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]
Home Page Feature
A Ramble in the Woods
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]
2024 Fall Sale Information & Newsletter!
Dear Friends and Fellow Gardeners,
Welcome to Autumn and to Harlequin’s Gardens 2024 Fall Plant Sale!
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]
Celebrating Inter-dependence Day!
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]
What’s In a Name
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]
The Rich Colors of Summer
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]
Summer Solstice!
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]
June is Pollinator Month!
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]
High Spring Walks on the Wild Side
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.
How to Plant in the Heat
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]
A Few Sought-After Native Plants
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]
You’re Invited to Trial Rare Dwarf Tomatoes
Vilma Tomato courtesy Sara’s Kitchen Garden
A Special Tomato Offer! 2 half-price plants in return for your evaluations!
We know that many of our customers need to grow small but bountiful vegetables in containers.
So we searched out and grew a group of very special, rare varieties of tomato that are specifically intended for growing in containers – Dwarf, Micro dwarf and even hanging tomatoes! They are ready this week, but quantities are limited – only 25 to 60 plants of each variety.[Read More]
Our Community is Special!
So many very special experiences!
We were delighted with the turnout for our May Day festivities and sales, and loved seeing and helping old friends and new, first-time customers and loyal Harlequin’s supporters. The live music and gentle weather kept us all smiling and we so appreciate everyone’s cheerful patience in the check-out line. The Mothers’ Day weekend was equally exciting and heartwarming, and it was preceded by a rare and thrilling display of the Northern Lights on Friday night. We hope many of you were able to see it!
Walks on foothills trails this week reveal the earliest Penstemons (Beardtongues) in our area – the xeric, and showy Sidebells Penstemon (Penstemon secundiflorus). [Read More]
The Fullness of Spring
The fields and the foothills are turning green! So many trees are blooming or beginning to leaf out! There is so much energy bursting forth everywhere I look! After the lovely rain last weekend we emerged from our Sunday class to be greeted by the singing of frogs in a big puddle in the parking lot! How can they develop that fast???
To help celebrate Spring, we’ve got a really exciting line-up of local live music and dance for this coming weekend and for Mother’s Day, too! And some great deals on beautiful, Harlequin-grown, pesticide-free plants.
Blown Away!
It could have been worse. We are grateful that the severe winds didn’t cause any fires, blow down very many trees, kill or maim anyone (at least not that we’ve heard) or tear off roofs. It must have been a terrible time for anyone that was unhoused.
We lost one small hoophouse that was empty at the time, but the others made it through with little damage. And we were forced to stay closed on Saturday with no electricity, no heat, no water pumps, no internet and no phone. Our huge thanks go to the customers who came out on Sunday and helped us recoup a bit of our Saturday losses. Our phone and internet are still down, but we were blown away by the gracious patience of our customers as we tallied their purchases by hand and if they didn’t have cash or checkbooks, we wrote down their information so we can call them and complete credit card transactions over the phone when we have our service restored. We will continue to provide this service until our internet service is back, and we hope you will come and shop at Harlequin’s with cash or checks. [Read More]
Our Community of Growers
As part of HG’s commitment to supporting local ecology and local economy, we have the pleasure of connecting with and (mutually) supporting small growers in our state and our region. Yesterday, I paid a visit to our immensely talented and dedicated off-site custom propagator, Sue J., in Fort Collins. Sue is a self-taught organic grower with decades of experience. She is a nurturer by nature, singlehandedly managing three large hoop houses full of thousands of vegetable, herb and annual flower starts, many of our most interesting and hard-to-propagate perennials, and some woody shrubs. And when she gets home, she raises award-winning alpacas and llamas and tends to a sweet rescue dog who never leaves her side.[Read More]
Mid-March Deja Vu
March is bringing us a characteristic tilt of the see-saw that this month always brings. Tank tops can go back in the drawer for a little while, as this week we will see night-time temperatures dipping into the mid-20s. We are expecting rain (~1.6 inches in Boulder, ~3 inches in Denver!), and heavy, wet snow, too. We’ve been here before; no need to panic. And we need the moisture!
