Blog

Roses that Survive and Thrive in Colorado

After last November’s 77 degree cold plunge to 13 degrees below zero, most roses suffered die-back, some died to the ground and some died completely. But there were roses that had only minimal damage and some that will bounce back with a good show of vigorous growth and generous flowering this year. Here are some observations and conclusions about growing sustainable roses in Colorado.

Roses are cane shrubs, similar to blackberries and raspberries. Their wood has a pithy center and is not as hard or as strong as a lilac. Consequently roses are more vulnerable to insects, diseases, desiccation and cold, but another consequence is that they can grow and regrow much faster than woody shrubs like lilac and viburnum.[Read More]

Lawn Alternatives and Groundcovers

In our American communities, one of the responsibilities of home-ownership is to keep the ground covered. Bare earth, like weeds, indicates lack of care. So then, how do we cover the ground? The cheapest, fastest, and easiest way is to roll out bluegrass sod. “Instant” landscapes can be accomplished with a supervised construction crew that knows little about plants. And as long as water was plentiful, bluegrass was the unquestioned solution.[Read More]

Sungari Redbead Cotoneaster

The 2017 Plant Select shrub introduction is a woody plant with a tongue-twister of a name, a long history of survival at the old Cheyenne Horticultural Station, and has a heart-warming story of two great local plantsmen who brought it out of obscurity into Colorado gardens.

Cotoneaster racemiflora soongorica or Sungari Redbead Cotoneaster is a very tough and beautiful shrub, having survived over 40 years of neglect at the closed and unwatered Cheyenne High Plains Horticultural Research Station. It grows 6′-8′ high and wide with arching branches. The dark green leaves that are gray-white underneath, are attractive in themselves, and the flattened clusters of white, Hawthorn-like flowers are some of the showiest of all cotoneasters. They attract bees and other pollinators. Following the flowers are showy red fruits, a quarter of an inch or more in diameter. These berries are not messy and are popular with garden birds. They cluster along the thin branches, appearing as ropes of beads — hence the common name.[Read More]

Wooden Images

We’d been looking for some finely handcrafted small wood products for the home, at affordable prices, and finally found Wooden Images. Located in Missoula MT, the workshop was founded in 1980 in John Bakula’s garage. In 1981 his brother Mark joined him, and they’ve been designing and creating intricately patterned items that are original, functional and beautiful since then.

“We pride ourselves on meticulous craftsmanship and attention to detail and feel it shows in the beauty and durability of each piece we make. There are no computers doing any of the work, just two guys, with imagination and decades of experience, and some power tools.”

The pieces we will feature this year include some great gift items – business card holders (pictured left), beautiful feather-weight earrings, and hardwood hair barrettes.

Pest Management for Bees

Overview: The Good News: 100,000 insect species; only 200 pests. We do not need neonics or any toxic pesticide to grow plants well. The solution is human attention, biodiversity, nutrient-dense soils, application of nontoxic management, and tolerance.

The Bad News: Most people and most nurseries don’t know the good news. They believe the chemical companies that we need to fear and attack insects and fungi as enemies.

More Good News: The concern of ordinary citizens who call nurseries and businesses and ask them if they are using systemic neonic poisons in their plants, is having a powerful effect. These companies now know we care and will buy plants that are neonic-free if we can. This could get them to change.[Read More]

West County Gardening Gloves

We love West County gloves! They are made from recycled plastic bottles, are very durable and stand-up to several seasons of tough gardening. They are machine washable and retain their shape, and they come in great colors and patterns! We carry their Work Glove, Rose Gauntlet, Mud Glove and Grip Glove, all in a range of sizes.

If you give these gloves as a gift, be assured that the recipient is welcome to exchange them for a different in-stock size, as long as they are still unused and in their original packaging.

Pruning Article for Boulder Home and Garden

For many people, pruning is the maintenance job they most fear and dread. And it is good to be wary, because a tree that is badly pruned can dominate a landscape with its ugliness for years, can be more prone to breakage and disease, and can have a much shorter life.

Tree and shrub pruning have four basic aspects: the practical or aesthetic interests of the owners, the biology of how trees “heal”, the physics of what makes a branch strong or weak, and the art of how to create beautiful forms.[Read More]

Pyrethrum Insecticides: Are they Safe?

