 |
| Online Graphics from NOAA |
Monday, April 29, 2019
May Showers?
These last couple of "lion" weather days of April are not unusual in Colorado's spring repertoire. In fact we'd almost scratch our heads if we didn't have cold, snow or hail to deal with this time of year. What will May bring? Only NOAA knows ...
Thursday, April 25, 2019
Learn to Prune ... Roses ... for FREE
Depending
on your perspective, one of the most or least favored spring garden
chores is pruning the roses. Proper pruning means healthy regrowth with
eagerly awaited blooms. Conversely, roses have thorns (technically called prickles), some varieties more than others, but with proper gloves and long sleeves the work is quick.
If you're in the camp of not knowing how much to spring prune on the rose shrub or how far down to cut in to the cane, then may I suggest cancelling whatever you have scheduled on Sunday, April 28 and attend the learn how to prune your roses workshop hosted by the Denver Rose Society.
If you're busy this Sunday, there's another free pruning event on May 4 in Centennial, details below.
For Sunday's event - take a short drive to the Jefferson County Detention Center Rose Garden via 6th avenue (or another route of your choosing), exit at Johnson Road in Golden. Here's the direct link with all the helpful Google Map information Rose Garden at the Jefferson County Detention Center.
Why
go to a detention center to learn how to prune roses you may be asking
(I asked the same question when I joined the Denver Rose Society several
years ago)?
Because on the northwest side of the jail complex there is a rose garden that is tended by the inmates - the only one in the country with this type of landscape learning opportunity for jailed inmates. They have the chance to work outside during their sentence and provide a much needed service for the county. Talk about win-win.
The rose garden is open to the public and you'll find easy access picnic tables to enjoy the view of the foothills and roses - is that a nice combo or what! Read more about the jail rose garden - Jeffco Jail Rose Garden History.
Each year in late April the Denver Rose Society invites its members and the general public to attend this pruning workshop at the jail rose garden. You're welcome to just watch the demo and learn from the experts or bring your pruners and join in the pruning fun with some guidance and tips from DRS members. The best part (besides learning how to prune) is that we aren't responsible for removing the pile of spent canes, the inmates happily rake and toss them after we leave.
Here are the who-what-wheres-
Who: Denver Rose Society invitation, open to all, NO CHARGE
When: April 28, 2019, 9:30 am to 12:30 pm (come anytime during this window)
Where: Jefferson County Detention Center Rose Garden, 200 Jefferson County Parkway, Golden, CO 80401
What: (to bring): comfortable clothes, hat, sunscreen, water and snacks are provided. Grab your pruners and loppers, don't forget your gloves if you plan on participating.
Stuff to buy: Mile-Hi Rose Feed - one of the best organic fertilizers on the planet, made right here in Colorado. It's not just for roses, use it on any plant, vegetable or shrub that likes a boost of NPK and other good stuff. Plus there will be roses for sale from High Country Roses.
If you cannot attend this Sunday's pruning demo, don't stress, there's another FREE hands on learning opportunity on May 4, 2019 at the War Memorial Rose Garden across the street from Sterne Park. This opportunity is sponsored by the South Suburban Park & Recreation, 8:00 am to noon. Read all about it at this link. Come, learn, enjoy light refreshments and garden-themed door prizes. In case of bad weather, the back up date will be May 11.
Once
your roses are spring pruned, the garden season of blooms and enjoyment
really begins - at least in my garden book.
 |
| Roses need correct spring pruning! |
If you're in the camp of not knowing how much to spring prune on the rose shrub or how far down to cut in to the cane, then may I suggest cancelling whatever you have scheduled on Sunday, April 28 and attend the learn how to prune your roses workshop hosted by the Denver Rose Society.
If you're busy this Sunday, there's another free pruning event on May 4 in Centennial, details below.
For Sunday's event - take a short drive to the Jefferson County Detention Center Rose Garden via 6th avenue (or another route of your choosing), exit at Johnson Road in Golden. Here's the direct link with all the helpful Google Map information Rose Garden at the Jefferson County Detention Center.
 |
| Jail Pruning in Action (photo by Anna L.) |
Because on the northwest side of the jail complex there is a rose garden that is tended by the inmates - the only one in the country with this type of landscape learning opportunity for jailed inmates. They have the chance to work outside during their sentence and provide a much needed service for the county. Talk about win-win.
The rose garden is open to the public and you'll find easy access picnic tables to enjoy the view of the foothills and roses - is that a nice combo or what! Read more about the jail rose garden - Jeffco Jail Rose Garden History.
Each year in late April the Denver Rose Society invites its members and the general public to attend this pruning workshop at the jail rose garden. You're welcome to just watch the demo and learn from the experts or bring your pruners and join in the pruning fun with some guidance and tips from DRS members. The best part (besides learning how to prune) is that we aren't responsible for removing the pile of spent canes, the inmates happily rake and toss them after we leave.
