At Harlequin’s Gardens Nursery
4795 N.26th St., Boulder
SATURDAY & SUNDAY
NOVEMBER 9th & 10th, 10 am to 5 pm
It’s that time – time of year and time of life – when having too much stuff, even beautiful stuff and quality stuff and useful stuff, is making me feel claustrophobic. My mother taught me to be an astute shopper, and I’ve spent my life as a treasure hunter, seeking beauty, quality, authenticity and value, in every realm, from experiences to plants to art to earrings.
[Read More]
WINTER SOLSTICE GREETINGS!
Winter Solstice, the day when we in the Northern hemisphere experience the shortest day and longest night of the year, falls on Saturday, December 21st. After that, the tilt of the earth will reverse direction, lighting the path to Spring north of the Equator. And because Spring is coming, once again, I’ve got seeds, my favorite subject!, on my mind, on my desk (dining table), in bags and boxes all around the room, and seed order invoices are crowding my inbox.[Read More]
At this time of year, many of you probably share with me the bittersweet feeling of closure drawing near. It’s been another immensely rewarding growing season at Harlequin’s, and we are so grateful to have had the opportunity to introduce hundreds of new Colorado gardeners to appropriate and successful materials and methods, as well as helping so many longtime, like-minded sustainable gardeners. For 32 years we have been providing pollinator-safe Colorado-appropriate plants, products, information and advice based on our ongoing research and long experience, and we look forward to carrying this service well into the future. Thank you all for your support! But we’ve extended our season and we’re not done yet!
This week we are still open Tuesday through Sunday, 9am to 5pm and we still have beautiful plants (30% off), fantastic spring-blooming bulbs to plant now (20% off), seeds (many 60% off), composts and mulches, fertilizers and pest repellents, houseplants and much more.
We’ll be closed briefly for inventory, from Oct. 31st through Nov. 6th.
We will RE-OPEN November 7th and remain open from 10am to 5pm through December 22nd, every Thursday through Sunday.
Our 13th Annual Holiday Market opens Thursday Nov. 21st and runs through December 22nd.
After the winter holidays, we’ll RE-OPEN AGAIN from On January 2nd, 2025 for 3 days a week (Thursday through Saturday) from 10am to 4pm until we start over on Saturday March 1st!
Don’t be a stranger! Come and see what we have to offer year-round.
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]
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.
Sometimes we are running so fast that we forget to slow down and see what’s ready to come out for sale. This week we are happily surprised to see that we have fresh stock of lots of premium native shrubs that we grew in convenient, affordable 2-gallon pots. We’re making them available at regular price (not discounted for our fall sale) – read more below.
And these perennials ARE on sale – a new infusion of hardy, water-wise, native Penstemons has been brought out, including P. clutei, P. glaber v. alpinus, P. palmeri, P. virgatus, P. grandiflorus, and P. angustifolius. I have planted many Penstemons in October and November in past years, with great success.[Read More]
One of the beautiful alternatives to a standard, water-thirsty, solid green, mowed Kentucky Bluegrass lawn is a naturalistic meadow composed of low-water clumping grasses and wildflowers.
This approach offers plant diversity, an ever-changing, dynamic sequence of colors and textures throughout the seasons, and provides sustenance and habitat for beneficial insects, pollinators, birds and other small critters. If this sounds good to you, now is the time to plan and prepare, and buy grass seed mixes on sale for 15% off! We also have lots of wildflower seeds to add to the grasses – mixes for specific pollinators and situations, as well as individual species.[Read More]
We cut, dig and store our dahlia tubers just after the first frost. Our friends at Arrowhead Dahlias have easy instructions.
Dahlia tubers will not survive if they freeze, so they must be dug in cold climates like ours.
You can divide in spring or fall – it takes practice and patience, but it is well worth the trouble.[Read More]
We still have Lavender (Munstead, Buena Vista, Hidcote and Grosso), and if you want to plant them this season, get them this week on sale for 20% off! Any plants left after that will be potted up for next year. Because it is evergreen, newly planted lavender is more sensitive to hard frost than many other hardy perennials, so to give them a chance to establish before very cold weather arrives, plant them NOW. If you garden at an elevation higher than 6,000’, we recommend waiting to plant lavender next spring.
