Instead of maintaining a Kentucky Bluegrass lawn, why not try an area of Natural Meadow, combining well-adapted grasses, wildflowers and perhaps some shrubs too. Such a Meadow can conserve water and fertilizers and should not require pesticides or herbicides. Like all gardens, the first 2-3 years will require more weeding, then less after plants grow together. It can be beautiful, provide habitat for birds, butterflies and beneficial insects, while taking water into the ground, preventing erosion and capturing carbon. [Read More]
Plants
This Week’s Featured Plants
You’ll be delighted with this week’s featured plants – water-wise, regionally-adapted and beautiful.
Choose among Corsican Violets (pictured), Tansy, Rosemary, native Prairie Winecups, and more![Read More]
2024 Vegetable Starts
HARLEQUIN’S GARDENS 2024 TOMATO STARTS
“Anasazi” |
Aunt Ruby’s German Green |
Beam’s Yellow Pear |
Better Boy hyb. |
Big Rainbow |
Black from Tula |
Black Krim |
Brown Sugar |
Black Sea Man |
Blush |
Burrell’s Special |
Bush Early Girl |
Carbon |
Carmello hyb. |
Cascade Village Blue |
Cherokee Purple |
Chianti Rose |
Chocolate Cherry |
Cosmonaut Volkov |
Early Girl Hyb. |
Flaming Burst |
Floradade |
Garden Peach |
Glacier |
Gold Medal |
Gold Nugget |
Green Zebra |
Isis Candy cherry |
Japanese Blk Trifele/Black Truffle |
Jaune Flamme |
Juliet hyb |
Large Red Cherry |
Maglia Rosa |
Martino’s Roma |
Matt’s Wild Cherry |
Mexico Midget |
Moskvitch |
Mountain Delight Hyb |
Native Sun |
Orange King |
Paul Robeson |
Peacevine cherry |
Pink Berkeley Tie-Dye |
Pink Brandywine, Sudduth Strain |
Pink Bumblebee |
Principe Borghese |
Pruden’s Purple |
Red Robin |
San Marzano II |
Sasha’s Altai |
Striped German |
Stupice |
Sun Gold hyb |
Sunrise Sauce |
Super Sioux |
SuperSweet 100 hyb |
Sweetie |
Tasmanian Chocolate |
Taxi |
Thessaloniki |
Tidy Treats hyb |
HARLEQUIN’S GARDENS 2024 PEPPER STARTS
SPICY PEPPERS
Anaheim |
Adaptive Early Thai |
Aji Cristal |
Ancho Poblano ‘Bastan F1’ |
Big Jim Anaheim |
Chimayo |
Czech Black OG |
Early Jalapeno |
Fish |
Hot Red Cherry |
Hungarian Hot Wax |
Jalapeno TAM (milder) |
Korean |
Lemon Spice Jalapeno |
Long Red Narrow Cayenne |
Caribbean Red Habanero |
NuMex 6-4 (milder Anaheim) |
NuMex Sandia |
Pasilla Bajio |
Mosco (Pueblo) Mirasol |
Purple Tiger |
Santa Fe Grande |
Serrano Tampiqueno |
SWEET and MILD PEPPERS
Aurora |
Biquinho, red |
Italian Pepperoncini |
Lanterna Piccante |
Shishito |
Aconcagua |
Buran |
California Wonder |
Cambuci |
Cubanelle |
Golden Treasure |
Gypsy Queens |
Habanada |
Healthy |
Jimmy Nardello’s |
King of the North |
Carmen F-1 |
Marconi Red |
Mini Belle |
Purple Beauty |
Sheepnose Pimento |
Sweet Chocolate |
Sweet Pickle |
Sweet Red Cherry |
Yankee Bell |
Onions on the Way!
We just received word that our onion plants were shipped today and should arrive and be ready for sale by Friday or Saturday! We’ll be offering onion plants in bundles of approximately 60 to 70 plants, and half-bundles of approximately 30-35 plants.
Strawberry Fields Forever!
We’re pleased to bring you a wonderful selection of Colorado-adapted strawberries with real strawberry flavor! You can choose Ogallala, Earliglow, Ft. Laramie, and Yellow Wonder Alpine. March is the perfect time to prepare your bed for planting these delicious fruits that will come back for several years. [Read More]
Save the Date – Opening Day March 1st!
