Sunny days in March offer the perfect opportunities to prepare your soil for planting. What do our soils need that they don’t already have? – oxygen-air and biology-carbon. Increasing the air and carbon in our soils support soil life which in turn supports plant life. Our tight clay soils that tend to exclude oxygen and are deficient in organic matter can use some help.
If you are starting a new planting bed or reviving a neglected one, adding compost is key to your plants’ success.
This Thursday, at 3:01AM RMT, is the Spring Equinox. When you wake up Friday, Spring will be here. For gardeners, this moment when night and day, light and darkness, are exactly in balance marks the beginning of our season of hope, and lengthening days. It’s when we spend our time looking closely for the signs of new growth, and beauty. We find it in the hellebores flowering among last season’s leaves (pictured above), the crocus and early species iris, the earliest daffodils, and fragrant hyacinths.[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)
Fragrant Chinese Witch Hazel, blooming now at DBG, courtesy Mike Kintgen
It’s February already! It’s when we celebrate Black History month, and Saint Valentine’s Day. We would like to concentrate on the LOVE angle today. No doubt about it, there’s plenty to be upset about, and we encourage you to take every opportunity you can to protest and to work to right the wrongs you see. Our actions can stem from love and have the healing power of love. We can find joy in every act of love we offer or receive. We all need that to keep us connected to one another and to our Mother Earth.
Planting seeds is an act of love, and of forward vision. Our 2025 Botanical Interests seeds are in stock, along with seeding pots, trays and soils. And our MASA, Seed Saver’s Exchange and BBB seed orders are on their way. And for Valentine’s Day, we also have in stock a great array of traditional and novel gift items,
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]
With the disruption and confusion over our national health care system this month, we’re more committed than ever to sharing information on how to create your own home ‘farm-acy’. Watch our class schedule for expanded home herb garden and herbal healing classes during the growing season.
Today we’re sharing local herbalist and educator Mitten Lowe’s list of what she keeps in her home remedy cabinet.
Sometimes we overdo heavier food and drink during the holidays, and our stomach suffers. Mitten Lowe (our friend and frequent teacher at Harlequin’s Gardens) suggests this easy-to-make Hawthorn and Tulsi vinegar and honey mixture (an oxymel).
We had an abundant harvest of Hawthorn berries at the nursery this fall. If you have room consider adding a Hawthorn tree to your garden this spring. [Read More]
Are you ready to add new plants to your indoor garden this season? Our selection is excellent, with plants to suit a variety of light conditions. Did you know that winter is the dormant season for most of the non-blooming tropical plants that we grow as houseplants? We’ve assembled some tips to help them thrive in our dry indoor conditions.
Water and Moisture Essentials:[Read More]
Pruning is the art and science of removing or shortening branches of a tree or shrub. If done correctly, it can prevent breakage, increase beauty and increase flowering and fruiting. To learn how to make a healthy cut, study the Shigo method of pruning, or come to one of Mikl’s pruning classes.
What follows is some general guidance:
If you’re baking a delicious pumpkin pie, or making a warming squash soup, don’t throw away the seeds.
Our friends at Seed Savers have put together everything you’ll need to know on growing, and saving squash and pumpkin seeds for next year’s garden! You’ll want to identify the species first.
by Dan Brawner
Mikl’s brother, Dan, has been writing a weekly, mostly humorous, column for a small-town Iowa newspaper for 33 years. Here’s his latest.
Just because it says so doesn’t mean you have to do it. Fall, I mean. We probably wouldn’t even think about seasonal expectation except now we’re in one of the imperative seasons whose name sounds like a command; the other one being spring.
Spring is a joyful season – and I don’t mean merely happy. To call spring “happy” is to miss the entire point of the thing. Like calling a Ferrari “good transportation”. Or a hot-air balloon ride over the Grand Canyon “sightseeing”. Spring is spring because following a long, cold winter after we’ve been Houdinied up in wool coats and throat-choking serpentine scarves with the frigid air hurting our faces and the ice-covered roads telling us we’d better stay home if we know what’s good for us, we can get wound pretty tight by around the first of March. When that first actually warm day comes to us with the sun like butterscotch, we are ready to spring, and nothing can stop us!
But fall is the season of stumbling. [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]
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]
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.
This week’s warm weather aside, December is the time we cozy up indoors to dream about next season’s garden, and to decide what new techniques to try and which plants to grow. Winter is for gardening books, and we have quite a few in stock that we’d like to suggest for you. Whether you have a book club or just a comfortable chair to curl up into, these titles are sure to fire your imagination.
