So they don’t have leaves yet (unless they are evergreen), which is a really good thing; it means that they will settle into your garden and leaf out when the time is right, preventing freeze-damage to prematurely forced foliage. They have also been grown in our own excellent potting soils, which contain mycorrhizae, organic matter, and nutrients, which will help them adapt quickly to your garden soil. In addition, we have lots of perennials that were over-wintered in an unheated structure. These, too, are ready for planting if you are! Here are profiles of a handful of the shrubs ready now![Read More]
For me, there are no more satisfying late-winter activities than sowing seeds and nurturing seedlings. Preparing, choosing, watching, and waiting offer a quiet form of excitement that grows gradually to a joyous crescendo when robust home-grown seedlings are ready for transplanting into the garden or larger pots. I hope many of you will get to experience this pleasure. Our seed selection this year is excellent, and now is the time to begin your indoor seed-sowing. [Read More]
Welcome to Harlequin’s Gardens’ 33rd year! We care about your gardening success, your health, and our planet. We have spent the winter planning, planting, ordering, cleaning, repairing and getting ready to host you, and we have seeds, seed-starting supplies, gardening tools, books, soils and soil-nourishing amendments, and a great line-up of empowering classes!
And with the arrival of warm weather, our plants are coming; in fact, our hardy over-wintered plants can be planted in March! ALL of our plants are free from bee and insect-killing neonicotinoid pesticides! Our vegetable and herb starts are grown organically and all Harlequin-grown plants are Pesticide -Free.
NEW THIS YEAR: We have been working hard to upgrade your experience at Harlequin’s Gardens Nursery and Harlequin’s Wholesale.
Harlequin’s Silver Germander
If you’re a transplanted gardener from a different region of the country or the world, you may not yet be aware of the amazing plant palette at our disposal for providing lively winter presence in the garden. With our treasury of native flora and plants from analogous temperate-region steppe, desert, and montane parts of the world, we can easily bring wonderful color, texture and form to our winter gardens. These ‘broadleafed’ evergreen, ever-silver, ever-blue, white, and even orange, red, yellow or purple plants tend to serve as mats or spreading ground-covers, or as ‘sub-shrubs’ – mounding plants with woody structure.
If you’re looking for beautiful, hardy, water-wise plants to carry your ornamental garden through all four seasons, here’s a taste of the possibilities from Harlequin’s Gardens:
EverGREEN:
Bear-Claw Hellebore – Helleborus foetida
Creeping Mahonia
Creeping Thyme (many varieties)
Daphne varieties
Delosperma selections
Dwarf Broom (Genista lydia)
Ephedra minuta (minima)
Evergreen Candytuft
Geranium x cantabrigiense selections
Hardy Manzanita (Arctostaphylos) – ‘Chieftain’, ‘Panchito’ ‘Mock Bearberry’ and uva-ursi(Kinnikinnick) Hen & Chicks – green varieties
Agave
Jasmine Dianthus (Dianthus petraeus ssp noeanus)
‘Marion Sampson’ Hummingbird Coyote Mint
Narbonne Flax
Paxistima canbyi
Penstemon – Pine-leaf, Bridge’s, Tushar Mountain, Palmer’s, Desert, Blue Mist, many others!
Prickly Thrift (Acantholimon sp.)
Sunrose (Helianthemum varieties)
Sulphur Buckwheat species
Teucriums: Round-leaf Germander, Wall Germander
Veronica – Wooly, Thyme-leaf, Prostrate, Turkish, Crystal Rivers, Snowmass, Tidal Pool
Frost on the Lambs Ears
EverSILVER or GREY:
Bell’s Twinpod
English lavender varieties
Filigree Daisy
Fringed Sage
Grey Santolina
Harlequin’s Silver Germander
Hen & Chicks- cob-web varieties
Lamb’s Ears
Mojave Sage
Prairie Sage
Pussytoes
Sand Sage
Seafoam Sage
Silver-edge Horehound
Partridge Feather
Prickly Thrift (Acantholimon sp.)