Rosemary ‘Madeline Hill’ is still in stock, and on sale! [Read More]
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 hard frost! From native and water-wise perennials and shrubs, to trees (including fruit trees) and grasses, the selection is vast.
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
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]
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]
Dear Friends and Fellow Gardeners,Fall is a very good time to plant and establish trees, shrubs and perennials. Planting now gives time for roots to establish while sunlight and heat are decreasing. At this time of year, the energies in plants are being shifted from reproduction and growth, to the roots and to storing energy for the winter. Plants that go into the ground now will be strong and well-rooted by spring, and will be able to take advantage of spring moisture to grow before the weather turns hot and dry.[Read More]
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]
We’re seeing cherries everywhere we go this summer! There were so many on the trees in the Harlequin’s Wholesale area that our Retail Manager Beth just had to make a pie for our co-workers.
We love the pie she made, and we’re sharing the recipe with you.
It has been almost 250 years since the USA declared its independence from Great Britain, and it IS good that we are no longer a British colony. We could say that that battle was clearly won a long time ago. In 2024 we might see that our current challenge as human beings, and as Americans, is the recognition and realization that we are not separate from our environment or from each other; that we are inter-dependent.
Focusing on our inter-dependence with pollinators and other insects, bacteria and fungi, birds and other creatures, might help us to be better farmers and gardeners. Focusing on our inter-dependence with our air and water might help us to take care of our planet so our children will have a decent place to live. [Read More]
Eriogonum umbellatum var. aureum – Kannah Creek® buckwheat, courtesy Plant Select
native, ‘nativar’, variety, subspecies, selection, hybrid, and why you might care
Eriogonum umbellatum. Eriogonum umbellatum var. aureum ‘Kannah Creek’. Aquilegia chrysantha. Aquilegia chrysantha ‘Denver Gold’. Physocarpus monogynus ‘Greylock’. Prunus besseyi ‘Pawnee Buttes’. Shepherdia argentea ‘Silver Totem’. Gaillardia aristata. Gaillardia aristata ‘Meriwether’. Gaillardia aristata BoCo. Gaillardia x grandiflora “Mesa Yellow’. Asclepias incarnata. Asclepias incarnata ‘Cinderella’.
What are gardeners to think when they encounter these plant names? What do the names mean? How can you tell if this plant is the same as its kind that grows in the wild? Is it a native or a “nativar”? [Read More]
Acantholimon litvinovii
This week we’re featuring a few SPECIAL PLANTS now available in limited quantities.
Prickly Thrift – Acantholimon sp.: a rare xeric steppe native from Turkey to Iran; prickly evergreen mounds 4”-6” high, 12”-24” diameter; very hard to propagate, we almost never have them, and neither does any other nursery. 3 varieties; wonderful, we’ve grown them in our gardens for years.
Yucca nana
Yucca nana: an 8”-12” miniature yucca! Seed rarely available, so we may never have them again. [Read More]
We generally agree that the term “Xeriscape” (water–conserving landscape) applies to plantings watered deeply one a week. However, in July it’s safer to water twice a week. At Harlequin’s Gardens, some of our shrubs and trees are only watered once a month, and twice in July. One of our gardens of mostly native shrubs and trees is never watered.
What does that mean, “water deeply“? It means that when you irrigate by hand or sprinkler or drip, the soil should be moist to a depth of at least 4″. Moisture meters and the old ‘screwdriver test‘ are not as accurate as digging a small hole 4 to 6” deep and feeling the soil. If it is dry at 4″ just after watering, you will need to water longer.
You can water less frequently if:
1-You have added compost to your soil
2-You have added expanded shale (10-20% by volume) to your soil
3-You have inoculated your plant roots (especially at planting time) with beneficial mycorrhizal fungi 4- you have covered your soil with mulch, or if your plants cover and shade the soil.