Pyrethrum is one of the best known botanical insecticides, effective against a wide variety of insect pests and generally considered safe to use. Is it really safe? To answer any question about pyrethrum it must first be explained that what is referred to as “pyrethrum” can be many different products. There is pyrethrum, the raw flowers; pyrethrins,the extracts from the flowers; and pyrethroids, synthetic pyrethrum. In addition many other insecticides and enhancers are often added to formulations which are called “pyrethrum”.[Read More]

Robin Chocolate

This year, because of the timing of our Holiday Market, we are unable to bring you Robin’s wonderful, locally-crafted chocolate truffles (they might not stay fresh all the way to Christmas). BUT DON’T DESPAIR! We are offering Robin’s dark chocolate-drizzled Crystallized Ginger, so scrumptious, and with a longer shelf-life!

Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse Rose Garden

Boulder Valley Rose Society
Hardy Roses Demonstration Garden
1770 13th St. Boulder, Colorado

This garden, planted in 1998, is both the Hardy Rose Demonstration Garden of the Boulder Valley Rose Society and an environment that delights the senses and calms the spirit, such as you might find at a teahouse in Tajikistan.

Designed by Eve Reshetnik-Brawner and Mikl Brawner, the garden includes 43 varieties of roses of many types, including Old Garden roses, Species roses, Canadian, Modern Shrub and David Austin’s English roses. These roses were chosen for their Old World Character, cold hardiness and disease-resistance. In addition, these roses are not grafted, but grown on their “own roots” which makes them tougher and longer-lived. These qualities have allowed the Boulder Valley Rose Society to maintain this rose garden without the use of chemical fertilizers, fungicides and pesticides. These roses are examples of how successful roses can be in Colorado.[Read More]

Wymzy Ceramics | Melissa Harvey – NEW!

We are delighted to add Wymzy ceramics to our holiday market offerings this year! Melissa Harvey has been a potter for forty years in the Denver area, working from her home studio. Her white stoneware pieces are wheel-thrown and altered, decorated with her colorful patterns in underglazes, then covered with a clear glaze. She loves to make functional pottery, items you can use, that will add pleasure to your everyday experiences at home.

Melissa has brought us mugs, bud vases, small bowls and trays, oil cruets, and a couple of berry bowls.

St. Clair’s Organic Mints, Candies, Pastilles & Lozenges

Yea – totally organic! Made by herbalist Debra St. Claire! No corn syrup! Delicious! Effective! Packaged in pretty, reusable tins! Incredibly inexpensive! Lots of flavors! Great stocking stuffers!

Zink Metal Art

Zink Metal Art is the collaborative effort of Charlotte and Ben Zink, who have made their whimsical and flowing designs of metal for home and garden for the past 20 years in Berthoud, CO.

Their steel garden sculptures are graceful, original, very easy to install, and affordable, and similar designs are available as smaller garden ornaments, indoor wall-pieces and as pendants on necklaces. All make great gifts!

Seed Ranch Hot Sauces

ON SALE 30% off, Seed Ranch Flavors is a small-batch, ‘farm-to-bottle’ maker of ‘hot’ sauces (one is very mild) in Boulder, the passion of David Delcourt.

David uses only non-gmo, gluten-free, organic, natural plant-based ingredients, and his unique, savory sauces are paleo and vegan-friendly. The delicious originality and complexity of the blended flavors, and their versatility wowed us – not just for tortilla chips, but in dips, for marinating, glazing or barbecue too!

We have some of their amazing new Truffle Hound sauce in its own gift-box, as well as four flavors packaged together in an attractive box. These make great hostess gifts, stocking-stuffers, or components of an all-local specialty food basket!

Bundle Up Your Plants!

Spring snow is on it’s way!

This week will be a challenging one for gardeners; we will have night temperatures in the mid-20s Wednesday through Friday, before the next warming trend. We are also expecting snow and perhaps sleet. There are a number of ways to protect your plants including row cover, solar caps, upside-down pots. See below for details. [Read More]

Veggies, Seeds, Special Events, and Classes!

VEGGIES, SEEDS, SPECIAL EVENTS, & CLASSES!

So many opportunities this spring!

Harlequin’s Gardens offers a lot of exceptional and unusual varieties of veggies that you won’t find anywhere else! Our selection of cool-season veggies continues to expand daily as do our perennials. There are many veggies, including onions, leeks, Asian greens, bok choy, and heading type of brassicas (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage) that will yield larger and better results if they are planted sooner, rather than later in the season. (Eve with Graffiti Cauliflower, right.) See our website for many of our veggie descriptions.

This is also the best time to get many types of seeds in the ground. Our collection of Botanical Interests, Seed Savers, and Beauty Beyond Belief seeds contain many interesting and heirloom varieties for you to try.