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]
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.
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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, 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, 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, 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, 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
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]
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]
Homemade Elderberry Syrup
A healthy herbal remedy used for centuries, we love making this from berries harvested from the gorgeous elderberry shrubs and trees we can grow right here in Colorado!
This easy-to-make syrup recipe comes from Boulder wellness coach and herbalist Mitten Lowe.
Late Fall Musings
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.
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.
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.
2023 Bulbs – Updated!
This fall Harlequin’s Gardens is offering many varieties of spectacular fall and spring blooming bulbs, in addition to specialty holiday bulbs such as amaryllis and paperwhites! We are working hard to provide you with detailed descriptions and photos of each bulb. Check back often as our listing will continue to fill-out. Click on names for descriptions and photos.
Our bulbs have arrived! Supplies are limited, with some bulb selections selling out fast. So, although it’s best to wait until mid-October to put most in the ground, stock-up now!
2023 BULB LIST
ALLIUM
Christophii (albopilosum)
Mountain Bells Mixture
20% Off Trees!
For our Fall Sale
Harlequin’s is offering an exceptional variety of trees, mostly in easy-to-plant 5-gallon sizes and some larger in 10 or 15 gallon pots. Our container-grown trees have complete root systems, unlike most big trees sold that have most of their roots left in the field when they are dug. Our trees start growing right away and they don’t need staking or excessive watering. Some of our hard-to-find varieties are in short supply, with only 1 or 2 specimens available.
Patio Trees
MIKL’s ‘MACRO BONSAI’ PATIO TREES FOR YOURSELF!
Every so often, one of the trees or shrubs we’ve grown or received from a grower displays interesting twists, bends, curves or dwarfing that suggest the character of Bonsai specimens, but much bigger. Mikl has been collecting and cultivating these ‘Macro Bonsai’ for quite a few years. We have some available for sale right now.
Help Fall Plantings Beat the Heat
Fall is among the best times to plant perennials. While we may begin to wilt from late summer heat, many plants rise to the occasion and burst into bloom! As days begin to grow shorter, perennials spend the next few months developing root systems or taproots that delve well below the hot, dry surface soil. Pollinators depend on finding pollen and nectar sources through the entire summer, so it’s important to include late-summer and autumn bloomers in your garden.
Here are a few suggestions for successful planting.
Versatile Vines for Colorado Gardens
Vines are very valuable for their versatility, variety and vigor, especially in the vertical plane. Sorry, I couldn’t resist. Many of us live in urban environments full of walls and fences, and closely packed homes with narrow side-yards. Those of us in townhomes, condos or apartments have only tiny patio gardens or balconies offering little opportunity for greening our outdoor spaces. Or, we live in new developments built on open farmland without mature trees and shrubs for shade or screening. In all of these situations, vines can quickly provide short-term or long-term solutions to provide privacy or shade, maximize our connection to the earth, block unpleasant views, cover ugly surfaces, or add a vertical dimension to the garden. And some vines can also work as groundcovers in tough situations, like under evergreen trees.
More About Vines
We’ve got a wonderful selection of vines right now! Last week we gave you an overview of vines and how to use them, based on their mechanisms for climbing. This week, let’s get into the details of some individual varieties.
Fruit Trees for Your Yard
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is NOW.” While this ancient Chinese proverb still rings true, fruit trees can begin to bear at a pretty young age, bringing satisfaction much sooner than a tree planted for shade or major presence in the landscape. We carry a wide selection of fruit trees proven to thrive and produce here in Colorado and taste great, and the apples, pears, cherries and plums on the list in the link below are in stock right now so that you can plant your own for years of enjoyment. (We don’t have peaches out at the moment – ask when you come in).
Summer Garden Beet Salad Recipe
from Mitten Lowe at Journey to Wellness
I love beets and beet greens for how grounding and nutritious they are – providing folate, dietary fiber, manganese, potassium, iron, antioxidants, phytonutrients, and more! This wonderful garden beet salad is a perfect way to utilize all parts of the beet plus it’s versatile and so incredibly satisfying.
