This morning’s broadcast of This Week In Water on community radio station KGNU announced that results of a 5-year study conducted by the U. of Washington found that using regenerative farming practices such as not tilling the soil, growing cover crops, and having plant diversity affect the nutritional content of vegetables.
Blog
Very Special Products to benefit Your Soil Life and Your Plant Life
It all starts with the Soil, and we have some very special products to benefit your Soil Life and Your Plant Life!
All of these are sold pre-packaged, and we bag many of them ourselves in refundable, reusable plastic bags. Our Compost Tea is sold in refundable, reusable 1-gallon jugs, or you can bring your own.[Read More]
The Vegetable Report
What a glorious spring! Having been blessed with generous snow and rain, the land is bursting with energy, greener than green, and flowering in kaleidoscopic exuberance! Migratory birds have been arriving or passing though our region this month, offering sightings of avian treasures like Lazuli Buntings and Western Tanagers, not to mention the hummingbirds. We do live in a wondrous world!
THE VEGETABLE REPORT
May Day 2024 Celebration!
Our Annual May Day Festivities and Spring Sale begin May 4th!
At Harlequin’s Gardens, we love to celebrate May Day. It is an ancient festival welcoming Spring and celebrating the beauty, fertility, and abundance of the earth. [Read More]
Opening March 3rd, 2022!
Like miniature iris emerging from the warming soil, March launches Harlequin’s Gardens early spring season, and our doors will re-open on Thursday, March 3rd. Our hours for the month of March are Thursday through Sunday, 9 AM to 5 PM. Then beginning Tuesday, April 1st, our hours expand to six days a week, Tuesday through Sunday.
Beginning in March we will offer onion, potato, and asparagus starts. We will be stocked with seeds, seed starting kits, and potting soil. Our soil products (composts, mulches, fertilizers, etc.) will be available. And, as temperatures warm, we will stock our over-wintered perennials, shrubs, and trees, and best of all, our spring organic vegetable starts! In the meantime, you can always purchase a Gift Certificate or join our Membership from our website any time of day.
Stay tuned for our 2022 class listings, and as your spring-flowering bulbs emerge, refer to our Bulbs Page for timing and description details.
We’re getting excited for the 2022 gardening season and hope you are too!
Season of Gratitude
With the Thanksgiving holiday approaching, we’d like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude for another great year, our 30th!, at Harlequin’s Gardens.
We are grateful for all of you who support us by buying our plants, products, and memberships, and grateful that our customer base continues to increase as more and more people realize the pleasures, benefits and wisdom of growing plants without chemical warfare and for more than our own benefit. We are learning that a livable world can only be achieved or maintained through understanding, respecting and working with the intricate interdependency of all beings. [Read More]
Supporting our Colorado Trees
So they can support us!
Last Friday Denver Botanic Gardens hosted a day-long conference on Tree Diversity. This timely subject arises because of the importance of trees to the livability of our cities and suburbs and the degree to which the effects of Climate Change have already begun to affect our urban forest. Trees help cool everything from our gardens and patios and parking lots to our cities and our planet. With stresses like sudden, dramatic temperature changes, drought, and severe windstorms, plus the devastation wrought by the Emerald Ash Borer to our millions of Ash trees, it’s time to re-evaluate the limited palette of trees we’ve been planting for many decades, and investigate new, more resilient possibilities. [Read More]
Suggestions for Remediating Singed and Burned Gardens
(Durango Before and After Fire. Photo Credit: Colorado State Forest Service.)
After the Fire
We are so grateful that nearly all the folks in the Marshall Fire burn area were able to evacuate quickly and safely. The horror of all the lost homes and their contents, the pets trapped, and the gardens obliterated is outweighed by the survival of all but two residents.
2023 Fall Sale & Newsletter!
Dear Friends and Fellow Gardeners,
Welcome to Autumn and to Harlequin’s Gardens 2023 Fall Plant Sale!
Gardeners can’t be faint-hearted. No matter how much we know, we have to be prepared for the unpredictable. Last winter’s three waves of below zero weather caused some woody plants to die back that have been hardy for decades. Then we were blessed with rain. Denver’s 6” of rain in June broke a record. At the same time, we are having the “hailiest” year in Colorado history. And while other regions have suffered extreme heat, our area has had a record number of days under 90 degrees. Many of our gardens have never looked better.[Read More]
Celebrating 30 Sustainable Years!