Wisley Pink Sunrose
EverWHITE:
Hen & Chicks – cob-web varieties
Teucrium gnaphalodes
Eriogonum ovalifolium
Eriogonum ‘Kannah Creek’ in Winter
EverBLUE:
Stonecress – Aethionema grandiflora, A. schistosum
Rue (Ruta graveolens)
Blue Avena grass
Blue Fescue grass
Evergreen with Winter-RED, PURPLE, or ORANGE color:
Hen& Chicks – red, purple, pink varieties (color deepens in winter)
Creeping Sedum varieties – Dragonsblood, Red Carpet, VooDoo, , album,
Yellow Hardy Iceplant (red), Table Mountain Hardy Iceplant (purple)
‘Kannah Creek’ Sulfur Buckwheat (deep red)
Opuntia basilaris (purple)
Sedum ‘Angelina’ (orange)
As gardeners, and in community, we can make a real difference to protect and support the planet. We are living in very challenging times. Uncontrolled assaults on our planet’s resources and inhabitants, climate crisis, a political culture of runaway collusion and corruption, our personal safety and our personal freedoms under threat, perpetual wars, etc., etc. And what’s propelling it all is the power of Big Money. And Big, Corporate Money has been behind virtually all of our social, economic and environmental ills. For a very long time, corporations and their allies in power have spent vast fortunes to manipulate us in ways that separate us from each other, make us fear each other, pit us against each other. This is all for the purpose of distracting us from the power we could exert if we came together in community.
Fire is on our minds. How to prevent it. How to curtail or control it. How to live with it. How to use it constructively. We remember the early winter Marshall Fire at the end of 2021 with feelings of grief and
anxiety, and watch in horror as fires ravage Los Angeles and beyond. Folks living in the relatively wild foothills and mountains have always been aware of their vulnerability to wildfire.
But now city-dwellers and people in close-in suburbs are awakened to the threat facing them (us). We are offering guidance through education, and have scheduled a Fire-Wise Landscaping class with professional landscaper Bill Melvin in April. Watch for details as our 2025 class schedule, including winter classes, develops.[Read More]
Time flies, don’t you think? Do you remember when people throughout the “developed world” anxiously awaited the arrival of the new millennium, worried by predictions that Y2K would bring a collapse of technical systems – the internet, banking, stock trading, communications – and throw everything else into chaos? And there was nothing we could do about it? It didn’t take long to see that the world as we knew it did not fall apart. Twenty-five years later, perhaps you’ve been nervously awaiting the advent of 2025 and are scared of what the new year, on many fronts, could bring. Completely understandable!
But in difficult times, fear is not the best guide. We have to believe in ourselves and our communities, and always bring our best efforts forth to build a habitable, sane, safe, peaceful, just, generous, healthy world. [Read More]
Are you beginning to think about giving gifts of appreciation and love to your friends and family?
We know that these gifts don’t have to take physical form; what we do for our loved ones and how we express and demonstrate our love all year long – this is what really counts.
HOWEVER…. it can be a lot of fun to search out just the right gifts to delight and support your favorite people! And since we know that our customers care about the natural world, sustainability, health, creativity, quality and beauty, we have worked hard to assemble a remarkable and diverse array of fantastic gift items, mostly made by highly skilled local Colorado artisans and producers, that are in line with your values and ours.
If you are attending holiday parties, you could bring the hosts a gift of some of our exclusive locally handcrafted specialty foods.[Read More]
Here we are in the season of giving generously. Not all of us can afford to give lavishly, but even the humble gift of seeds can create enormous abundance. We’re talking about both literal and figurative seeds here.
On the literal plane, a $2.69 packet of our Botanical Interests certified organic Red Russian Kale seeds (~190 seeds) can yield an abundant and highly nutritious crop of either ‘cut & come again’ baby greens or mature leaves over an exceptionally long season. Friends of ours in Boulder are still harvesting this easy-to-grow, delicious vegetable, rich in minerals and antioxidants. How’s that for a stocking-stuffer with abundant potential?
The more challenging life becomes, the more I remind myself of what’s good and beautiful and wondrous and nourishing in life, what I can be deeply grateful for and what I will stick my neck out to protect. The list is long!
Harlequin’s Gardens is a business that has, over 32 years, grown beyond Mikl’s and my dreams, assisted by our fabulous staff and our wonderful customers and allies, guided by our love of people, plants, gardens, gardeners, wild things and the connections between them, sharing good information, good products and good news. There is so much beauty and richness in all of this interconnectedness and possibility and we will always thank our lucky stars that we have had the opportunity to spread it around. And we couldn’t have done it without YOU! From all of us: Our deepest gratitude! May all of you enjoy a meaningful, joyful and delicious Thanksgiving celebration!
Eve’s “Embarrassment of Riches” Garage Sale Is DelayedDue to unforeseen circumstances, the sale, originally scheduled for this weekend, will be rescheduled!