Ready Now
Remember Spring of 2023? Cool, rainy and cloudy? We had many thousands of plants coming along from seed, cuttings and plugs. And under these challenging conditions, some of them took a very long time to reach the point when they became ready for sale. But they’re ready now! And some of our best groundcover plants for dry shade or part sun, Plumbago and hardy Geraniums (Cranesbills) are among them!
Here’s a list of some of the great plants, including many native plants (noted with an asterisk), we now have in stock.
It’s Garlic Season!
GARLIC HARVESTING, CURING & STORAGE
Now is the time to check your garlic plants to see if they are ready to dig up. The ‘rule of thumb’ is to harvest when the lower one third or half of the leaves on the plant have turned yellow. So, if your plant has 8 leaves, harvest when the 3 or 4 lowest leaves have turned brown but there are still mostly green leaves higher on the plant.
Time to Sow for Fall Harvests
The next few weeks are the perfect time to sow arugula, beets, small carrots, lettuce, kale, radish, and more!
You’re looking to sow veggies that will be harvestable before our first big frosts – often in early October.
We’re proud to bring you seeds from Botanical Interests. They say, “Nurturing seeds in the garden slows us down to reconnect to nature and earth, develops bonds in a community, and creates family traditions and memories. We’re so happy to be a part of that!” And we are, too!
Another Spring Wildflower Ramble
In spite of cloudy skies and not-so-distant rumblings of thunder, Mikl and I had another opportunity to ramble among the wildflowers last week. This time, we chose the easy Lichen Loop trail at Heil Ranch, just off Lefhand Canyon Road. It’s amazing how long we can take to walk a mere 1.3 miles! Our excuse was the amazingly rich floristic display brought on by the combination of copious rain and wood ash from the Calwood Fire.
[Read More]
Lovely Lilacs: A Few Recipes
Lilac time is a very special and very short sweet time for us here in Colorado. Here are a few ways to use these flowers for health and well-being, from Mitten Lowe at Journey to Wellness.
We recommend harvesting lilac flowers while they are in full bloom, and making delicious medicine to enjoy through the rest of the year.
[Read More]
Trees for a Changing Climate and a Resilient Urban Forest
by Mikl Brawner
If you look at old photos of Colorado Front Range cities, you won’t see many trees. And if you look up native trees of Colorado, you will find a lot of mountain-growing conifers and just a few deciduous trees that grow natively along streams. And yet the quality of life for us humans depends on trees.
Beautiful, Bountiful Biennials
Does everyone know what a biennial plant is? It’s a plant that spends its first year of life building a substantial root system and a basal rosette of foliage. In its second year, it will have the resources to support a season of massive blooming and seeding. After having done its job, it dies away, leaving the future of its kind to the new generation of seedlings it has created.[Read More]
Benefits of the Beautiful Dandelion
Thinking this cheery yellow-flowered plant is a weed? Think again.
First of all, dandelions provide much needed early-season nutrition for the bees. If that wasn’t enough of a reason to let them into your garden, every part of this plant is good for you. Since ancient times dandelion has been used as a spring tonic. (That’s right, we’re suggesting eating the weeds!).
Blooming Without a Care
by Mikl Brawner
DitchWeeds, Wildflowers, Native Forbs
Call them what you will: when Nature chooses, She knows what She’s doing. And She doesn’t need a human audience. Nature is happy playing to the bees, wasps, butterflies, moths and beetles. We humans can learn a thing or two just by noticing and appreciating Nature’s perfect performance. And that’s just what we gardeners do.
[Read More]
Own-Root Roses
Did your roses take a hit from the unusually cold winter we just experienced? Perhaps they look as though they didn’t make it, showing brown, shriveled canes and no new growth above the ground. Or maybe there are no signs of life on the canes, but there is new growth just coming up from the ground. Either way, if your roses are growing on their own roots, you’re in luck. If they were grafted onto a rootstock, the prospects are not so good.[Read More]
Q: Can I plant now?
Q: Can I plant now?
A: It depends!
Yay! Warm days remind us that the threat of frost will soon be gone! If you’re planting hardy perennials, shrubs, vines, grasses or trees, you’re good to go now (as long as your soil isn’t too wet to work). Our stock of seeds and starts for cool-season greens like arugula, spinach, chard, kale and lettuce are in and ready to plant. And you can get a head start on tomatoes!