This is when it’s important to make sure your seed furrows are level (so the seeds don’t all wash down to the low end), and when row cover fabric comes to the rescue.[Read More]
HARLEQUIN’S GARDENS 2025 SPRING NEWSLETTER
Dear Friends and Fellow Gardeners,
Welcome to Spring, and to another gardening opportunity to partner with Mother Nature, grow healthy food, increase the population of native plants, create beauty and learn more about caring for our planet and local habitat. Some people would call this work; we gardeners call it fun in the Colorado sun.
This year Harlequin’s Gardens is going to perform as usual, but we are not sure about the future. We’ve come to a Fork in the Road. We would like to continue to provide plants, soils and services into the future. And we are almost able to do this. We have gotten to the point where we need some help to continue. We’ve been giving a heck of a performance for 32 years, with a small hard-working crew on a shoe-string budget, but times have changed and expenses are growing faster than profits.
HARLEQUIN’S GARDENS 2024 SPRING NEWSLETTER
Dear Friends and Fellow Gardeners,
Welcome to Spring, to Harlequin’s Gardens and another opportunity to partner with nature. This season we can all grow healthy food, increase the population of native plants, create beauty and learn more about caring for our planet and local habitat. Some people would call this work; we gardeners call it fun in the Colorado sun.
The theme of this newsletter is the Resilience of the Human Spirit and the survival instinct. We can’t speak for the whole world, but everybody we know is in pain and suffering. This is the Elephant in the room. This is a painful time. Of course there is happiness and even joy, but we can’t deny the dark cloud over humanity. Who can ignore the suffering of so many wars? Our world economy is based on guns and bombs, there are poisons and plastics in our food and water, climate extremes are normal, money in politics makes a mockery of democracy, and slime molds know more about symbiotic relationships with their neighbors than humans.[Read More]
Harlequin’s Gardens 32nd Season Begins Friday March 1!
This morning the window-shades were opened to reveal a perfect winter day with big, soft flakes of snow filling the air, sticking to the trees and covering the ground. Less than two hours later, the snow has stopped falling and the sun keeps peeking out between the clouds. I know that the snow will soon melt off the early species Crocus and Iris blooms I photographed yesterday, some scouting honeybees will be out gathering their nectar and pollen. I will soon see other spring garden ‘pioneers’, like primroses, species tulips, Bearclaw and Purple Hellebores, Winter Aconite, and our local native Townsend’s Easter Daisy (Townsendia hookeri) making their entrance. It’s all good!
Harlequin’s Gardens is back this Friday, Saturday and Sunday to start another year of exceptional plants and seeds, empowering and cutting-edge classes (see this weekend’s classes below, and our full class schedule here), the best soils, amendments, pest solutions and tools, and everything you need to grow your own plants from seed!
Let’s start SEEDS:
Now is the time to seed many spring greens indoors for transplanting in early spring, such as lettuce, pak choi, mustards, broccoli, cauliflower, Swiss chard, kale, kohlrabi, and hardy herbs such as parsley, chives, sage and thyme.
[Read More]
Save the Date – Opening Day March 1st!
Helleborus niger
February is always an exciting time for me. The snow is melting in my south-facing front yard, revealing the first few spring blooms and rekindling my passion for gardening. In my garden, the Christmas Rose (Helleborus niger) and Crocus ‘Firefly’ and our tiny but hardy and tough native treasure Townsendia hookeri are the earliest flowers this year. And at the warmest part of the day, I’ve also seen a few honeybees visiting them. They are the unmistakable, irrepressible signs of spring!
In just a couple of weeks, there will be a lot more flowers blooming , and Harlequin’s Gardens will be open for the 2024 season! We’ll be opening through March in Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays beginning on Friday, March 1st. Classes, soil products, seeds, seed-starting supplies, tools and houseplants await you![Read More]
The Path to your Summer Garden Begins Here
With some deeply chilling temperatures on the near horizon, gardeners can gain a little comfort by fast-forwarding to spring in our minds as we plan for our 2024 gardens. The predictable and unpredictable consequences of climate change call upon us to observe our gardens more closely, revise our expectations of our gardens, broaden our vision of what makes a garden, and make our gardens more resilient and less dependent on uncertain resources.