If you’re unsure about the best ways to approach veggie gardening, or want to expand your knowledge, we have two classes this weekend that will be of great help. On Saturday at 10 AM, our own Mimi Yanus will guide you in her popular “Getting Started in Veggie Gardening” class. Then, at 1:00, Tracy Parrish follows with her “Succession Planting” class where you’ll learn how to maximize your garden space and keep your veggie garden in continual production.

On Sunday at 1:00, Mikl will share how you can have a successful lawn without using toxic chemicals in his “Organic Lawn Care” class. See below for more details and call 303-939-9403 to reserve your seat!

As of April 1 we’re now OPEN DAILY from 9 AM to 5 PM, and until 6 PM on Thursdays.

POTATO STARTS

… will be arriving late next week! This year we will have German Butterball, Kennebec, Mountain Rose, and Purple Majesty selections. See our website for descriptions!

GOOD NEWS SPECIAL EVENT!

Neighbors, farmers, gardeners, citizen activists, the politically weary, the financially skeptical, the poetically inclined, pollinators, seed savers, CSA members, folks who want to know where their food comes from and where their money goes, and all who would like to put the culture back into agriculture and the civil back into civilization, all who would like to make our community healthier and our soil more fertile (which, as fate would have it, also pulls carbon out of the atmosphere, go figure!), all who take to heart the morning news reports about the collapse of insect populations and the urgency of climate change and who are no longer content to place all our bets on distant markets and distant political solutions. . .yes, you, us, we of Boulder, of the Front Range, of the environs between the Great Plains and the Continental Divide. . . we’re coming together to enjoy

—ADMISSION FREE—

. . .which could stand for Americans for Healthy Agriculture (AHA!), but doesn’t, because there is no such organization, but it stands for bunches of us coming together in a spirit of radical neighborliness, and for AHA! moments towards which we are heading, courtesy of these festivities, CO-HOSTED BY SOIL (Slow Opportunities for Investing Locally) and HARLEQUIN’S GARDENS, with help from our friends at Boulder County Farmers Markets, Savory Institute, Fresh Thymes Eatery, Organic Sandwich Company, Backpacker’s Pantry, Charlotte’s Web, and 78 individuals (on our way to many more, we trust) who have begun making 0% loans to local farmers and food enterprises, in the name of diversity and health, in the name of relationships putting transactions in their place, a small token of the esteem in which we hold those who are tending the soil and building the local food system. . .So, you are cordially invited to join in an afternoon of shared learning and community celebration, along with a few words from

and others, and. . . including poetry, music and other forms of cultural invigoration and mutual appreciation. Conviviality! Conversation! Door prizes! Radical neighborliness!

Who knew?! Something is afoot! AHA!

For more information contact woody@nullslowmoney.org.

BACKYARD VINEYARD CLASS

Have you dreamt of starting your own backyard vineyard? Our friend, John Martin of Stonebridge Farm, will be teaching an introductory class this Sunday, April 7, from 1:00-4:00 at Stonebridge Farm. To attend email John Martin.

Interested, but not able to attend? Come to John’s Sunday, April 28 class at Harlequin’s Gardens: GROWING GRAPES ON THE FRONT RANGE at 1 PM. In this class John will present an overview of varieties suitable for this region, considerations for site location, trellising options, pest protection measures, and a brush across two basic pruning techniques. Call 303-939-9403 to register.

APRIL CLASS LIST

Call 303-939-9403 to reserve your seat!

Our weekends are loaded with great classes you won’t want to miss! Our customers tell us that our classes have given them tremendous value, with practical and current information from local experts who have spent years honing their skills in Colorado and will help guide you to success. We are charging $15 (unless otherwise stated) for our classes to support our speakers and Harlequin’s educational direction. It is best to pre-register for these classes both in case they fill up, or too few people register and we have to cancel. Pre-payment assures your place in the class. You can register at the nursery, by mail, or by calling 303-939-9403. We are unable to take class registration by email at this time. Most of our classes run from one-and-a-half to two hours in length, and sometimes longer for hands-on classes, or if there are a large number of questions. See the complete March Class listing below, or on our website.