At Harlequin’s Gardens Nursery
4795 N.26th St., Boulder
SATURDAY & SUNDAY
NOVEMBER 9th & 10th, 10 am to 5 pm
It’s that time – time of year and time of life – when having too much stuff, even beautiful stuff and quality stuff and useful stuff, is making me feel claustrophobic. My mother taught me to be an astute shopper, and I’ve spent my life as a treasure hunter, seeking beauty, quality, authenticity and value, in every realm, from experiences to plants to art to earrings.
[Read More]
WINTER SOLSTICE GREETINGS!
Winter Solstice, the day when we in the Northern hemisphere experience the shortest day and longest night of the year, falls on Saturday, December 21st. After that, the tilt of the earth will reverse direction, lighting the path to Spring north of the Equator. And because Spring is coming, once again, I’ve got seeds, my favorite subject!, on my mind, on my desk (dining table), in bags and boxes all around the room, and seed order invoices are crowding my inbox.[Read More]
At this time of year, many of you probably share with me the bittersweet feeling of closure drawing near. It’s been another immensely rewarding growing season at Harlequin’s, and we are so grateful to have had the opportunity to introduce hundreds of new Colorado gardeners to appropriate and successful materials and methods, as well as helping so many longtime, like-minded sustainable gardeners. For 32 years we have been providing pollinator-safe Colorado-appropriate plants, products, information and advice based on our ongoing research and long experience, and we look forward to carrying this service well into the future. Thank you all for your support! But we’ve extended our season and we’re not done yet!
This week we are still open Tuesday through Sunday, 9am to 5pm and we still have beautiful plants (30% off), fantastic spring-blooming bulbs to plant now (20% off), seeds (many 60% off), composts and mulches, fertilizers and pest repellents, houseplants and much more.
We’ll be closed briefly for inventory, from Oct. 31st through Nov. 6th.
We will RE-OPEN November 7th and remain open from 10am to 5pm through December 22nd, every Thursday through Sunday.
Our 13th Annual Holiday Market opens Thursday Nov. 21st and runs through December 22nd.
After the winter holidays, we’ll RE-OPEN AGAIN from On January 2nd, 2025 for 3 days a week (Thursday through Saturday) from 10am to 4pm until we start over on Saturday March 1st!
Don’t be a stranger! Come and see what we have to offer year-round.
FALL GARDEN CARE
In the ‘Old Normal’, by now, we would expect to have had some light frosts and maybe some killing frost in the Denver-Boulder area. And some rain, and even snow. And lots of leaves would have fallen from the trees and shrubs. Most of us with irrigation systems would have had them blown out and turned off. But this long extension of summer heat and drought is definitely not the Normal we used to rely on. As gardeners, we have to adapt. Here are some suggestions for fall garden maintenance under these new conditions.
PLANTING
Perennials, Trees & Shrubs: This fall we have a great opportunity to continue planting! We’ve had some of our best successes with transplanting hardy roses, shrubs, trees and perennials in October. There is enough time for new plants to establish before the soil freezes. Do mulch your new plantings (see mulching section below), and water thoroughly and frequently while daytime temperatures remain above 40 degrees and the soil has not yet frozen. We still have a lot of really great plants in great condition, and nearly all of them are on sale! See our Fall Sale details below.[Read More]
Every garden should include some spring-blooming bulbs. And some fall-blooming bulbs as well. “But” you say – “my entire garden is devoted to native plants to support native pollinators and other native critters; and hyacinths, crocus, tulips and daffodils are not even native to the North American continent”.
While growing an all-native garden is a great idea, and supporting our local ecosystems is an important endeavor, there are good reasons for including some non-native plants, especially plants that extend the flowering season at either end. They will attract and support honeybees, bumblebees, mason bees, and other pollinating insects at times of the year when flowers are relatively scarce.
If deer roam in your yard, we offer a lovely assortment of highly deer-resistant (toxic to deer) spring-flowering Narcissus (daffodils) that span from early to late spring, in many sizes and color combos, some of them quite fragrant. [Read More]
I have a passion for seeds, for the elegant and endlessly diverse designs of their natural packaging, their fascinating distribution and germination strategies, and for the astonishing emergence of exuberant life from even the most minute speck of a seed. I once grew a Eucalyptus gunnii tree from seed the size of a dust mote. It grew, outdoors (in Eugene, Oregon) for several years, reaching 16’ tall until an unusually heavy snowstorm broke all the branches off. And in its native Tasmania it could have reached 135 feet! In addition to collecting seeds from plants in the wild and in my pollinator garden at home, I collect seeds at this time of year from my vegetable garden to enable Harlequin’s Gardens to offer unique and commercially unavailable varieties of tomatoes (“Anasazi”) and peppers (Lanterna Piccante), wild perennial arugula, and perennial Caucasian Spinach vine.