We have been absorbed in seed catalogs; the past couple of nights my bedtime companion has been has the always-fascinating J.L.Hudson Seed Catalog, which is much more interesting in print than it is online. Our seed orders have been arriving and our propagators have been cleaning our precious wild-collected seeds, applying treatments to break dormancy (mostly hot water, physical scarification, and refrigeration), and making new plants from old by division and cuttings.[Read More]
Late Fall Musings
Agave seed stalk
The day before Thanksgiving in the Reshetnik-Brawer home was largely spent cleaning the house, but we also decided it was time to cut down the towering inflorescence of our Century Plant (Agave utahensis x parryi v. couesii). I held the 3”- thick stalk while Mikl cut through it with his folding hand-saw (a great tool!), then we laid it down on a ground-cloth to catch the copious seeds that fell out of the hundreds of pods. To me it felt as if we had just felled a large and noble animal or tree, and there were several quiet minutes of awe and reverence. Now that it was horizontal, we were able to get an accurate measurement of the bloom stalk’s height, 14.5 feet, and I counted 34 branches! We will be planting the hundreds (or thousands?) of seeds to produce new plants for you.
Our 32nd Gardening Season Begins March 1st!
As I write, the ground and rooftops are blanketed in snow, and the sun is streaming in the windows. Gotta love the Colorado winter! In less than a month, we’ll be open for our 32nd year as a nursery and garden center, and we are quite excited!
I don’t think we’ve ever had an easy year, but ‘easy’ isn’t an option in this business. So many aspects of running a nursery have never been predictable, and we’re always relating with thousands of details and challenges.
BUT we have a great crew and there are many things you can always count on finding when you visit Harlequin’s Gardens, and we hope you will appreciate the value you receive when you shop at our big little nursery.
For 31 years, we have always been committed to non-aggression, health and environmental stewardship in horticulture and all other spheres of Life. And this commitment will always continue!
We’ll never use toxic pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, or chemical fertilizers.
We are the best source for Colorado and regional Native Plants on the Front Range.
We have and will always specialize in Water-Thrifty plants, Native and Colorado-adapted plants and Pollinator-Supporting plants.
We are always broadening our plant offerings, often bringing into cultivation wonderful local wild plants that were previously unavailable in commerce. (*see below for examples)
Our staff, e-newsletters, classes, and hand-outs offer empowering, cutting-edge organic and environmental gardening advice and education gained from our 31 years of research and experience.
Our customer service team is exceptionally knowledgeable, helpful and accessible.
We grow most of our own plants and supplement with plants from other local and regional growers that never use neonicotinoids.
We grow our plants in our own carefully formulated potting soils that grow healthier, stronger, more resilient plants that will establish successfully into your garden.
Our pest management products are always non-toxic, child-safe and pollinator safe.
We compost and make our own powerful Compost Tea.
We aim to be a zero-waste business: we bag compost and mulches in returnable plastic bags that we reuse to reduce plastic in the environment. We also reuse nursery pots, and sell our compost tea in returnable/reusable jugs.
We offer superior, CO-specific resources and advice for supporting bees, butterflies, birds and other pollinators and beneficial insects.
We test and evaluate our soil products (composts, organic fertilizers, mulches and other amendments), and most of them are sourced locally.
We recycle and use recycled materials for our building projects.
Our greenhouses don’t use fossil fuels; our heat and energy come mostly from the Sun, with a little electricity from renewables. And this year we are installing a heat-pump system for our store!
We are located in unincorporated Boulder County, where sales taxes are only about half the rate of those in Front Range cities.
We support local growers, artists, artisans and musicians as well as non-profit environmental efforts.
We connect our customers with events and other educational and activist opportunities related to environmental, agricultural and horticultural issues.
———————————————————————————————————————————
Wild Plants we are Propagating in 2024. We have our fingers crossed that good germination and growth on the unique native plants described below will allow us to bring them to you this season.
The plants we offer will contribute to a beautiful, thriving garden that will be a joy to behold, but they can also provide so much more than a pretty picture to look at. The ecosystem services that our plants provide add much more value to your gardens.
Celtis reticulata, courtesy Oregon State University
Celtis reticulata, Netleaf Hackberry
You may be familiar with the larger Celtis occidentalis or Western Hackberry, which makes an excellent long-lived, water-wise deciduous shade tree. Netleaf Hackberry is substantially smaller, fairly slow-growing to 15’ to 25’ with a spreading canopy, interesting sculpted bark, an attractive twisting branch pattern, rough green leaves and reddish brown or purple berries. The leaves support the caterpillars of Mourning Cloak and Hackberry Emperor butterflies and a number of moths, which in turn, along with the sweet berries, attract and feed many birds. In Colorado, Netleaf Hackberry occurs in the wild in the Front Range foothills and on the western edge of the plains. It is rarely available in nurseries. We’ve seen some handsome specimens growing around Lyons. Cold hardy and highly adaptable to many soils, moisture levels and exposures, it can be grown as a small to medium-sized tree that will not require any supplemental watering after initial establishment.