Do not:
1-Water lightly every day (except if temperatures exceed 95 degrees); it encourages shallow rooting and evaporates rapidly.
2-Water deeply more than twice a week, creating saturated soil that excludes air (plants and beneficial soil life need air as much as they need water).
3-Plant too close together, creating competition for water. It’s better to mulch the gaps between plants while you wait for them to fill in.
4-Mix plants with high and low water needs in the same planting bed.
When you plant in July:
1-Prepare the soil well, incorporating 30% compost (a 1-2” layer spread on top and then dug in to a depth of 6“)
2-Inoculate the roots of the new plants with mycorrhizae, which will vastly improve transplanting success of most species
3-Treat your new ‘babies‘ as if you’d just brought them home from the hospital, i.e. water them frequently, shield them from hot sun with shade cloth or another source of shade until you see new growth. Then you will know that their roots have reached into the surrounding soil.
4-Place a ‘flag‘ next to every new plant so you can quickly see which plants need the most attention. 5- If your soil is very dense clay (a 10“-deep hole holds water for 30 minutes or longer, add expanded shale (10-20% by volume) along with compost.
6-If you’re leaving town, even for just a few days, give your special watering jobs to someone you would trust with your life.
Fire-wise landscaping should focus on creating a ‘defensible space’ around your home. In “Firewise Plant Materials,” a fact-sheet for the CO Cooperative Extension, F. C. Dennis defines this: “Defensible space is the area between a structure and an oncoming wildfire where nearby vegetation has been modified to reduce a wildfire’s intensity,” and therefore, reduces risk to property.
These modifications could be accomplished by: increasing moisture content, choosing the most fire-resistant plants, spacing plants in smaller, disconnected groups, and proper maintenance and clean-up.
Some specific suggestions:[Read More]
Acantholimon Ready for Sale!
What is Acantholimon, you ask? As a group, their common name is Prickly Thrift, but this genus is anything but common! They are native to the Steppes from Turkey to Central Asia, in conditions similar to ours. Highly prized gems of the rock garden, and especially of the water-wise garden, they form evergreen perennial mounds, cushiony mats or hummocks of evergreen, tightly packed, pointed linear leaves that look downright pettable. Not. Acantholimon are fairly difficult to propagate and are rarely offered by nurseries, even specialty mail-order growers. [Read More]
It’s officially Summertime. We are struggling with an unprecedented June heat-wave and very low precipitation. But along with the heat, sun and lack of significant rainfall, there are some wonderful things happening that we can appreciate and be grateful for, like the bold, stand-out colors of summer blooms! Of the summer-blooming perennials we grow, both native and non-native, many are in bud or starting to bloom, are looking great and are ready now to bring out for sale. They ALL provide important sustenance for our pollinators, from tiny native bees, wasps and flies, to bumblebees, butterflies, and hummingbirds! And most are in 4” ‘deep pots’, easier to establish in the heat of the summer!
Some that we’re adding this week:
Tall Garden Phlox varieties ‘Nikki’, ‘Starfire’ and ‘Laura’
Monarda (Beebalm) ‘Balmy Purple’[Read More]
There are plenty of insects that eat plants and these can be damaging. At Harlequin’s we usually recommend supporting plant and soil health, creating diversity and allowing some insect damage before acting. With some pests, it is good to be prepared to act quickly, and sometimes there isn’t a good solution. Even poisons, which we never recommend, can be ineffective.
Here are some safe methods and products we have found helpful.[Read More]
Welcome to Summer! Experientially, summer began last week with several days of intense heat that were challenging for people, pets, other critters, and plants. But in terms of hours of sunlight, the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere will occur this Thursday, June 20 at 2:50 pm here in Colorado, officially beginning our summer season. Mikl has some thoughts on one of the interesting opportunities the Summer Solstice offers for gardeners with trees and shrubs. [Read More]
With Summer come pest problems. Eggs hatch and spores germinate, and plants are food for all of us folks that don’t photosynthesize. So, what can we do? Share and defend, intelligently.