Self-Sowing Hardy Annuals
Some customers wonder why we are selling starts of self-sowing hardy annuals like Larkspur, Rocky Mt. Beeplant, California Poppy, Peony-flowered Poppy, Sweet Alyssum and Desert Bluebell. Shouldn’t they be grown from seed sown directly in the garden? The answer is Yes, they certainly can be, and if you find a source for the seeds and sow them at the optimal time, usually in the fall, you can get great results. But some gardeners report having little or no success with direct sowing: their timing is off, the seeds are watered in and then dry up and are no longer viable, critters eat the seeds, etc. [Read More]
Thanks, Volunteers!
Last Saturday a group of dedicated plantspeople came in from the cold to learn and volunteer with Harlequin’s Gardens’ expert propagator Gary Meis. We’re passing a few of his native plant seeding and propagation tips along to you.
Warming Herbal Tea Recipe
Herbal Teas are some of the best home-grown medicines! This time of year infusions of herbs from Harlequin’s Gardens plants you’ve grown can keep you well, and warm.
Allium aflatunense ‘Purple Sensation’ (Giant Purple-flowered Onion)
Purple Sensation Allium
Bulb. Z3. 24-36” tall. Blooms late spring to early summer. Compost-improved soil.
Really a garden standout. It’s the statuesque spring blooming bulb that your neighbors always admire and ask about. 4-5” spherical flowerheads are deep purple and attractive to pollinators including bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. Deer and rabbit resistant. Gorgeous in flower arrangements cut fresh or dried. Easily naturalizes throughout your garden. Wonderful planted with Moonshine yarrow, artemisias with grey foliage, and orange-flowering geums like ‘Mrs. Bradshaw’.
Allium amplectens ‘Graceful Beauty’
Circa 1857, this delicate-looking yet easy-growing North American native has composite 3″ globes of star-shaped, sparkling white flowers with pale lavender stamens tipped with purple anthers and sturdy stems.
Bloom time: May/June. 12″ to 16″ tall. Zone 4-8.
2023 Garlic List as of September 2023
Garlic & Shallots Are Here!
It’s time to buy your ‘seed’ garlic, which you should store in a cool, dry, well-ventilated place until planting time, from mid-October to mid-November. Seed garlic bulbs are specifically chosen for planting because they are the healthiest bulbs with the largest cloves, and they are intact. By planting the largest cloves, you’ll be rewarded with a harvest of big, juicy bulbs.
Garlic has been cultivated since very ancient times. The varieties that developed in different areas express the terroir of their locale, greatly influencing the local cuisines.[Read More]
Second Chance Shrubs
Our shrubs are all given great care here at the nursery, but occasionally we find some that have a little damage or are sulking because they really want to get out of the pot and into the ground. To help them all find good homes where they will grow and prosper, we are bringing out these ‘seconds’ at substantially discounted prices. We will continue to bring out more as they sell.
Right now, we are offering: [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)
Daylilies Shine in Mid-Summer
Daylilies are old favorites for good reasons. They are:
Low maintenance
Cold hardy (to USDA Zone 3)
Moderately drought-tolerant
Very attractive to butterflies and hummingbirds
Adaptable to a variety of soil conditions
Disease-free and pest-free
Graceful, eye-catching, and long-blooming
Available in a very wide range of colors and sizes
Rabbit-resistant
Fast-growing
Good for erosion control
Edible and tasty
And we still have some wonderful varieties in stock! And they are in bloom! [Read More]
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.
Watering in the Heat
In this period of high heat, we need to take special care of ourselves and our plants. Just as it makes sense to drink more water in the heat, it makes sense to water plants more often than usual. We water twice as much in July as we do in other months. BUT REMEMBER that plant roots need air, too. And if the soil is continually wet, plant roots won’t be able to use the water, and may rot. The best approach is still to water deeply, but not too frequently.
Versatile Hardy Geraniums
Hardy Geraniums are some of the most versatile an adaptable perennials for our area! Available in many colors and habits, they can be useful in sun and shade, moist and dry, as individual specimens, companion plants and ground covers.