Mertensia lanceolata
Mertensia lanceolata, Prairie Bluebell, Languid Lady
Dropping way down in scale, we are hoping for good germination on this lovely local spring wildflower that inhabits a wide range of Rocky Mountain habitats and elevations, from the plains to alpine habitats, in dry partial shade under deciduous shrubs and trees, on north-facing slopes, near rock outcroppings and in sunny meadows. In mid to late spring (May and June in Boulder) the delicate bell-shaped flowers nod from slender stems, opening from plum-colored buds and maturing to blue. The leaves are blue-green due to a waxy coating, with a prominent center vein. Prairie Bluebells are in the Borage family, prized for its many striking blue-flowered constituents. The plants can produce sizeable colonies, several feet across and can range from 6 ” to 14” tall. Prairie Bluebell goes dormant by early summer, dying back to its substantial roots.
Argemone hispida, courtesy Mik Kintgen
Argemone hispida, Rough Prickly Poppy
This is one of my favorite local wildflowers. It took me awhile to notice that it was different from the Prickly Poppies I had met before (Argemone polyanthemos), being more stout and shrubby, with grey-green foliage and much more dense, numerous and slender golden prickles on all parts, from stem to bud to seed-pod. The fabulous silky white flowers are just as big (4” wide) and just as stunning as the more commonly found Argemones, but the plant is more compact, up to perhaps 15” tall where I’ve seen it growing. They both grow in the same habitat, so Rough Prickly Poppy is also happy growing dry and hot, and blooms at the same time – May to August. Found in Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas, South Dakota and Wyoming.
Astragalus utahensis, courtesy James L. Reveal and the LadyBird Johnson Wildflower Center
Astragalus utahensis, Utah Milkvetch
Utah milkvetch is in the legume family (Fabaceae). One finds quite a few plants in this family in the arid west. They are probably making life better for themselves and the plants around them by fixing nitrogen from the air and transferring it to their roots and the soil. Native to Utah and several adjacent states, this very pretty spring-blooming milkvetch is particularly abundant in the Wasatch Mountains. Its typical habitats include rocky hillsides, sagebrush openings, and pinyon-juniper areas. A rock garden, crevice garden, or the front of a Xeriscape garden with excellent drainage will suit it well. The plant is lovely even after bloom, with its wavy silvery pinnate leaves.
Yours in support of abundant Life,
Eve Reshetnik Brawner & Mikl Brawner
Bulbs for every Front Range Garden!
We still have LOTS of gorgeous spring-flowering bulbs! When these ‘buried treasures’ emerge, they are among the first signs of spring and are welcomed not only for their beauty, but also for providing early pollen and nectar sources for our pollinating insect as they, too, emerge.
Customers have been inquiring about which bulbs can thrive in the particular circumstances of their gardens. Whether you have a rock garden, native garden, xeriscape, fragrance garden, traditional flower border, cutting garden, or meadow, or you are living with deer, squirrels, chipmunks, limited water, baking sun, shade, clay soil or decomposed granite, there are spring flowering bulbs you can grow successfully, and we still have plenty of them! We carefully curate our selection to provide the best of the best for our climate and all our various garden types.
You Never Know, with Nature!
Well, that was a false alarm!
You heard it from us (and all the weather guessers in the media) – we were going to have our first freeze, possibly a hard freeze, late last week. As my friend Elise put it, after harvesting all of her dahlia blooms, tomatoes, etc., “Huh?”.