Sat, Apr 6 at 10 AM
GETTING STARTED IN VEGETABLE GARDENING with Mimi Yanus

If you are new to Colorado, new to vegetable gardening, or have been unhappy with the results of your earlier attempts, this class is for you. Learn from Mimi what you need to know to make your new organic vegetable garden successful and bountiful, even in Colorado conditions! (This is a repeat of Mimi’s March 16 class.) Class cost: $15

Sat, Apr 6 at 1 PM
SUCCESSION PLANTING: OPTIMIZING PLANTING TIMES TO INCREASE GARDEN YIELDSwith Tracey Parrish

Learn the techniques and timing to maximize your garden space and keep your veggie garden in continual production throughout the seasons. This class provides participants with an extensive planting schedule table, outlining when and where to start your seeds, the time to transplant out and when to expect harvest. Tracey is an expert in culinary gardening. Class cost: $15

Sun, Apr 7 at 1 PM
ORGANIC LAWN CARE with Mikl Brawner

You can have successful a lawn without using toxic chemicals! Learn how to support healthy soil and soil life using compost, organic fertilizers, aeration, proper watering, and mowing, and how to avoid and deal with weeds. Class cost: $15

Sat, Apr 13 at 10 AM
EDIBLE LANDSCAPING with Alison Peck

Learn how to grow fruits, nuts, vegetables, vines and herbs in your yard, beautifully. Learn which plants are the most successful and how to integrate them into your landscape. Alison has been designing edible landscapes for 25 years; she owns Matrix Gardens landscaping. Class cost: $15

Sat, Apr 13 at 1 PM
DO-IT-YOURSELF DRIP IRRIGATIONwithAlison Peck

Drip Irrigation can be easy! Come learn a simple, easy way to design and install a system that can be connected to an outside hose bib with a battery-operated timer, giving you an inexpensive automatic watering system. We will also discuss how to convert an existing sprinkler system to drip irrigation. Class cost: $15

Sun, Apr 14 at 10 AM
THE ART AND SCIENCE OF PLANTING DROUGHT-TOLERANT PLANTSwith Panayoti Kelaidis

Do you know what parts of the world your xeriscape plants come from? Whether they’re adapted to spring moisture, summer monsoons, or winter snow-cover? In what type of soil conditions they thrive? How to group plants with similar needs so they will all succeed? Don’t miss this rare opportunity for an enlightening explanation of the sets of growing conditions in which our Colorado-adapted garden plants evolved, including prairie, steppe, desert, foothill and montane, with an emphasis on steppes. Panayoti Kelaidis is Senior Curator and Director of Outreach at Denver Botanic Gardens, one of the world’s foremost botanical experts, an internationally acclaimed, inexhaustible and enthusiastic font of knowledge, passionate plant-explorer and gardener, a founder of the Plant Select program, and lead author of DBG’s groundbreaking book ‘Steppes’. Class cost: $15

Sun, Apr 14 at 1 PM
SPRING PRUNING with Mikl Brawner

There are shrubs that should not be pruned in the spring and there are shrubs, roses and vines that are best pruned in spring. Learn which to prune when, and how to prune for strength, beauty, and production of fruit and flowers. (This is not a repeat of the Fall Pruning Class.) Class cost: $15

Sat, Apr 20 at 1 PM
FEARLESS ROSE PRUNING with Eve Brawner

Eve will demonstrate and discuss why and how to prune roses in a fearless and confident manner. She will also discuss feeding, watering, etc. to maximize your success with growing roses. Wear long pants, long sleeves, gloves, and a hat and be prepared to be outside. Class cost: $15

Sun Apr 28 at 10 AM
DRYER PLANTS FOR A NEW LANDSCAPE ERA with Kelly Grummons

Many beautiful cacti, century plants (Agave spp.), yuccas, and their relatives thrive in our harsh climate. These plants look as good in the winter garden as they do in the summer. Kelly is well known for his work with these hardy plants and is expert at using them in the garden. We’ll discuss companion plants, soil preparation and garden construction. Kelly Grummons is a Horticulturist and Owner of Prairie Storm Nursery (coldhardycactus.com and dogtuffgrass.com). Class cost: $20

Sun Apr 28 at 1 PM
GROWING GRAPES ON THE FRONT RANGE with John Martin

Thanks to recent development in grape varieties, you, too can successfully grow table grapes and wine grapes on the Colorado Front Range. This workshop will present an overview of varieties suitable for this region, considerations for site location, trellising options, pest protection measures, and a brush across two basic pruning techniques. Whether you are interested in fruit or wine, let’s explore how the taste of your grapes and wineswill define this locality. John and his partner, Kayann Short, tend nine different varieties of grapes and make wine at their CSA farm, Stonebridge, in Longmont. Class cost: $15

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Please follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for the most up-to-date information and photos! We’re looking forward to seeing you this week! In gratitude,
Eve, Mikl
and the super hard-working Staff at Harlequin’s Gardens

HARLEQUIN’S GARDENS 2021 SPRING NEWSLETTER

Welcome to Spring, to Harlequin’s Gardens and to another year of the challenges and joys of being alive on Earth, along with the opportunities, work, and healing rewards of gardening. It is both curious and common sense that as we nurture, we ourselves are nurtured.