When planning for garden seed-saving, remember these basic guidelines:[Read More]
Unruly. Out of control. Overgrown. That’s my garden this year. But it’s still beautiful in its own wild way, and it’s hosting more beneficial insects and pollinators than ever. One of the things I love about both the natural landscape and my own garden is the constant evolution, the sequence of growth and bloom and seed formation, the ever-changing scene.
Some elements in nature and in the garden are quite ephemeral; if you look away, you might miss them altogether. But it’s so exciting to be present, to be looking when, for example, the Angel’s Trumpet (Datura meteloides or wrightii) flowers unfurl, and to breath their intoxicating fragrance in the night. Some
Colchicum cilicicum
appear on the scene with no prior notice, like the Colchicum flowers that just appeared this morning, as if by spontaneous generation, bursting through the Plumbago, or in spots that were bare yesterday!
By the way, Waterlily Colchicums, Autumn Crocus and fall-blooming Saffron Crocus bulbs are here, and ready to plant now![Read More]
Sometimes we are running so fast that we forget to slow down and see what’s ready to come out for sale. This week we are happily surprised to see that we have fresh stock of lots of premium native shrubs that we grew in convenient, affordable 2-gallon pots. We’re making them available at regular price (not discounted for our fall sale) – read more below.
And these perennials ARE on sale – a new infusion of hardy, water-wise, native Penstemons has been brought out, including P. clutei, P. glaber v. alpinus, P. palmeri, P. virgatus, P. grandiflorus, and P. angustifolius. I have planted many Penstemons in October and November in past years, with great success.[Read More]
One of the beautiful alternatives to a standard, water-thirsty, solid green, mowed Kentucky Bluegrass lawn is a naturalistic meadow composed of low-water clumping grasses and wildflowers.
This approach offers plant diversity, an ever-changing, dynamic sequence of colors and textures throughout the seasons, and provides sustenance and habitat for beneficial insects, pollinators, birds and other small critters. If this sounds good to you, now is the time to plan and prepare, and buy grass seed mixes on sale for 15% off! We also have lots of wildflower seeds to add to the grasses – mixes for specific pollinators and situations, as well as individual species.[Read More]
We cut, dig and store our dahlia tubers just after the first frost. Our friends at Arrowhead Dahlias have easy instructions.
Dahlia tubers will not survive if they freeze, so they must be dug in cold climates like ours.
You can divide in spring or fall – it takes practice and patience, but it is well worth the trouble.[Read More]
We still have Lavender (Munstead, Buena Vista, Hidcote and Grosso), and if you want to plant them this season, get them this week on sale for 20% off! Any plants left after that will be potted up for next year. Because it is evergreen, newly planted lavender is more sensitive to hard frost than many other hardy perennials, so to give them a chance to establish before very cold weather arrives, plant them NOW. If you garden at an elevation higher than 6,000’, we recommend waiting to plant lavender next spring.
Rosemary ‘Madeline Hill’ is still in stock, and on sale! [Read More]
Vilma Tomato courtesy Sara’s Kitchen Garden
It’s been a tough summer for my garden. I had the best of intentions; in early spring I was going to broadcast organic fertilizer (Yum Yum Mix in native and xeric areas, Alpha One elsewhere) and top-dress with compost (EKO lawn topdressing). It snowed whenever I had time. I was going to amend and prepare the raised vegetable garden beds, but couldn’t get myself to tear out the self-sown alpine strawberries, miner’s lettuce, wild arugula and parsley that had proliferated and offered ‘free food’. So I missed my window of opportunity to plant my usual greens and onions, and planted only tomatoes (late), which I amended and fertilized only in their individual planting holes. I don’t recommend this approach! Those tomatoes are seriously sub-par, only Anasazi and Maglia Rosa doing well.[Read More]
A grove of Rocky Mountain Bee Plant, four to six feet tall, has grown up alongside my driveway, where I almost never water, and is now in its full glory. From dawn to dusk, the buzz of pollinators at work is intense; honeybees, bumblebees large, medium and small, plus sweat bees, hoverflies, little tiny bees and wasps, constantly trading places, collecting pollen and sipping nectar. Yesterday, as I made my way slowly and carefully past the grove to get to my car door, one of the abovementioned made a wrong turn and found herself between my capri pants and my thigh, and panicked. The sting was painful for a few minutes, no big deal, but may have been fatal for the unwitting trespasser.