Harlequin’s Gardens in 2000 as painted by Eve Reshetnik Brawner
This year, 2022, Harlequin’s Gardens is celebrating 30 years in business! Thanks to you and the many folks who have bought our plants and products and taken our classes, and thanks to a great staff, we have succeeded in becoming a valuable resource for Boulder County and beyond.
We’ve been focusing on growing and providing plants that are well-adapted to Colorado conditions and will thrive without applications of chemicals or excessive amounts of water and fertilizers. [Read More]
Heartfelt Sorrow
Our hearts go out to the many people who suffered devastating losses in the Marshall wildfire. It may be possible to rebuild homes, but their contents may be irreplaceable and the sudden disruption to lives will present great challenges. Communities will also need to be rebuilt, and we are hoping the larger community will continue to step up to offer long-term support to all those in need. It takes a village! [Read More]
Fungus Gnats
Fungus Gnat. Credit CSU Extension Service
Houseplants, especially ones that we keep outdoors in the warm season and bring back inside when frosts threaten, are likely to harbor Fungus Gnats. These tiny black flying insects (about the size of a fruit fly) can be very annoying but are mostly harmless. Adults lay 75 to 200 eggs that hatch in a week in the top 1” of soil, and when the larvae hatch, they survive mostly on soil fungi, but also feed on tender root hairs. This life cycle lasts about five weeks, although the adults only live about five days. One plant infested with fungus gnats will easily and rapidly spread the insects to nearby plants. [Read More]
Cutting Back Ornamental Grasses
Historically February is one of Colorado’s snowiest months, and finally we’re beginning to see evidence of that this year! Additionally, the forecast indicates more to come. It remains to be seen how some of our marginally hardy garden plants have suffered from the below zero temperatures.
Many of us may have the tops of ornamental grasses and various perennials peeking out of the blanket of the snow, which provides habitat for overwintering beneficial insects and it helps to keep the plant roots and crowns warmer. But very soon it will be time to cut back Cool-Season ornamental grasses before their active growth begins, which will allow light to penetrate the entire clump. See Eve’s instructions, below. [Read More]
Gardening with your Values in Mind
Snowdrops in February (Galanthus), courtesy Bob Nold
Your landscape is not just something to look at. It is an opportunity to support your values by:
- Supporting global, local, and personal health
- Helping to reduce the impacts of the Climate Crisis
- Nourishing your family with organic, nutrient-dense food
- Partnering with Nature and learning from your garden
- Restoring habitat for our critically important beneficial insects, pollinators, birds, wildlife, and native plants
- Expressing your artistic vision while increasing biodiversity
- Experiencing the joy of sharing your goodness with the goodness of the natural world.
Beautiful Autumn Colors
We are all enjoying and appreciating the exceptional fall colors this year. The yellows are especially rich, and the reds are especially vivid. What is going on when the green leaves turn colors and why are the colors so spectacular this year?
We know that the green color of the leaves comes from the pigment chlorophyll that makes it possible for plants to capture energy from sunlight and use it to make the sugars that feed the whole planet. When the long days of summer get shorter and shorter, highlighted by the fall equinox this year on September 22, the plants get less and less sunlight and less and less energy to make chlorophyll. When leaves contain less chlorophyll, other pigments become more dominant. [Read More]
Winter Solstice 2021
This year the Winter Solstice will fall on Tuesday, December 21st. This astronomical event is the time of the year when the Earth’s north pole is tilted farthest from the sun, so that night is the longest and daylight is the shortest (in the northern hemisphere). This day has long been celebrated because it signals the lengthening of the days until Summer Solstice on June 21. Even though there is a lot of winter left, there will be more day light. It is the promise of Spring to come. [Read More]
Holiday Market New Arrivals
We’ve restocked our Holiday Market shelves with many new and popular items including
Semi-precious stone earrings from Kate Head, Pebble Art Jewelry
Amber Lights Candles in a stunning array of creative designs
Indigo Blues natural hand-dyed napkins, shawls, and clothing
Eve Weaves handwoven scarves, so beautiful and soft
Eve’s Gluten-free Pecan Shortbread Cookies; a fresh batch has just arrived!