In fact, Mikl and I did clear counter space and we did spend all day Thursday harvesting, cutting down and cleaning up much of our vegetable garden, and starting up the dehydrator to dry what seemed like thousands of tomatoes. And we hauled in all the houseplants that spent the summer outside. Our winter squash harvest was remarkable, especially considering that the bed where they were planted had been neglected most of the season, with only 3 or 4 intentional waterings.[Read More]
The Beauty of Winter Gardens
As the year is drawing toward a close and much of the garden and natural landscape is dormant, we can still appreciate the beauty and interest of plants: the silhouetted structure of our leafless trees and shrubs, the textures and colors of their bark, the berries and seedpods ornamenting their branches, and likewise the colors and textures of dry grasses, cattails and sedges. We can also admire the color and form of our evergreen trees and shrubs, and realize how many of our favorite perennial flowering plants and groundcovers provide evergreen (or red, or silver, or purple) foliage through the winter!
The Winter Solstice season is a time for celebrating the return of the light, both literally and figuratively, and as our daylight hours increase in the outer world, we will also try to keep our inner light burning for love, justice, and compassion for all life on earth. It’s a time for generosity, opening hearts, kindness, sharing, and spreading good news. Here are a couple of our suggestions for valuable gifts you can share:
[Read More]
Spring Gardening Begins!
We are so happy to see you again, talk about our favorite subjects, share some hugs and some news, and to greet new customers too! Among our opening weekend’s first customers were a couple that drove up from Littleton for their first venture to Harlequin’s; their neighbor told them about our Fine Wood Chip mulch, that it knits together and stays in place, looks great, and feeds the soil, unlike the coarse wood chips and bark mulches you find elsewhere.
We had a lot to tell you about last week, soils and seeds, tools, classes and memberships, but didn’t tell you about the plants we have for sale! Yes! We’ve got native and beautifully adapted perennials and herbs that were over-wintered in an unheated but covered ‘house’. These can go home with you now, as long as you can let them ‘harden-off’ for about a week (introduce them gradually to the direct sun, wind and cold). See our instructions HERE. After hardening off, with only a few exceptions, these can be planted in March if you can work the soil.[Read More]
Dead or Alive?
Lace Bark Pine
by Mikl Brawner
As we enter June, most of our trees and shrubs have leafed out, but not all. Some have leaves only three quarters of the way up, and many broad-leafed evergreens are mostly brown. Should we cut them back or replace them? Let’s not, just yet.
The Spirit of Motherhood
The nursery industry is well aware that the majority of shoppers for plants are women. And it’s not just a cliché that women are the leaders in nurturing. Most of us are here because mothers took care of us when we were helpless. It is the spirit of motherhood, in people of all genders, that is turning lawns into gardens and gardens into habitat. When we take plants from pots and put them in to soil, they are helpless until they grow their roots into the earth. Our care and nurturing mothers them until they are more independent. Then our relationship becomes a partnership, and the plants give back to us, too.[Read More]
Earth Day Greetings!
It may sound trite or boastful, but truly – every day is Earth Day for us.
We are not just here to sell plants. We have a deep love and respect for plants and their roles in everything from making life on Earth possible for us humans and so many other life-forms, down to the minute details of their wondrous adaptations, behaviors and forms. We want to share all this with you,
Plant Recovery After a Cold, Snowy Winter
We’ve just endured one of the coldest and snowiest winters in the last 16 years.
On December 22nd Boulder saw low temperatures of minus 24 degrees Fahrenheit, followed by minus 10 on January 30th , and again in late February the temperature fell to minus 11. These cold temperatures seem to be the explanation for damage to plants that we are seeing.[Read More]
Pop-Up Markets for Your Bulbs and Gifts!
And now for the surprise! Just when you thought the gardening season was over, and that Harlequin’s Gardens has gone into winter hibernation until March 2024, we have a surprise for you! We will be open for 2 Saturday Pop-Up Markets, on November 11th and 18th from 10am to 4 pm!
Our earlier fall weather was so mild and beautiful that many of you weren’t ready to think about planting bulbs for spring flowers, let alone holiday gift giving. So these pop-ups will include lots of bulbs on sale (see below), and some of the CURATED ARTISANAL GIFTS we offered at our Holiday Gift Market, now 25% to 50% off.
New Year’s Greeting!
Two quotations greet me every morning, posted on our bathroom mirror: “Tell me. What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” (poet Mary Oliver) and “I wake up each morning torn between a desire to save the world and a desire to savor the world. This makes it very hard to plan the day.” (author/editor E. B. White). The first inspires me to define my priorities, while the second, which perfectly describes my daily dilemma, allows me a little slack and sense of humor in the midst of my personal chaos and the chaos of life on Earth in this time. Perhaps you can take some inspiration and comfort from them, too.