Here are the who-what-wheres-
Who: Denver Rose Society invitation, open to all, NO CHARGE
When: April 28, 2019, 9:30 am to 12:30 pm (come anytime during this window)
Where: Jefferson County Detention Center Rose Garden, 200 Jefferson County Parkway, Golden, CO 80401
What: (to bring): comfortable clothes, hat, sunscreen, water and snacks are provided. Grab your pruners and loppers, don't forget your gloves if you plan on participating.
Stuff to buy: Mile-Hi Rose Feed - one of the best organic fertilizers on the planet, made right here in Colorado. It's not just for roses, use it on any plant, vegetable or shrub that likes a boost of NPK and other good stuff. Plus there will be roses for sale from High Country Roses.
If you cannot attend this Sunday's pruning demo, don't stress, there's another FREE hands on learning opportunity on May 4, 2019 at the War Memorial Rose Garden across the street from Sterne Park. This opportunity is sponsored by the South Suburban Park & Recreation, 8:00 am to noon. Read all about it at this link. Come, learn, enjoy light refreshments and garden-themed door prizes. In case of bad weather, the back up date will be May 11.
 |
| That's me a few years back getting ready to prune 'Gourmet Popcorn' |
Thursday, April 18, 2019
Front Range Plant Sales 2019 - UPDATED!
 |
| Online Photo from Front Range Organic Gardeners |
In the next few weeks through May and early June, some of the best garden plant sales are taking place up and down the Front Range of Colorado. Many are sponsored by non-profit organizations as fund raisers for their outreach programs throughout the year. The updated list is posted on the link below, plus it is highlighted as the FEATURED POST on the left side of my blog.
Front Range Plant Sales 2019 - Not to be Missed
Wednesday, April 17, 2019
Spring Sounds and Signs
By mid-April the sounds and signs of spring are distinctive. Birds begin their morning tweeting and twittering almost before sun up, no, they're not online. If the bird bath isn't refilled with fresh water before eight am they let me know with a loud chirruping chorus. A couple of blue jays seem to be the most vocal band leaders. Usually I hear them before I see them while I'm enjoying my morning oatmeal and coffee. Click here - jeer, jeer, jeer to hear their high pitched hellos. These greetings are unmistakable, so is their stunning assorted shades of blue, black and white-gray coloring.
The sound I generally loathe is the wailing of the mow-blow and go companies, which are on our block or neighborhood just about every day during the outdoor growing season. I'm hesitant to complain because I'm part of this seasonal noise pollution since we mow once a week. Of course our mowing noises are nowhere near the raucous made by other mowers ... not! Yard care companies are just getting started for the season. Lawns are growing quickly, like watching puppies mature on Facebook.
Not to make this blog a total rant (I do love the bird noises), but I also don't like seeing all the yellow warning "pesticides applied" signs throughout my neighborhood and Washington Park. I know people are busy, they don't like weeds in their yards and they don't have time or perhaps any desire to dig weeds on their days off or in their spare time, which they also don't have.
If they didn't spray I'd probably complain about the weed seeds that are blowing down the street from their boulevard to ours. I already have a boat load of bindweed from the immediate neighbor's front yard, which goes and goes and grows, as you know. So I pull and pull and pull.
Many of my neighbors, friends and blog readers have their yards sprayed by landscape companies. I mean no criticism.
What products are companies using when they spray lawns? Without writing a long weed primer here's what I know. The chemicals used can be different formulations of selective weed killers, that means the chemicals will target specific weeds and not grass turf. There are pre-emergent products that prevent weeds from germinating in the spring, these are mostly the grassy weeds like crab grass. Post-emergent chemical lawn treatments obviously mean the weeds are growing and need to be killed now or by Saturday when guests are coming over. The specific chemicals used, or their trade names aren't easy to find on lawncare company websites so you'll have to specifically ask them what they will be using - if you want to know.
You may be curious if and how these products may affect human, animal, insects, pollinators and landscape plants. I've linked to some helpful sites below. Keep in mind that reputable companies always leave full instructions about after care when walking on or entering sprayed landscapes.
After companies spray, they also leave a note on the door explaining what was sprayed that day, including the list of chemicals and the amount used. They also leave the bill in a handy mail in envelope. A note like this happened to blow over to my sidewalk not long ago and this company used MCPA, Mecoprop-p and Dicamba for their "customized lawn plan."
On walks we steer clear of these treated yellow sign areas for several weeks. It's more difficult to steer while walking in the park because they specifically spray the tree and shrub mulch rings where Ferris loves to smell and do his business.
Pets and Pesticide Use
PetMD
Purdue University College of Veterinary Medicine
Distribution of 2,4-D in air and on surfaces inside residences after lawn applications: comparing exposure estimates from various media and young children.
Detection of Herbicides in the urine of pet dogs following home lawn chemical application
Herbicide Drift and Drift Related Damage
How to Reduce Bee Poisoning from Pesticides
 |
| Ferris on our mostly weed free lawn, May 2018 |
The sound I generally loathe is the wailing of the mow-blow and go companies, which are on our block or neighborhood just about every day during the outdoor growing season. I'm hesitant to complain because I'm part of this seasonal noise pollution since we mow once a week. Of course our mowing noises are nowhere near the raucous made by other mowers ... not! Yard care companies are just getting started for the season. Lawns are growing quickly, like watching puppies mature on Facebook.