These are not to be confused with Pelargoniums, the popular house plant, container and bedding plant Zonal “Geraniums” and Ivy “Geraniums,” which are not cold-hardy outdoors in Colorado. The name “geranium” is derived from a Greek word meaning little crane, hence the common name “cranesbill” which refers to the appearance of the seed heads. [Read More]
Harvest Time
I don’t know about you, but I’ve had to forego some of my morning rituals to make time to reap the bounty from my garden these last couple of weeks. I fully expected the temperatures in the 90s and occasional triple digits to stall the production of my tomatoes, but somehow the blossom-drop and lack of fruit-set experienced in previous very hot summers never materialized, and now I’m bringing in armloads every few days! And how about them eggplants! Swiss Chard, Collards and Kale abound, and my Tromboncino climbing Zucchini is feeding the neighborhood.
I have two new tomato varieties to add to my list of top favorites: Tidy Treats and Tasmanian Chocolate (I’m a sucker for anything with chocolate in the name or ingredients list).
Bur Oak, the ‘Smart Tree’
Bur Oak (Quercus macrocarpa) is a majestic, slow-growing tree reaching 60 to 70’ in height and spread, and is typically very long-lived (think 200, 300+ years!). It’s the sort of tree you plant for the benefit of the generations to come. Many oak species don’t thrive in Colorado’s alkaline soils, but Bur Oak is a happy exception. It is also drought-tolerant once established, even in dry clay, and can handle city conditions quite well. Bur Oak’s strong wood and strong, almost right-angled branch connections resist breakage in wind and snow. [Read More]
Boulder-Dushanbe Teahouse Rose Garden
We would like to invite you to visit the Boulder-Dushanbe Teahouse Rose Garden in downtown Boulder across from the city park. The unique treasure of an intricately handcrafted, traditional Tajik Teahouse was gifted to the city of Boulder by the citizens of Dushanbe, Tajikistan, one of Boulder’s Sister Cities, in 1988. In time, the design of the structure was amended to be able to house a restaurant business, construction was completed, and the Teahouse opened in spring of 1998. Both the inside and outside of this fabulous building are elaborately adorned with colorful carved, painted and sculpted elements, mostly traditional, plus some contemporary artistry.
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ARTICHOKE
- IMPERIAL STAR
- ROMANESCO
ASPARAGUS
- JERSEY KNIGHT – Bundled roots. All-male hybrid with bigger spears. Does not make seed, so doesn’t become weedy. Best selection for dense clay soils. Very productive and disease-resistant. Zone 2.
- PURPLE PASSION – Bundled roots. Beautiful deep burgundy-colored spears with high sugar content, tender, less stringy, great raw in salads. Zone 2
BROCCOLI and other broccoli-like vegetables
And Other broccoli-like vegetables:
- AMADEUS HYBRID
- ASPABROC – 50-60 days, OP. A gourmet variety with exceptional flavor and texture, from top to bottom, Aspabroc is the original Broccolini, developed more than 20 years ago, a cross of Italian Sprouting broccoli and Chinese Kale (Gai Lan), a leafy, thick-stemmed type with fabulous flavor. The asparagus look and texture of its slender, succulent stems, and peppery-sweet bite of its broccoli flavor inspired the name. Very high-yielding; the key to harvesting Aspabroc is to cut the tiny central head as soon as it’s formed, to promote great side-shoot production for many weeks to come. Asprabroc will thrive in spring or fall, but isn’t as frost-tolerant as heading broccoli. Protect with Row Cover cloth in freezing temperatures. Plants reach 20-24” and should be spaced about 8-10” apart. Great in containers too!
- CALABRESE
- FIESTA HYBRID – 86 days, hybrid. Compact plants, tight domed heads, big side-shoots, stands hot, cold.
- NUTRIBUD – 58 days, open pollinated. Nutritious, large heads, many side-shoots, delicious mild flavor, very early.
- SPIGARIELLO DI LISCIA (Leaf Broccoli) – 65 days, open pollinated, heirloom. Instead of heads this Italian heirloom produces sweet, broccoli-flavored leaves and tops over a long season. The more you cut, the more you get! Pick as needed for soups, stews, pasta, ravioli-stuffing, stir-fries and salads. A gourmet treat used in the traditional Italian soup ‘Minestra’, hence the name.