Aiden Chopra
Aidan Chopra makes delightfully light, colorful, practical pottery. His path from drawing to jewelry to architecture to software to clay is evident in his work. Mostly it’s about good craft and constant experimentation. Aidan lives in Boulder, teaches design at CU, and is happiest when he’s making beautiful, functional things.www.chickenkickpottery.com
Eric Binkley’s Succulent Gardens
Eric Binkley’s succulent gardens.Driven by his passionate love of outdoor spaces, Eric re-creates natural scenery in living miniature. He has a gift for using low-light tolerant, low-maintenance plants in second-hand ceramics in delightful combinations, making the serenity of the remote outdoors accessible indoors! Eric is a beloved team member at Harlequin’s Gardens.
Erin Huybrechts Davis Art (Green Meadow)
Erin Huybrechts Davis says she has been a painter for as long as she can remember. She grew up on the east coast, has her degree in painting and printmaking, and a masters degree in education. She now lives here in Longmont, CO, where she is a freelance illustrator and teaches art to young people.
We were struck by her flowing, stylized and poetic depictions of the natural world. She is inspired by patterns and imagery from Asia, where she has traveled, and this influence is evident in her work as well. We were struck by her flowing, stylized and poetic depictions of the natural world. We are delighted to offer Erin’s work again this year!
Eve’s Botanical Prints
In the process of de-cluttering, Eve unearthed her remaining botanical prints, long thought to be sold out. Before her work schedule became too demanding, Eve painted flowers for Botanical Interests seed packets, for private clients, and for the sheer pleasure of examining and revealing the wondrous details of the floral world. Eve’s botanical paintings have been exhibited in Denver, Chicago, and internationally. We’re happy to add these prints to our holiday market again!
Holiday Market Updates & Good News from the Old Guy
We are appreciative of the community support at our Holiday Market opening weekend! With the perfect autumnal weather, more people than ever were able to enjoy our local musicians, Sandra Wong & Jon Sousa’s world music, and Margot Krimmel’s traditional and original harp pieces.
This week we roll-out new artisan arrivals, with some photos below. [Read More]
Heather Doyle-Maier
Heather Doyle-Maier is a Denver artist who makes unique and small-edition handmade books. Trained in book arts and conceptual art, Heather recently shifted her studio focus to creating books that are delightful and celebratory, as well as books that are supportive and encouraging during life challenges and changes. In particular, her “Permissions” books strive to meet people where they are and give themselves permission to meet themselves there, too. Heather also teaches workshops on creative bookmaking and on supporting the creative process along the Colorado Front Range.
Julie Neri – Ceramic Earrings
One of our favorite ceramic artists, Julie has recently extended her texture and pattern themes to the realm of jewelry, bringing us her new lightweight ceramic earrings and necklaces!
Jeanne Visvader
Eve’s friend Jeanne Visvader joins our market this year with of few of her diverse artistic offerings – handmade leather-bound journals finished with unique vintage buttons, delightful little baskets woven from local Ponderosa pine needles, and jewelry ranging from festive and funky Halloween/Dia de los Muertos earrings to striking bracelets of fine Thai hill-tribe silver and semi-precious stones. Like Eve, Jeanne grew up in the art museums of New York City, and continues to draw inspiration from a vast palette of artistry and design elements that keep her creating.
Jeanne Visvader
Eve’s friend Jeanne Visvader joins our market this year with of few of her diverse artistic offerings – handmade leather-bound journals finished with unique vintage buttons, delightful little baskets woven from local Ponderosa pine needles, and jewelry ranging from festive and funky Halloween/Dia de los Muertos earrings to striking bracelets of fine Thai hill-tribe silver and semi-precious stones. Like Eve, Jeanne grew up in the art museums of New York City, and continues to draw inspiration from a vast palette of artistry and design elements that keep her creating.