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]
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]
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]
With cold on the way, the sun going down before 5pm when we turn back the clock this weekend, and Thanksgiving right around the corner, it’s time for nourishing food to support our immune system and to support the body against Seasonal Affective Disorder, often triggered by changing seasons and decrease in sunlight. This recipe is a great way to use the last of the fall vegetables that you might have rescued before tonight’s freeze, from our friend and nutritional coach Mitten Lowe.[Read More]
In the late 1800s Colorado was one of the top apple-growing states in the country. Many of these ancient apple trees still exist, and together with trees planted this century, are producing more fruit than homeowners alone can harvest.
Enter GrowLocal Colorado, and their ever-growing effort to keep fruit in the food system. Largely volunteer-run, this year they harvested and distributed 11,652 pounds of fruit from across the Front Range!
We connected with GrowLocal Colorado’s Co-Director Barbara Masoner to see what she likes to make from Colorado-grown apples. She graciously shared her recipe for Pistachio and Apple Cake (below).
Read more about GrowLocal’s 2024 gleaning here.
Fruit & Pistachio Holiday Agave Cake
2 Granny Smith apples (chopped fine)
1 T Lemon juice
2 c flour
1 t baking soda
1 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
2 t cinnamon
4 large eggs
1 c veg oil
1 c Agave Nectar
3/4 c dried cranberries
3/4 c pistachios (coarsely chopped)
Preheat oven to 350. Grease 11-cup Bundt Pan.
Toss apples, lemon juice in one bowl.
In another bowl, combine dry ingredients: flour, soda, powder, salt & cinnamon.
In mixer, beat eggs with oil and Agave until well blended and smooth. Slowly beat in dry ingredients. Stire in apples, cranberries & nuts.
Bake 45-50 min, or until cake springs back when lightly touched.
Allow cake to cool in pan for 15 minutes before transferring to cake plate.
Serve with Agave Cream Cheese Cinnamon Glaze.
Agave Cream Cheese Cinnamon Glaze
1 (8-oz. pkg.) cream cheese, room temperature
1/3 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup Agave Nectar
In medium bowl, combine cream cheese, butter, vanilla and cinnamon. Using electric mixer, beat until smooth. Add agave nectar, blending until fully incorporated. Refrigerate for 1 hour, or until ready to use, up to 1 week.
Drizzle glaze over top of cake just before serving.
We cut, dig and store our dahlia tubers just after the first frost – so we know what we’ll be doing this weekend! 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]
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 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]
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]
Designing a garden or planting bed can be a daunting project without the knowledge of where to start. These steps can help you develop a successful planting design for your garden the first time around. And if you’ve taken these steps, we can give you optimal assistance when you come to Harlequin’s for your plants, soils and products. Please note that larger spaces, new builds or landscapes that need full renovations will need more preliminary work to determine placement of areas for people moving through the yard, retaining or screening views, hardscape design (patios & walkways) and other important planning steps.[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]
Native Currant
Normally, we would hold onto these beautiful, hard-to-find native shrubs through the winter, and offer them for sale in spring. But we looked around at our Native Shrubs sales area, and the few plants still there looked a little lonesome. So we decided to bring out our fresh, new crop of native shrubs to join them! Most are in easy-to-plant “2-gallon” pots. Not discounted.
We’ve got both Hard-neck and Soft-neck varieties! Get your garlic ‘seed’ bulbs NOW for planting from mid-October to mid-November!
SOFT-NECK Varieties:
If you’d like to be eating your own home-grown organic garlic for 9 months (or more!) after harvesting, you should be growing some of our excellent Soft-Neck varieties. All of them are very flavorful without being excessively hot, they are cold-hardy and easy to grow here, and produce large, easy-to-peel outer cloves. [Read More]
The end of summer doesn’t mean the end to color in the garden, on the contrary, you can plan and plant now for a vibrant wave of color, and habitat for our insects and birds, that continues all the way to frost! From native and water-wise perennials, to trees (including fruit trees), shrubs and grasses, the selection is nearly endless.
Our Fall sale is a great opportunity to extend color and interest well into autumn.
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]
The hardy and drought-tolerant Rose of Sharon – Hibiscus syriacus – is an easy shrub for Colorado, and August is a great time to plant one.
Rose of Sharon are large upright shrubs to 8’-12’ tall and 6′ wide, blooming in mid and late summer with large, tropical-looking flowers in various colors that draw bees, butterflies and hummingbirds in July and August. The ‘Goddess’ series have large, tropical single flowers that are longer blooming than old varieties, and sterile, eliminating unwanted seedlings. We offer 3 dependable varieties.