One of the most powerful and telling lessons of 2020 has been how intimately we are all connected with each other. Now we are all aware that we share air and biology with the whole world. Our human bodies are, in reality, half human cells and half microbial cells. And these microbial partners do contribute to our digestion, immune system and even cognition. And the balance of organisms depends on who we are in contact with and what we are eating. [Read More]

WELCOME TO HARLEQUIN’S GARDENS 2019 SPRING NEWSLETTER!

Dear Friends and Fellow Gardeners,

Welcome to Spring, to Harlequin’s Gardens and to another chance to get your hands into the living earth and add healthy biology to your micobiome, and breathe fresh air and hear the birds and partner with Nature in gardening.

With some notable exceptions, we humans have seen ourselves as separate and superior to the animals, plants and insects. We have seen ourrole as users, not partners. And now with our atmosphere polluted with greenhouse gases and our soils, ground water, streams and oceans contaminated with toxins and plastics, we humans are going “whoops!” Of course there are enormous economic interests and habitual patterns that are resisting the changes that are necessary.

Rationally, it appears that we are stuck in the Dark Ages, but intuitively, it feels like there is a Renaissance emerging. This Renaissance is dependent on a greater humility and a broader awareness. It is being driven by climate disruption, the food revolution, the soil revolution and a view merging new physics with ecology and social justice.

Realizations are arising that we really are all connected. American power plants are affecting islands in the South Pacific. Poisoning insect pests is killing billions of insect and microbial allies, which leads to greater pest problems. And basing our economy on oil and arms sales is backfiring with climate crises and displaced people needing new places to live.

Read More

Veggie Starts
Receive Newsletters by Email
Some Good News!
Events, Sales and Hours
Classes
Membership
Staff
Soil Life Products
Home-grown Fruit
Roses
Perennials
Trees & Seeds
Thank you!

VEGGIE STARTS

As usual we will have a great selection of organic veggie starts. Every winter Eve pores over the most interesting and reliable seed catalogs, searching for new and special varieties that resist disease and pests, are very productive, taste fabulous, and that we think will likely be successful and rewarding here on the high plains and in the mountains. We think you’ll find the very best choices at Harlequin’s Gardens.

Please give us your feedback on what you grow from us. We want to know what works and what doesn’t.Please go to our website under Plants/Edibles for a complete listing and descriptions of our veggies.

A FEW of our NEW TOMATOES:

Offering 80+ varieties in 2019

THORBURN’S TERRA COTTA Tomato – NEW! Very Limited Supply. ~75 days, Heirloom, Indeterminate
Our friend Thomas brought this very rare and completely unique tomato to our 2018 Taste of Tomato public tasting (where this remarkable new-old variety took second place in the Slicers category) and we’d never seen anything like it! Incredible color, flavor and history! Introduced in 1893, this sensational tomato has glossy/waxy terracotta brown skin, orange-pink flesh, and green seed mass. When cooked, it will yield a beautiful pumpkin-orange sauce with a floral aroma. (Pictured left.)

BRAD’S ATOMIC GRAPE Tomato – NEW!Very Limited Supply~75 days, OP, Indeterminate
Highly productive, open, vining plants with wispy foliage. Large, pointy grape tomatoes are borne in large clusters. Every fruit appears hand-painted! Lavender and purple stripes, orange turning to technicolor olive-green, red, and brown/blue stripes when fully ripe. Flavor? They came in second place after Sungold in the Cherry tomato category at our 2018 Taste of Tomato! Fruits are crack-resistant and exceptionally sweet.

TOMMY TOE cherry tomato – NEW!~70 days, Heirloom OP, Indeterminate
Tommy Toe is a great old heirloom from the Ozark Mountains that produces huge numbers of large, 1.5 oz red cherries with old fashioned flavor reminiscent of heirloom ‘beefsteak’ tomatoes.

