Upcoming Fall Sale and More!

Dear Friends and Fellow Gardeners,

Welcome to Autumn and to Harlequin’s Gardens Fall Plant Sale!

Thank you for helping us stay in business and thank you for planting, watering, putting compost/carbon into the soil, and for feeding yourself and the birds and the bees from the magic of gardening!

Our Members Sale begins Sept 8 thru Sept 13.  For your special support, members are rewarded with 30% off all plants and 25% off books. Membership is still just $20; membership supports our demo gardens and has benefits. (Bonus: Free 2021 Membership to 2020 Members!)  Fall Sale for Everybody: Sept 8 – into October, beginning with 20% off most plants.  Details below.

 

FALL & WINTER GARDEN CARE

As summer moves into autumn, and before fall gets too cold, we have some of our best opportunities for successful planting and optimal fertilizing. The soil temperatures are still warm enough to encourage growth and soil life activity; and the cooler air temperatures help with planting success and are more pleasant for working outside. Even though roots will continue to grow for 2 weeks after leaves fall, the longer the plants have to establish strong root systems, the better they can absorb water and survive winter and Colorado’s often shocking spring weather.

We have found that inoculating roots with mycorrhizae (beneficial fungi) has been very helpful with planting success, even in hot weather.

Fall is THE best time to fertilize turf, perennials, trees, shrubs and even roses, if you use organic fertilizers. Fall is when plants store food in their roots for spring energy, and fall is when fruit trees, berry bushes and flowering shrubs form their flower and fruit buds.

Rake up diseased leaves from fireblight or fungal diseases and remove seed heads from aggressive seeders. Leave seeds of desirable plants and seeds for the birds.

You can extend the vegetable season by

• planting cool season veggies
• using row cover fabric over veggies to add 2-4 weeks more production
• use our heavy-duty tomato cages over tomatoes and peppers and cover them to protect from freezing
• mulch root crops to extend the harvest season
• plant Garlic in late September/October (seed garlic for planting coming soon!)

Winter Watering: Once our irrigation systems are blown out, we should water new plantings, especially the small plants, by hand or sprinkler once or twice a month, or more.

Lawns: September is the best time of year to aerate. Follow that with an organic fertilizer. Fall is also an excellent time to apply Corn Gluten, the organic weed and feed. Its 9% nitrogen provides fall fertilizing and it prevents weeds.

Products:

• Richlawn 5-3-2 Lawn Fertilizer: made from chicken manure, blood meal, feather meal
• Alpha One Fertilizer: alfalfa, cottonseed meal, blood meal, sunflower: for gardens and lawns
• Mile-Hi Rose Feed: with alfalfa and kelp; excellent for Sept; promotes repeat flowering, strength
• Yum Yum Mix: cottonseed, rock dust, alfalfa, rock phosphate, kelp: perennials, shrubs and xeriscapes
• Tomato & Vegetable Food and Harlequin’s Fertility Mix: both great for fall veggie planting
• Planters II: (Rocky Mt. Minerals) is a rock dust very beneficial for plant health and nutrient density
• Mycorrhizae: both Micronized Endo and new, nutrient rich Big Foot: Root support and survival aid
• Composts: 3 kinds, good quality, economical, locally sourced to use local wastes and reduce CO²
• Mulches: a fine wood chip and Soil Pep-a partially composted bark: both feed the soil organisms
• Potting Mixes: Symbiosis and Coco Loco – both nutritious and successful for containers
• Expanded Shale: a porous ceramic shale to break up heavy clay, hold air and water; lasts long

 

ORGANIC FALL VEGGIE STARTS & MORE!

More people are catching on to planting cool-season greens in the fall. 6 Kales, 10 Leaf Lettuces, 6 Spinach, and 3 Swiss Chard varieties, plus Arugula, Collards, & Senposai.   These new premium plants cannot be sold at a discounted price!

SEEDS: fresh from Botanical Interests and Seed Savers Exchange, for cool-season greens, cover crops, sprouting and micro-greens.

BULBS (no discount) coming in September: many kinds of bulbs and new varieties. Check our website for descriptions and photos of this year’s selection.

BEEKEEPERS: Visit our Bee Barn for regular equipment plus honey-harvesting supplies, fall feeding and Varroa Mite monitoring & control.   Kristina is there Sun, Thurs, and Fri!

BEE LOVERS:  Our high-quality plants are 100% free from bee-killing, nerve-toxin neonicotinoids. Most of our plants are free from all pesticides and fungicides. We accomplish this by questioning our sources and by growing a lot of our own plants organically.

DEEP DISCOUNT AREA: Opens Sept. 15 where you will find perennials and shrubs: 2 ½” pots reduced from $3.95 to $1.00; 4″ pots reduced from $6.95 to $3. Plus, Bargain trees, shrubs, and roses.

QUANTITY DISCOUNT ENTIRE NURSERY: 4” perennials in flats of 12 or 15 regular $6.95, full flats ONLY $4.50 each.  Mix & Match!

 

PLANTS

ORGANIC HERB STARTS: 7 Mints, Lovage, Echinacea, Lemon Balm, Pycnanthemum-Mt. Mint, Self-Heal, Sheep Sorrel, Garlic Chives, etc.

