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.

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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]

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 Delayed

Due 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.
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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 21^st. 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. 6^th.

We will RE-OPEN November 7^th and remain open from 10am to 5pm through December 22^nd, every Thursday through Sunday.

 Our 13^th Annual Holiday Market opens Thursday Nov. 21^st and runs through December 22^nd.

 After the winter holidays, we’ll RE-OPEN AGAIN from On January 2^nd, 2025 for 3 days a  week (Thursday through Saturday) from 10am to 4pm until we start over on Saturday March 1^st!

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]