Read More about ALL of our Veggies

RECEIVE NEWSLETTERS BY EMAIL

Please subscribe to receive our newsletters by email. You can get both hardcopy and emails. Receive our weekly blogs with timely garden advice and reminders, as well as news of stock arrivals, upcoming classes, special events and sales, etc. Our blog is a way we can give you detailed and up-to-date information at the time when it is relevant. We’re very happy to give you a hard copy newsletter when you visit the nursery or continue to mail it to you if you prefer.

Go to our subscription page and please remember to add us to your Contact List so your email server doesn’t throw us in the trash.

FACEBOOK :We wish you could LOVE us on Facebook, but since that’s not possible, we hope you will LIKE us…

“The miracle is not to walk on water, but to walk on earth” Thich Nhat Hanh

“One of the least discussed but, I suspect, most effective agents in the race to save ourselves from extinction is reconnecting to nature. When I hug a tree, I get a tiny, blessed glimpse of the truth, which is that I’m a very small part of a gigantic ecosystem”

Maeve Higgins

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HEAR YE, HEAR YE: Some Good News!

Here is an invitation to a FREE event that celebrates various awakenings in local food, farmer support, turning carbon into fertility, saving the insects and the planet, and more – are happening locally. With brief talks by local activators, music, poetry, conviviality and conversation.

Please Join Us:

Saturday, April 13, from 3 – 6 PM

at The Boulder Circus Center
(4747 N 26th Street, next door to Harlequin’s Gardens)

— FREE! —

A collaboration of SOIL (Slow Opportunities for Investing Locally) and Harlequin’s Gardens. For more details go to SOIL.

“We can drift along with general opinion and tradition, or we can throw ourselves upon the guidance of the soul and steer courageously toward truth.“

Helen Keller

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EVENTS, SALES & HOURS

On March 1 we opened for the Season and through the month are open Thursday through Sunday, 9-5.
Beginning April 1 we will be open everyday 9-5; Thursdays 9-6.
April 29 thru May 5: Harlequin’s Gardens May Day Plant Sale.
April 28 thru May 5: Harlequin’s Gardens Annual May Day Celebration and Cinco de Mayo.
On Saturday, May 4 at 10 AM don’t miss the Maroon Bells Morris Dancers who will bring us fertility and merriment. Then at 11:30 enjoy the duo Martian Acres playing classic pop and originals, and then at 1:30 move to Bistro Marimba with the music of Zimbabwe.
On Sunday, May 5, Cinco de Mayo, refreshments will be served, and from 11:00 jig and reel with the excellent musicians of the Boulder Irish Session. Then at 1pm local harpist Margo Krimmel will treat us to the tunes of O’Carolan and other fine melodies.
August 19 to 25: Members Fall Plant Sale
August 26: Harlequin’s Annual Fall Plant Sale begins for everyone. This sale continues every week in September and October.
September 7: Taste of Tomato: a tomato tasting festival; Harlequin’s Gardens with Growing Gardens, 10 AM-1 PM at Growing Gardens. Bring your favorites; call/see our website for details.
October: open every day 9-5, and our Sale continues. Closed for the Season on October 31.
November 29: Harlequin’s 2019 Holiday Market begins on GreenFriday with Local Artisan Goods and Goodies and will continue every Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday through December 22nd.

“In nature’s economy, the currency is not money; it is life.”

Vandanna Shiva

The World Bank says it will no longer finance oil and gas projects after 2019.

The Sierra Club

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HARLEQUIN’S GARDENS 2019 CLASSES

In our classes you will learn more than information. Our teachers are people who have spent years honing their skills and their experience in Colorado will help guide you to success. We are charging $15 unless otherwise stated to support our speakers and Harlequin’s educational direction. (Cash and check are much appreciated!) Pre-register at 303-939-9403 for these classes both in case they fill up or too few people register and we have to cancel the class. Pre-payment assures your place in the class. Classes are also listed here.

MARCH

Sun, Mar 31 at 10 AM BUILDING TOPSOIL and FERTILITY with Mikl Brawner
Mikl will discuss how to support soil life, enrich poor soils, and improve plant health and nutrition from the bottom up: composts, fertilizers, mulching, worms, deficiencies, and tilth. (Rescheduled from March 24.) Class cost: $15

APRIL

Sat, Apr 6 at 10 AM GETTING STARTED IN VEGETABLE GARDENING with Mimi Yanus
If you are new to Colorado, new to vegetable gardening, or have been unhappy with the results of your earlier attempts, this class is for you. Learn from Mimi what you need to know to make your new organic vegetable garden successful and bountiful, even in Colorado conditions! Class cost: $15