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]
Your Fall Vegetable Garden Starts Here!Hard to believe we’re just over 60 days from the average first frost in Boulder County! It’s the perfect time to get your fall vegetable garden in. We have the seeds, and seedlings you’ll need (seedlings expected to be available this weekend or early next week).
Choose from Botanical Interest seeds like beets, radish, greens, and more. Choose plants with 45 – 50 ‘days to harvest’ to ensure a harvest before the first hard frost. Or, be prepared to extend the season with ‘Ensulate’ row-cover fabric.
Wavyleaf Oak, courtesy Colorado Springs Utilities
We don’t want you to miss the opportunity to buy these exceptional trees, which are very hard to find, and when you can find them, they are in short supply.
Wavy Leaf Oak (Quercus x undulata)
These small, xeric, native oak trees are natural hybrids between native Gambel Oak and the less common evergreen Turbinella Oak.They were propagated from seed collected by the late, remarkable explorer of native plants, Alan Taylor in SE Colorado, NE New Mexico and the Oklahoma panhandle.[Read More]
The pickling and slicing cucumber starts from Harlequin’s Gardens are now producing a bounty of cucumbers in community gardens! This salad is easy to make and great for a hot summer day!
INGREDIENTS
2 large cucumbers, quartered lengthways
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
2 tsp rice-wine vinegar
3 tbsp lime juice
3 tsp flaked sea salt
3 tbsp sunflower oil
2 spring onions, trimmed and finely sliced on an angle
½ tbsp black sesame seeds
FOR THE DRESSING
1/3C tahini
2 tbsp soy sauce (or tamari, to make the dish gluten-free)
1½ tbsp mirin
1½ tbsp rice-wine vinegar
PREPARATION
Scoop out and discard the seeds from the cucumber quarters, then cut the flesh widthways into chunky pieces. Put the cucumber in a bowl with the garlic, vinegar, lime juice and three teaspoons of flaked sea salt, then mix with your hands, lightly crushing the cucumber pieces as you do so.
Gently heat the oil in a small saucepan until warm – about two minutes – then pour over the cucumber and leave to marinate on a counter for two hours.
Whisk all the dressing ingredients and two tablespoons of water until you end up with a very
smooth sauce (it will seize up a bit to start with but persevere and it will come together smoothly).
Pour the tahini mixture on to a large plate with a lip, so it naturally pools into a circle in the middle.
Drain the cucumbers very well, discarding the liquid, then pile on top of the sauce. Scatter over the sliced spring onion and the sesame seeds and serve at once.
This recipe was adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipe which was featured in The Guardian on Red Hill Medical Center’s website, along with a great collection of additional fresh, healthy recipes.
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2019/jul/13/yotam-ottolenghi-tomato-cucumber-freekeh-tabbouleh-
summer-salad-recipes
Dear Friends and Fellow Gardeners,Whether we call it xeriscape, water-wise or Western Gardening, it is smart for us to water sparingly in our gardens. Water is a very limited resource, especially here in the West. In May it rained .44” in Boulder and 1.7” in Denver; in June .27” in Boulder, .36” in Denver. And it has been a dry July and hot. If (when) there is a drought and we have trained our gardens for low-water, they will survive. When we have ample rainfall (usually not more than 20”-22” in a year), our gardens will be full of flowers and fruit. Can we really train our gardens for hotter, dryer conditions? Yes. But it’s not as easy as turning on the sprinkler.
[Read More]
Argemone hispida, courtesy Kelly Manley
There’s nothing like temperatures in the 90s and higher to inspire an escape to the higher elevations. Mikl and I did just that last week, checking out Golden Gate Canyon State Park for the first time. Along the 15-mile canyon road leading to the park, the rocky slopes were rich in flowers, mostly a yellow-flowered buckwheat (Sulphur Flower, Eriogonum sp.) and lots of prickly poppy (either Argemone polyanthemos or A. hispida). On arrival, we chose the Horseshoe Trail, [Read More]
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) publishes an annual ‘Dirty Dozen’ report on toxic residue on non-organic produce, and in the 2024 report PEARS are called out as among the most dangerous to eat. 95% of pears had pesticide residues, and more than 6 of 10 non-organic pears tested by the Department of Agriculture have traces of five or more pesticides, a dramatic jump from earlier tests.
At Harlequin’s Gardens we grow plants naturally, without pesticides [Read More]
Boulder herbalist and wellness coach Mitten Lowe offers this cooling tea blend. Read more at her website Journey to Wellness.
This is my Summer and late Spring everyday Herbal Blend.
Every time I make it I’m just blown away by how beautiful and delicious it is. My family says that it “tastes amazing” and I was just thinking that I couldn’t agree more.[Read More]