Hold off on Spring Cleanup and Build a Strong Backyard Ecosystem
Praying Mantis Egg Case
It’s the time of year when we’re itching to begin planting for the season and preparing for this year’s growth. But hold onto those shears! We know that regeneration is occurring in our soil, with microbes and overwintering insects. Delaying Spring cleanup for another few weeks will ensure a healthy, vibrant ecosystem that best supports your plants. Here are tips for you to best help this process take place, while still having an aesthetically pleasing garden. [Read More]
Big Changes in Colorado Curbside Compost Collection
Spring is here and the time is right for dancing in the garden – to stay warm!
You can also work up a mild sweat by beginning your spring clean-up. If you have not yet sheared back your cool-season grasses, like Alkali Sacaton, Appalachian Sedge, June Grass, Korean Feather Grass, Karl Foerster’s Feather Reed grass and other Calamagrostis varieties, now is the time. And if you have any Clematis vines that are categorized in Pruning Group 3, February and March are the best times for cutting them back to 1 set of growth nodes above the ground.
June is Colorado Pollinator Month!
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 on most of our plants is marked with bee, hummingbird, and butterfly icons, and you might notice that almost everything is important to bees, of which we have over 500 species here in Boulder County alone. Even our native bunch grasses can provide nesting sites for bumblebees in the dried leaves at the bottom. [Read More]
Fall Sale Continues!
Our 2022 Big Fall Sale continues, with 30% off most plants!
Sept. 20 thru end of the season take 30% off perennials, shrubs, roses, and trees, and 30% off soil products in big bags, and Compost Tea. (No discount on fruit trees, veggies, bulbs, 2023 seeds, or Holiday Market Books).
In our experience, fall is the most successful time to establish most plants, especially when mycorrhizae are applied to the roots during planting (and we’re well stocked with several types of mycorrhizae!). We have a large and diverse selection of perennials, particularly in larger quart and gallon sizes, that are ready for planting. (Photo: Grass Calamagrostis brachytricha)
Fall Sale Updates & More!
Our Big Fall Sale continues with many fresh, new plants added. We are continually propagating and potting up plants, and some of them are just ready now, just in time to go on sale at 25% off!
Our 2022 Deep Discount Area opens today & our Big Fall Sale continues, with 25% off for everyone! Included in this week’s sale are:
Sept. 6 thru 11 Enjoy:
- 25% off perennials, grasses, vines, shrubs, and trees
- 20% off Roses. Note: the discount on roses will not increase
- 20% off Compost Tea.
No discounts on fruit trees, veggie starts, and bulbs.
Winter Solstice Greetings
Agave parryi in snow
As temperatures fall and the shortest day of the year approaches, most of us are taking a break from the physical work of gardening. But some of us are already beginning the seed-sowing process, following seed germination protocols for pre-treatment – from stratifying (exposing seeds to controlled cold temperature to break dormancy), scarifying (carefully sanding hard outer seed coats) to soaking in hot water or hydrogen peroxide solution, etc. At Harlequin’s, many of our growing-houses are full of seed trays or beautiful plants we potted up in the fall for spring 2023.[Read More]
Fall Sale Updates!
Our 2022 Big Fall Sale continues, with 30% off most plants!
Sept. 13 thru 18 take 30% off perennials, shrubs, and trees, and 20% off roses, soil products in big bags, books, and 20% off Compost Tea. (No discount on fruit trees, veggie starts, bulbs, and 2023 seeds).
We’ve added lots of timely COVER CROP SEEDS and BEEKEEPING SUPPLIES to our DEEP DISCOUNT offers!
In our experience, fall is the most successful time to establish most plants, especially when mycorrhizae are applied to the roots during planting (and we’re well stocked with several types of mycorrhizae!). We have a large and diverse selection of perennials, particularly in larger quart and gallon sizes, that are ready for planting. (Photo: Sedum “Matrona”)
Welcome to a Whiff of Approaching Spring!
Rock Garden Iris
It’s probably safe to assume you’re as anxious as we are to get our hands in the dirt, and happily, Harlequin’s Gardens is opening for our 31st season this Thursday March 2nd. We’re so looking forward to seeing you all again! We’ll have everything you need to get started for the season. Here’s what we’ll have available for you on March 2nd.
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.