Sat, Apr 6 at 1 PM SUCCESSION PLANTING: OPTIMIZING PLANTING TIMES TO INCREASE YIELDSwith Tracey Parrish
Learn the techniques and timing to maximize your garden space and keep your veggie garden in continual production throughout the seasons. This class provides participants with an extensive planting schedule table, outlining when and where to start your seeds, the time to transplant out and when to expect harvest. Tracey is an expert in culinary gardening. Class cost: $15

Sun, Apr 7 at 1 PM ORGANIC LAWN CARE with Mikl Brawner
You can have successful lawn without using toxic chemicals! Learn how to support healthy soil and soil life using compost, organic fertilizers, aeration, proper watering, and mowing, and how to avoid and deal with weeds. Class cost: $15

Sat, Apr 13 at 10 AM EDIBLE LANDSCAPING with Alison Peck
Learn how to grow fruits, nuts, vegetables, vines and herbs in your yard, beautifully. Learn which plants are the most successful and how to integrate them into your landscape. Alison has been designing edible landscapes for 25 years; she owns Matrix Gardens landscaping. Class cost: $15

Read More

MEMBERSHIP in HARLEQUIN’S GARDENS

Memberships help Harlequin’s to do those extras that are so valuable to the community but that are not profitable, like: 5 demonstration gardens of Natives, low-water groundcovers, the New Western Garden etc; plus plastic pot recycling; plant and pest identification for customers; hand-outs on many subjects like pollinator plants, how to plant, what blooms in July etc; local seed collecting and propagation, and more.

Please become a member to support what we do, and receive special benefits too. Here is our expanded current offer: Members will give us $20 for a one year membership and in direct return will receive these benefits:

1) Half-price Harlequin’s Class of your choice. (Restricted to regular $15 and $20 classes.)
2) 25% discount on books all year
3) During the May Day Week get $10 off a $50 or more purchase of plants (except roses & fruit trees)
4) During May Day Week, take 10% off roses (except quarts), then
5) in August begin the fall sale a week early with 20% off most everything.

You can become a member anytime you are at the nursery, or mail a check for $20 to
Harlequin’s Gardens
4795 N.26th St.
Boulder, CO. 80301

We will put you in our Membership file. A membership is valid until the end of the calendar year. THANK YOU TO ALL OUR MEMBERS!!!

“No one has ever become poor by giving.”

Anne Frank

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OUR STAFF

We are very proud of our staff, so to help you to get to know us and our specialties, here are our portraits.

REBECCA WATERHOUSE is our excellent office manager who grew up on her family’s hobby farm in Oregon. She has become quite knowledgeable about plants and is indispensable around the nursery. Rebecca is integral to the success of our operations!

KRISTINA WILLIAMS has been a beekeeper for over 21 years and is our local expert on native bees. She is the current President of the Boulder County Beekeepers Assoc., is a trained entomologist and will be available to help people with beekeeping questions and beekeeping equipment.

ELAINE WALKER has a degree in landscape architecture with an emphasis in ecological practices. She has her own landscape design practice, and her recent work includes designing outdoor living spaces, retaining & boulder walls, native and drought tolerant plantings. Elaine develops and publishes our weekly blogs and maintains our customer database.

Read More

SOIL LIFE PRODUCTS

Very Special Products To Benefit Your Soil Life and Your Plant Life

Big Foot Mycorrhizae – NEW! – combines 4 species of mycorrhizae with biochar, worm castings, seaweed and rock minerals to provide a strong population of plant allies to bring water and nutrients.
Endo Mycorrhizae – water soluble symbiotic fungus, innoculate roots to bring water and nutrients.
Biodynamic Compost Starter – speeds decomposition, adds nitrogen bacteria, helps make humus, improves mineral availability; for compost piles, manure, leaves; 55 microorganisms.
Biodynamic Field and Garden Spray – speeds the breakdown of cover crops or sheet mulch; planting can be 2-3 weeks after spraying & turning under, 55 microorganisms.

COMPOSTS:

Organic Mushroom Compost – from a local organic mushroom farm. Premium food for soil life and wonderful in vegetable gardens, helps to loosen heavy soils and improve aeration and porosity.