Jen G Studios – Artist Jennifer Ghormley
Jen G Studios – Artist Jennifer Ghormley Jennifer is a Denver artist producing a diverse array of delightful designs on kitchen towels so lovely you’ll want to keep them out on display. Her images range from mountain-scapes to wildlife, trees, wildflowers, birds, and cats. Some are wood-block carvings and others are screen-prints, all hand-printed in small batches on soft, absorbent, unbleached 100% cotton flour sack material. These 24” x 36” towels are food-safe and machine washable.
Joleen Smith
Joleen Smith is a Boulder-based artist known for vibrant, nature-led visuals and community-centered work. The tea towels that Joleen designs are custom linoleum cut and hand printed on 100% cotton towels.
Joleen also creates garden flags that carry images of Sacred Datura flower, Fireweed and the Flatirons, Bees on Echinacea
and Swallowtail butterflies on Mock Orange among others. These are also carved into linoleum blocks and printed on reused fabric from Boulder’s ArtParts. Hang them in your garden and speak your wishes into the flags. When the wind blows, the fabric threads that eventually wear down and blow away, and the wind will release your wishes into the wild.
Joleen just added some of her other unique and creative designs: art on classic vinyl records! Come on in and check them out!
Julie Neri Pottery
Julie Neri creates all of her whimsical ceramic pieces in her garage studio in Longmont, Colorado. Her work is based in texture, inspired by nature and infused with a touch of whimsy. Growing up on the Connecticut shore gave Julie Neri an appreciation for sea life, trees, leaves, flowers and the patterns found within nature. You will see many of these patterns reflected in the texture of her clay creations. 
Julie began her relationship with clay through the need for a non-intellectual pursuit after obtaining her Masters in Public Administration. That was 30 years ago and clay has since become an essential part of her life. She started by throwing on the wheel and took many years of adult classes. She later started her studio in her house, began exploring hand building and found that hand building is what she craves. She is known for her leaf trees, houses, painter’s palettes, vases, small dishes and garden flowers.
You can find Julie’s work at art galleries and art markets in Northern Colorado, and in her online Etsy Shop. Julie’s Website is JulieNeriPottery.com.
Harlequin’s Gardens Gift Certificate
Any gardener will be thrilled to receive a Gift Certificate to Harlequin’s Gardens! Our Gift Certificates are available in any denomination. With a gift certificate, your recipients can select from our wide array of neonic-free plants, soil products, gardening and bee-keeping tools and supplies, and more!
Visit our website, or our store, to purchase your Gift Certificate.
Do your part to bring Mason Bees back!
Mason Bee populations plummeted throughout Boulder County due to harsh spring weather, so it’s especially important to coddle them this winter! Mason bees normally nest in holes in tree trunks, which offer stable temperature, moisture, and protection from predators. To provide extra assistance, bring your Mason and other native bee tubes/cocoons into a sheltered place with ambient (outdoor) temperatures, but with less fluctuation, like a garage or refrigerator. Cocooned bees are now adult and safe to handle in their cocoons. If you used liners or reeds, take them out of the guard tubes and shelters and store them in the fridge. Ideally, unwrap the liners/reeds and just overwinter the mason bee cocoons. Place them in a Humidi-bee chamber (in stock), and keep the lower pad moist. [Read More]
First Week of our Big Fall Sale – Start Saving Now!
Our 2022 Fall Members-Only Sale has finished, and now our Big Fall Sale has begun, with 20% off for everyone! Plants included in this week’s sale are:
- Grasses
- Groundcovers
- Natives
- Perennials
- Shrubs
- Trees
- Vines
Kathleen Lanzoni Art Cards and Prints
Our amazingly gifted friend Kathleen Lanzoni is an acclaimed watercolor painter and an award-winning signature member of the Colorado Watercolor Society, the Western Colorado Watercolor Society, the Rocky Mountain National Watermedia Society and the Western Federation of Watercolor Societies. She grew up in Montreal and California and has lived in Colorado for over 28 years. Residing in Boulder, Kathleen divides her time painting between the studio, Plein Air (outdoors on location) and on-site murals.
The list of her well-deserved awards is a mile long. We are featuring prints and notecards of her luminous paintings.
Linda Toomre Fiber Arts
Linda loves color! And she loves the creative process of making things from yarn or cloth. She started out in fiber arts as a weaver, but expanded into other forms as well, and is now also an accomplished quilter. She has brought her popular heat-insulated quilted cotton potholders, along with handwoven placemats and scarves to our Holiday Market.