We have been taught to respond to these pest problems with a war-like attitude: point and shoot, poison and kill. At Harlequin’s we do resort to killing when necessary and we do provide non-toxic products that will kill pests, but first, let’s look at a bigger picture.
Harlequin’s Gardens has not used toxic chemical pesticides, fungicides and herbicides in its 32 year history and we have grown and supplied hundreds of thousands of plants to satisfied customers. [Read More]
We’re celebrating all month, and we’d love to encourage you to support pollinators in your gardens.
Pollinator Month is a special time for Harlequin’s Gardens – a time when we celebrate the hard work of bees (honeybees, solitary bees, bumblebees) wasps, ants, flies and bee flies, butterflies and moths, beetles, some bats and birds, and some mammals. They’re all around us, connecting the dots between flowers and food.
Come check out our special pollinator display, which is our whole facility! The descriptive signage for most of our plants is marked with bee, hummingbird, and butterfly icons.[Read More]
Yesterday we managed to sneak away from work and visit a couple of the fabulous Open Space parks in the foothills. We were too late to see the Pasque Flowers in bloom, but we were surrounded by botanical treasures, nonetheless. A picture is worth a thousand words, so this will be mostly a photo essay of most of the species we encountered. However, you might want to know that in spite of being difficult or impossible to find in nursery production, quite a few of these native treasures have been offered or are currently offered at Harlequin’s Gardens this year.
Planting, weeding, mulching, watering and amending soil are your key June garden tasks.
The soil is warm enough now for final annual seed sowing and transplanting. Edible crops that need warm soil to germinate (and to keep from rotting), like beans, corn and squash (the Three Sisters!) and okra can be sown direct now.
Nasturtium, marigold, zinnia, sunflower, scarlet runner beans and morning glory seeds can be
sown directly in the soil – for August flowering. For earlier flowers, consider transplanting Cypress Vine, Spanish Flag Vine and Black-eyed Susan Vine (while supplies last).
We finally got a chance to bring out our excellent and unique selection of Native Conifers! Most of them are special dwarf forms that can easily fit in a home garden. These accent plants can give structure and winter interest to elevate your garden design in all seasons.
What’s special about our dwarf conifers? First of all, most of them are Colorado and regional (CO, UT, NM) native species. This makes them easy to grow in Colorado gardens.
Second, most are selections made by the late, great plantsman Jerry Morris, who devoted his career to searching out the dwarf forms of conifers in our forests.
We know that not all of customers live in a house with a yard. Many of you live in apartments or condominiums or townhomes and have only a balcony or a very small patio on which to grow anything outdoors. We would love to help you make the most of your outdoor space, even if it’s tiny.
Many vegetables, ornamental annuals, and most culinary herbs can be planted in almost any kind of container as long as there’s sufficient width and depth to accommodate the roots and enough soil mass to hold sufficient water.
It’s not ideal, but sometimes you have to plant in the middle of a heatwave. Fortunately, it can be done successfully, even here in the high, windy and dry zone. High temperatures, wind and strong sunlight cause water to evaporate from plant leaves faster than the roots can take up water.
The key to survival of new plantings is shade – for the plant and for the soil. Here are some tips:[Read More]
Penstemon virgatus
Few genera are as synonymous with Western North America as penstemons or beardtongues. The genus is almost entirely native only to North America with the center of diversity falling west of the 100th meridian. Over 250 species are found in North America with one outlier in
Japan. The outlier is often placed in its own genus. Penstemons are native to every state in the union except Hawaii and almost every Canadian province besides Nunavut.
Right now, we have our biggest selection of highly desirable plants for the season. Some of them are unusual and available in limited quantities. This includes a number of very choice native perennials that are very hard to find and will sell out fast, like:
Scrophularia macrantha (Red Birds In A Tree) – This rare New Mexico wildflower was first brought into cultivation, and given its delightful common name, by the late, great plantsman David Salman, only a couple of decades ago. Subsequently promoted by the Plant Select program, it won the hearts of native plant gardeners and pollinator gardeners, and is a great favorite of hummingbirds. [Read More]