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HOME-GROWN FRUIT

One of our specialties is fruiting plants that are adapted to Colorado conditions. All the apples we carry are resistant to fireblight and good-tasting. And the cherries we sell are all proven successful in Colorado. Our grapes are the most hardy of any you will find, delicious fresh, in juice and a few are good for wine. And we have productive & good tasting currants, gooseberries, blackberries, strawberries, raspberries including:

Crandall Clove Currant and Gwen’s Buffalo Currant – both are 5’x4’ with very fragrant yellow flowers in spring and annual bearing of sweet-tart berries full of healthy phytonutrients and reddish fall color; these are native currants selected for better fruit. (photo, right)
Triple Crown Thornless Blackberry – late blooming so avoids late frosts, medium to large very sweet berries, semi-trailing, best pruned to 8’.

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ROSES

We are known far and wide for our selection of sustainable roses and for our expertise in helping people choose the best varieties for their gardens and landscapes. We sell roses on their own roots not grafted, which makes them more cold hardy, longer lived, with more flowers.

This year we will have more Austin English roses. And

we have many other great roses including Bill Reid, Marie Pavie, The Gift, John Cabot, Seafoam, Stanwell Perpetual, The Fawn, Abraham Darby, Applejack,Darlow’s Enigma, Henry Kelsey, John Davis, Golden Wings, Victorian Memory, Fairmont Proserpine, Joann’s Pink Perpetual, Golden Celebration, Champlain, Morden Snowbeauty, Henry Kelsey, Robusta, etc.

See our 2019 Rose List on our website.

SHRUBS: We have a large selection of natives and non-natives AND Vines!

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PERENNIALS

Harlequin’s huge choice of pollinator-supporting perennials-including:

Sulfur Flower-Kannah Creek – mahogany fall color (Pictured right)
Eriogonum allennii – 3’ wide, very xeric, yellow flowers, a winner
E. jamesii – silver foliage, light yellow flowers, local native
Eriogonum umbellatum – yellow blooms cover xeric native mat, feeds butterflies, bees
Many Lavenders – Royal Velvet, Buena Vista, Grosso, Twickle Purple, Munstead, Hidcote
Asclepias incarnata – 1’-3’ Full Sun, Attracts butterflies, native & honeybees, butterflies
Asclepias tuberosa – Butterfly Weed, orange flowers, 1’-2’ high, Monarch food and nectar

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TREES

The trees we sell are smaller than ball & burlap trees that are dug in the field, leaving at least 75% of their roots in the ground. Ours are grown in a container so they have a complete root system and begin growing immediately and are not stressed. Here is a sample of some of ours.

Russian Hawthorn – very tough and xeric, grows 15’ high and wide, white flowers and red berries, loves CO. (photo, left)
Rocky Mt. Maple – a native of our foothills, likes to grow in the protection of other trees, red fall color, 10’-15’.
Gambel Oak and Wavyleaf Oak – both natives that grow 10’-15’, with little water and poor soil, support birds.

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THANK YOU!

Thank you, local gardeners, for helping to cultivate a healthy 21st Century World!

Sincerely,

Mikl Brawner & Eve Reshetnik-Brawner
And the Great Staff at Harlequin’s Gardens

“There is no passion to be found in playing small—in settling for a life that is less than the one we are capable of living. As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”

Nelson Mandela

We Have Soil Products for You!

It’s time to prepare your soil!

Thank you to all those who helped us with a successful opening day, last Friday! And a big thanks to those who braved the elements later in the weekend to stop by! Throughout the month of March we’ll be open four days a week from 9 AM to 5 PM on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

March is a great time to focus on soil enrichment and we’re stocked with great products that will help you prepare for the season ahead. You’ll recognize many products which we’ve stocked for years and we’re also trying out some new and exciting items. As always, we welcome your feedback on them all!

Classes

This weekend we’re featuring three great classes. We start on Saturday, March 9 at 10 AM, with two of our favorite Permaculturists, Tara Rae Kent and Daniela Escudero sharing some important principles to create more resilient and regenerative systems in our own gardens in their “Intro to Permaculture” class. Free Admission!

Stick around on March 9 because at 1:00 we have a one-time-only presentation on “Cover Crops: Why, How and Which” with Clark Harshbarger. Clark who is employed with the USDA-NRCS as a soil scientist and recently as director of Regenerative Farming at MAD Agriculture, will soon be moving to eastern US. For this special presentation we are renting a larger space next door at the Boulder Circus Center. This special class is only $20. (See the list of cover crop seeds that we’re offering, below.)

Finally on Sunday, at 1:00 pm, Mikl with share how to address “Fireblight” issues, which were a hardship for many gardeners last year. See below for more details and call 303-939-9403 to reserve your seat!