Linda has been an active member and past president of the Handweaver’s Guild of Boulder for many years, with galleries throughout Colorado showing her work.
Sondra Finch Cards & Bookmarks
Sondra’s beautiful pressed-flower botanical cards and ornaments are a true delight and will be treasured for years!
Matt Bubernak
New this year! Matt Bubernak’s botanical and adventure-inspired ceramic mugs will warm your hands and feed your soul. Their balance and weight feel just right in your hand, and the earthy colors fit any décor.
Theresa Haberkorn Woodcut Printed Products
Theresa Haberkorn, woodcut printmaker, has made Boulder her home for more than two decades. Her masterful woodcut prints are found in exhibits and collections nation-wide, and she teaches her artform as well. Theresa brings her art to hand-crafted household items like house-sculpture vases and candleholders, dishtowels, a charming wall calendar, and an assortment of cards. 
To find out more about the process of woodcut printing, visit Theresa Haberkorn Artist | Printmaker | Designer.
Seeds from MASA
Organic, non-hybrid, heirloom seeds grown and maintained in the stunning bio-region of the Colorado Front Range.
MASA Seed Foundation was established to meet a clear and growing need: to reinvigorate regional organic seed breeding, conserve plant biodiversity, and ensure that high-quality, open-pollinated seed remains in the public domain for farmers and communities of the Front Range.
Seeds from Botanical Interests
Botanical Interests goes to great lengths to provide all the information you need, and more (like an illustration of what the seedling looks like when it emerges), on both the outside and the inside of the packet, plus stunning, botanically accurate illustrations by highly skilled local artists adorning the front of each packet! We have carefully selected varieties from their catalog that will thrive in Colorado’s short season, early heat, cool nights, etc.
Enjoy them in your own garden and share them with a friend.
Rejuvenated Remnants
Joan Hemm began working with the fabrics found in thrift-store draperies, duvet covers, tablecloths, and sheets in high school where there was no budget for costumes for the drama department’s productions. We first met Joan at a Boulder County Farmer’s Market, where she was dressed in a wonderful period costume portraying Susan B. Anthony in honor of Women’s Suffrage, and armed with voter registration forms. She had, of course, made her costume from remnants.
Fashioned from top quality ‘designer’ home decor fabric remnants (small new, unused leftovers), Joan reimagines the fabrics into one-of-a kind crossbody bags for us. She designed her pattern based on features she personally wanted: a “gusset” to create a roomier interior, a pocket on the back for a cell phone, inside pockets, cotton linings, and an adjustable strap. Just what we all wanted!
Sondra Finch Knitwear
Hat adornments by Sondra
Sondra joined us late in our 2015 holiday market and her fun, original hand-knitted hats and headbands immediately set
off a buying frenzy! Eve gets compliments wherever she goes when she wears the fabulous feathery headband Sondra made, even from strangers on the street!
We’ve stocked up on her pieces this year, including her soft, snuggly hats and headbands, as well as her beautiful pressed-flower botanical cards.
Good News from the Old Guy
I turned 75 this year so I get to give some perspective on the state of the world. Here is some of the good news that is not being reported these days. I should begin by acknowledging that, oh, yes, there are lots of things that are getting worse, but many things are getting better, too.
In 1976 when I was starting to manage a little apple orchard organically, the general consensus and what I was told, was that “there are two crops you cannot grow organically: apples and cotton”. Lesson: don’t believe everything the experts tell you about what we can’t do. [Read More]
SallyeAnder Skin-Care Products
SallyeAnder is a 2nd generation family owned and operated natural skincare company making high quality handmade soap & creams since 1982. Their products are made with natural ingredients and only pure essential oils. Eve discovered their products about 7 years ago, when she started using their herbal Foot Therapy and Hand Therapy creams on her cracked, dry skin and found them to be more effective and therapeutic than any others she had tried (and there had been many). Our customers have reported their excellent results, too! They are also pleasant to use, and they don’t leave you with a plastic tube to send to the landfill. Equally impressive are their No-Bite-Me Bug repellent & after-bite cream and soap, which are highly effective, smell good, and are safe even for babies. Gardener’s Hand Soap is perfect for hard-working hands, moisturizing and healing, and it is also a great stain-remover for hands and clothing. We also chose several of their other fine soaps.