The moral of the story is: Cleome serrulata supports an amazing diversity of pollinators, and gets big, so park on the street in August![Read More]
Claret Cup Cactus
The answer is: Our local and regional native cold-hardy ‘succulent’ plants!
So-called ‘succulents’ are plants that store water in their above-ground stems and/or foliage, and some in swollen roots. They may be from unrelated plant families, but what they all have in common is that they evolved with similar environmental pressures. Some, like barrel cactus, have forgone leaves altogether, and their fat stems function essentially as water-storage tanks. Their spines and structural characteristics give them sculptural and geometrical features that function as built-in shade mechanisms. And on top of all that amazing adaptation, cacti bloom in brilliant Technicolor, with stunning, silky flowers that are loaded with pollen and draw native bees of many kinds.[Read More]
As a gardener and as a person with very limited heat tolerance, I am thrilled that the autumnal equinox is just a few weeks away! Late summer through November is my favorite and most successful time to plant nearly all types of perennials and woody plants. As heat, sun and evaporation are reduced, the new transplants can establish more quickly and with less stress. They don’t need as much water and shade, so in the fall I can plant in the most exposed, hot and challenging parts of my garden. And thank goodness, because I’ve got dozens of plants still in pots, waiting for gentler planting conditions. And at Harlequin’s, we have a steady stream of late ‘newcomers’ arriving on our tables – beautifully grown plants that are just now ready for sale – and on sale – so come take a look![Read More]
Eriogonum umbellatum var. aureum – Kannah Creek® buckwheat, courtesy Plant Select
native, ‘nativar’, variety, subspecies, selection, hybrid, and why you might care
Eriogonum umbellatum. Eriogonum umbellatum var. aureum ‘Kannah Creek’. Aquilegia chrysantha. Aquilegia chrysantha ‘Denver Gold’. Physocarpus monogynus ‘Greylock’. Prunus besseyi ‘Pawnee Buttes’. Shepherdia argentea ‘Silver Totem’. Gaillardia aristata. Gaillardia aristata ‘Meriwether’. Gaillardia aristata BoCo. Gaillardia x grandiflora “Mesa Yellow’. Asclepias incarnata. Asclepias incarnata ‘Cinderella’.
What are gardeners to think when they encounter these plant names? What do the names mean? How can you tell if this plant is the same as its kind that grows in the wild? Is it a native or a “nativar”? [Read More]
It’s officially Summertime. We are struggling with an unprecedented June heat-wave and very low precipitation. But along with the heat, sun and lack of significant rainfall, there are some wonderful things happening that we can appreciate and be grateful for, like the bold, stand-out colors of summer blooms! Of the summer-blooming perennials we grow, both native and non-native, many are in bud or starting to bloom, are looking great and are ready now to bring out for sale. They ALL provide important sustenance for our pollinators, from tiny native bees, wasps and flies, to bumblebees, butterflies, and hummingbirds! And most are in 4” ‘deep pots’, easier to establish in the heat of the summer!
Some that we’re adding this week:
Tall Garden Phlox varieties ‘Nikki’, ‘Starfire’ and ‘Laura’
Monarda (Beebalm) ‘Balmy Purple’[Read More]
We’re celebrating all month, and we’d love to encourage you to support pollinators in your gardens.
Pollinator Month is a special time for Harlequin’s Gardens – a time when we celebrate the hard work of bees (honeybees, solitary bees, bumblebees) wasps, ants, flies and bee flies, butterflies and moths, beetles, some bats and birds, and some mammals. They’re all around us, connecting the dots between flowers and food.
Come check out our special pollinator display, which is our whole facility! The descriptive signage for most of our plants is marked with bee, hummingbird, and butterfly icons.[Read More]
Yesterday we managed to sneak away from work and visit a couple of the fabulous Open Space parks in the foothills. We were too late to see the Pasque Flowers in bloom, but we were surrounded by botanical treasures, nonetheless. A picture is worth a thousand words, so this will be mostly a photo essay of most of the species we encountered. However, you might want to know that in spite of being difficult or impossible to find in nursery production, quite a few of these native treasures have been offered or are currently offered at Harlequin’s Gardens this year.