BERRIES: 4 kinds of Currants, 3 kinds of Serviceberries, 3 Gooseberries; Zone 4 Table Grapes, Black Raspberries.

FRUIT TREES (no discount): grown in our own potting mix, with mycorrhizae, and without pesticides or chemical fertilizers. Apples, Cherries, Plums, Peaches, and Pears.

VINES: Clematis, Trumpet Vines, Golden Hops, Porcelain Vine, Silver Lace Vine, Wisteria, and Purpleleaf Wintercreeper.

ORNAMENTAL GRASSES: Harlequin-grown, will thrive planted in September. Neonic-free!  Big Bluestem, Blue Oat Grass, Feather Reed, Little Bluestem, Silver Beardgrass, Prairie Blues Switchgrass, Beatlemania Carex, Carex brevior, Giant Sacaton, Blonde Ambition, etc.  Descriptions and pics here!

ROSES: Our proven, sustainable own-root roses. A huge selection of our premium plants. 20%-30% off!

TREES: Aspen, Ohio Buckeye, Hot Wings Maple, Hackberry, Native & Bur Oaks, Golden Rain Tree, Crab Apples, Catalpa, Sucker Punch Chokecherry, Cardinal Royal Mt. Ash, Honeylocust, Swedish Whitebeam, Sentinal Hackberry, Sensation Boxelder.

NATIVE SHRUBS:

Mt. Mahogany:

• Curlleaf-evergreen to 12’, loves sun and dry; great screen and windbreak
• True Leaf– deciduous native grows 2 miles from the nursery; 8’ very xeric, frontier plant
• Little Leaf: evergreen with Rosemary-like foliage, 5’; xeric native, great in-ground bonsai New Mexican Privet– Forestiera: 12’ small tree, graceful, good screen, low water

Plus: Apache Plume, Western Sandcherry, Snowberry, Lead Plant, Gambel Oak, Rabbitbrush, Boulder Raspberry, Cheyenne Mockorange, Sumacs, Chokecherry and more!

NON-NATIVE SHRUBS:

4 kinds of Cotoneasters, Tiger Eyes Sumac, 5 kinds Butterfly Bush, Ephedra, Potentillas, Spireas, Carol Mackie Daphne, Viburnams and Ninebark; 3 Kinds of Boxwoods.  Plus, Blue Mist Spirea, Russian Sage, Texas Red Yucca, etc.

JUNIPERS: Woodward, Blue Chip, J. communis ‘Crazy Mt.’, Rocky Mt. Juniper

HUNDREDS OF PERENNIALS:

Penstemons 8 varieties; Liatris, Mentzelia nuda, Aster, Anise Hyssop, Bee Balm, Gaillardia, Agastache (Hummingbird Mint); Whirling Butterflies, Prairie Ironweed, Perennial Foxgloves, Hardy Geraniums for dry shade, Coral Bells; 8 kinds of Veronica, Creeping thyme; Many Salvias; Tall and creeping  sedums, St. Bernard’s Lily, Day Lilies, Rudbeckias, Red Hot Poker, Thermopsis, Stachys lavandulifolia, 3 Teucriums, Iceplants, Asters and Much More!

WINTER-HARDY CACTI: Ball Cacti and several colorful Prickly Pears & Chollas

 

Are your friends receiving our weekly e-newsletters? If not, they’re missing timely advice and valuable education, plants just in, beautiful photos and Mikl’s humorous history of Harlequin’s Gardens! Send them to our website to “Join Our Email List” and forward them a few of our e-newsletters so they can see what they’ve been missing!

 

CALENDAR

Sorry, our Annual Taste of Tomato, festival & tasting WILL NOT be held this year.

Open: Tues thru Sunday.  October to be announced. (We may close mid Oct this year or run till the end of October.)

We hope to find a safe way to hold our Fabulous 9^th Annual Holiday Gift Market!  Stay tuned to our e-newsletters and website for announcements.  Hopefully Offering: exceptional local artisan goods: Eve’s gluten-free shortbread cookies, Engrid’s jams, local specialty foods and chocolates, herbal body-care products, bees-wax candles, jewelry, clothing & accessories, gift certificates, books, CDs, gardening tools & glove, planting calendars, gloves, Mikl’s  aftershave, science tools & toys, Amaryllis bulbs, honey & bee-keeping supplies; MANY other great gifts.

 

FALL SALE DETAILS

MEMBERS SALE: Tuesday: Sept 8-13 for your special support, you are rewarded with 30%% off plants, except Fruit Trees; 25% off books.

FALL SALE BEGINS FOR EVERYBODY: Tuesday Sept 8-13:  20% off most plants except veggies, fruit trees and bulbs.

Sept. 15 thru 20 enjoy 25% off perennials, shrubs & trees.  And 20% off Roses, and 20% off Compost Tea, The Deep Discount section will be opened: perennials $1.00 for 2 ½’s and $3 quarts + bargain shrubs, trees & roses; $.50 Hen and Chicks.

Sept. 22 thru 27 take 30% off perennials, shrubs, roses, trees, and books; and 20% off soil products in big bags and 20% off Compost Tea.

Sept. 29 thru end-of-the-season take 30% off perennials, shrubs, roses, and trees, and 30% off soil products in big bags, Books & Compost Tea.