The SallyeAnder company is committed to making ethical, effective, and sensitive-skin friendly products that really work. All are hand-made, 100% hypoallergenic, and vegan.
Amy Mundinger Designs | Pine Tree Studios
Amy Mundinger of Pine Tree Studios is truly a gifted craftswoman, with a keen eye for color and design, and well-honed skills in fiber arts from crochet to embroidery, felting to block-printing, and free-motion quilting with hand-dyed 100% cotton fabrics. Amy is an active and prominent member of the Handweavers Guild of Boulder. This year, she’s offering innovative handmade cards.
Gardening Tools
Plants are, of course, the main thing every gardener wants in their garden. But to garden, one also needs some tools, and the quality of those tools makes a BIG difference in the comfort, ease, and speed of getting those garden chores done. Durability, reliability, precision, and ergonomic design don’t generally come cheap. A quality handsaw or pole-saw, a pair of pruning shears, loppers or hedge-trimmers will, with a little maintenance, last a lifetime.
We love our hori-hori knives, and we have our favorite, nearly indestructible trowels for you this year.
Did someone you love just plant a home orchard? A berry patch? A new landscape? They’re going to need some good tools, and we’ve got them!
Japanese Knife-Weeder (Hori Hori)
Reviewed by former HG staffer Deb:
“This is the best all-around tool ever! Whenever I go out into the garden with no particular task in mind (other than peace of mind putzing) I grab this tool. It can dig, saw into fat roots, slice into bindweed roots with the pointed tip, it’s wonderful. I have a sheath for it which slides nicely onto a regular belt or garden-tool belt. I love using it for planting bulbs as I can make a deep, small hole. If I could only have one tool forever, I would choose this one.”
2022 Holiday Gift Market Opens Saturday!
From your previous visits in the last ten years, many of you know that our Holiday Market is the most rewarding, enjoyable place to shop for your holiday gifts, relaxed and far from the madding crowd! But these are strange and challenging times, and the pandemic has altered just about every facet of our lives. So, for a while there, we wondered how we could present a holiday gift market under the current circumstances. We realized that the only way we could keep our customers (and staff) safe and happy while shopping our market was to move it up to October!
[Read More]
The Victory Garden of Tomorrow – Garden Signs
Joe Wirtheim, a gifted young artist and designer in Portland, OR, is inspired to: “ignite America’s progressive streak by making work that builds confidence and excitement in a healthy, connected future. Since 2008 I have been making posters and other neat stuff to inspire better gardens, better food and better cities. I love what I do: think, draw, make and do. It’s my passion to communicate graphically and put creative ideas into action that drives me. I use illustration, type, color and layout to excite the viewer’s imagination. I turn these graphic ideas into quality goods, which, I’m proud to say, are made here in the USA.”
Joe’s beautiful designs, in the form of front yard signs and patches will help spread positive messages about actions we can all take to collaborate with nature so that we can improve our future!
A Taste of some GREAT GIFT BOOKS COMING SOON!
Time to store this year’s bounty! The Big Book of Preserving the Harvest is a dependable classic source of instructions and recipes for drying, pickling, canning, and freezing the fruits of your labors. And after the garden has been put to bed for the winter, there will be time for reading! The most useful, practical, and enlightening books on gardening, nature and natural healing are on our shelves now, with more of the following titles arriving any day now! Don’t forget that one of the benefits of being a Harlequin’s Gardens Member is a 25% discount on all books, all season long! [Read More]
The SEED Situation
“The less biodiverse any system is, the greater the potential for its collapse.” Janisse Ray, from The Seed Underground: A Growing Revolution to Save Food.
We’ve been reading headlines stating that 93% of seed varieties available in the early 20th century had disappeared from commerce by 1980. The biggest factor in this drastic decline in diversity is consolidation of the industry. The big multi-national corporations have systematically bought up smaller companies and in so doing have ended production of vast numbers of time-tested open-pollinated and older hybrid varieties and prioritized the production of new patented proprietary hybrids. [Read More]