It’s not ideal, but sometimes you have to plant in the middle of a heatwave. Fortunately, it can be done successfully, even here in the high, windy and dry zone. High temperatures, wind and strong sunlight cause water to evaporate from plant leaves faster than the roots can take up water.
The key to survival of new plantings is shade – for the plant and for the soil. Here are some tips:[Read More]
Right now, we have our biggest selection of highly desirable plants for the season. Some of them are unusual and available in limited quantities. This includes a number of very choice native perennials that are very hard to find and will sell out fast, like:
Scrophularia macrantha (Red Birds In A Tree) – This rare New Mexico wildflower was first brought into cultivation, and given its delightful common name, by the late, great plantsman David Salman, only a couple of decades ago. Subsequently promoted by the Plant Select program, it won the hearts of native plant gardeners and pollinator gardeners, and is a great favorite of hummingbirds. [Read More]
Vilma Tomato courtesy Sara’s Kitchen Garden
A Special Tomato Offer! 2 half-price plants in return for your evaluations!
We know that many of our customers need to grow small but bountiful vegetables in containers.
So we searched out and grew a group of very special, rare varieties of tomato that are specifically intended for growing in containers – Dwarf, Micro dwarf and even hanging tomatoes! They are ready this week, but quantities are limited – only 25 to 60 plants of each variety.[Read More]
So many very special experiences!
We were delighted with the turnout for our May Day festivities and sales, and loved seeing and helping old friends and new, first-time customers and loyal Harlequin’s supporters. The live music and gentle weather kept us all smiling and we so appreciate everyone’s cheerful patience in the check-out line. The Mothers’ Day weekend was equally exciting and heartwarming, and it was preceded by a rare and thrilling display of the Northern Lights on Friday night. We hope many of you were able to see it!
Walks on foothills trails this week reveal the earliest Penstemons (Beardtongues) in our area – the xeric, and showy Sidebells Penstemon (Penstemon secundiflorus). [Read More]
The fields and the foothills are turning green! So many trees are blooming or beginning to leaf out! There is so much energy bursting forth everywhere I look! After the lovely rain last weekend we emerged from our Sunday class to be greeted by the singing of frogs in a big puddle in the parking lot! How can they develop that fast???
To help celebrate Spring, we’ve got a really exciting line-up of local live music and dance for this coming weekend and for Mother’s Day, too! And some great deals on beautiful, Harlequin-grown, pesticide-free plants.
It could have been worse. We are grateful that the severe winds didn’t cause any fires, blow down very many trees, kill or maim anyone (at least not that we’ve heard) or tear off roofs. It must have been a terrible time for anyone that was unhoused.
We lost one small hoophouse that was empty at the time, but the others made it through with little damage. And we were forced to stay closed on Saturday with no electricity, no heat, no water pumps, no internet and no phone. Our huge thanks go to the customers who came out on Sunday and helped us recoup a bit of our Saturday losses. Our phone and internet are still down, but we were blown away by the gracious patience of our customers as we tallied their purchases by hand and if they didn’t have cash or checkbooks, we wrote down their information so we can call them and complete credit card transactions over the phone when we have our service restored. We will continue to provide this service until our internet service is back, and we hope you will come and shop at Harlequin’s with cash or checks. [Read More]
As part of HG’s commitment to supporting local ecology and local economy, we have the pleasure of connecting with and (mutually) supporting small growers in our state and our region. Yesterday, I paid a visit to our immensely talented and dedicated off-site custom propagator, Sue J., in Fort Collins. Sue is a self-taught organic grower with decades of experience. She is a nurturer by nature, singlehandedly managing three large hoop houses full of thousands of vegetable, herb and annual flower starts, many of our most interesting and hard-to-propagate perennials, and some woody shrubs. And when she gets home, she raises award-winning alpacas and llamas and tends to a sweet rescue dog who never leaves her side.[Read More]
March is bringing us a characteristic tilt of the see-saw that this month always brings. Tank tops can go back in the drawer for a little while, as this week we will see night-time temperatures dipping into the mid-20s. We are expecting rain (~1.6 inches in Boulder, ~3 inches in Denver!), and heavy, wet snow, too. We’ve been here before; no need to panic. And we need the moisture!
This is when it’s important to make sure your seed furrows are level (so the seeds don’t all wash down to the low end), and when row cover fabric comes to the rescue.[Read More]