Not to make this blog a total rant (I do love the bird noises), but I also don't like seeing all the yellow warning "pesticides applied" signs throughout my neighborhood and Washington Park. I know people are busy, they don't like weeds in their yards and they don't have time or perhaps any desire to dig weeds on their days off or in their spare time, which they also don't have.
If they didn't spray I'd probably complain about the weed seeds that are blowing down the street from their boulevard to ours. I already have a boat load of bindweed from the immediate neighbor's front yard, which goes and goes and grows, as you know. So I pull and pull and pull.
Many of my neighbors, friends and blog readers have their yards sprayed by landscape companies. I mean no criticism.
What products are companies using when they spray lawns? Without writing a long weed primer here's what I know. The chemicals used can be different formulations of selective weed killers, that means the chemicals will target specific weeds and not grass turf. There are pre-emergent products that prevent weeds from germinating in the spring, these are mostly the grassy weeds like crab grass. Post-emergent chemical lawn treatments obviously mean the weeds are growing and need to be killed now or by Saturday when guests are coming over. The specific chemicals used, or their trade names aren't easy to find on lawncare company websites so you'll have to specifically ask them what they will be using - if you want to know.
You may be curious if and how these products may affect human, animal, insects, pollinators and landscape plants. I've linked to some helpful sites below. Keep in mind that reputable companies always leave full instructions about after care when walking on or entering sprayed landscapes.
After companies spray, they also leave a note on the door explaining what was sprayed that day, including the list of chemicals and the amount used. They also leave the bill in a handy mail in envelope. A note like this happened to blow over to my sidewalk not long ago and this company used MCPA, Mecoprop-p and Dicamba for their "customized lawn plan."
On walks we steer clear of these treated yellow sign areas for several weeks. It's more difficult to steer while walking in the park because they specifically spray the tree and shrub mulch rings where Ferris loves to smell and do his business.
Pets and Pesticide Use
PetMD
Purdue University College of Veterinary Medicine
Distribution of 2,4-D in air and on surfaces inside residences after lawn applications: comparing exposure estimates from various media and young children.
Detection of Herbicides in the urine of pet dogs following home lawn chemical application
Herbicide Drift and Drift Related Damage
How to Reduce Bee Poisoning from Pesticides
Thursday, April 11, 2019
Weather Whiplash 2019
In full transparency I didn't coin the short phrase "weather whiplash." They got it right though describing Colorado and many other states around the country this spring season. The whiplash I'm referring to was over two days - Tuesday, April 9 and Wednesday April 10 along the Colorado Front Range. On Tuesday we reached 79 sunny degrees, the next day the high was 59 that morning with afternoon rain, snow and worry about smashed crocus and daffodils. Nighttime temperatures were predicted to be in the low twenties.I was also concerned about the tiny arugula seedlings and recently seeded cool season leafy greens. Not to worry, gardening in Colorado brings to mind another handy phrase - "quick cover" using easy to install tunnels.
There was plenty of time on balmy Tuesday afternoon to put the inexpensive half-inch pvc plumbing conduit in place over the raised bed. Next, the floating row cover over the conduit served as insulation and protection from the buckets of moisture predicted (they predicted correctly).
Successful gardening in Colorado would be very difficult without floating row cover to protect seedlings from cold or hail. They're also handy to use shade cloth in place of frcovers for hail (when temps warm up). Or later in the summer when the plants need a bit of shade with ninety-five plus days. During the fall season they serve as season extenders - keeping warm season plants warm on cool nights below fifty degrees. Simply said, I like the flexibility of quick cover tunnels, they work very well. I remain jealous of a garden friend in Lakewood who installed permanent posts (in concrete) over his vegetable garden area with a built in pulley system that operates shade cloth for hail and heat protection. He said he got hailed out too many years so decided to fix the problem permanently. I need to get some pictures Jim!
Check out the video I did a few years ago with The Denver Post on making your own tunnels. Click here.
Notice in the photo below how the fall planted garlic in the foreground is green and happy, it came through this recent spring storm without batting an eye.
Buckle up hardy gardeners, they're predicting more storms and snow next week, plenty of time to get your tunnels in place!
 | ||||
| Snow over Tunnels 4-10-2019 |
 |
| Early Spring Planted Onions and small Arugula seedlings in Tunnels - A Okay from Cold and Snow! |
 |
| Old Laundry Baskets work well to Protect Cool Season Vegetable Transplants OR Spring Bulbs |
Thursday, April 4, 2019
Yellow - A Noticeable Spring Color
A few years ago a garden friend of mine said to be careful with the color yellow in the landscape. Too much and it's just too much. The eye will see yellow first and not take in the rest of the plantings until they've adjusted to the yellow color after putting on sunglasses. I'm not too shy to say that I like yellow, I'm sticking with yellow and no one is going to say that I have too much yellow in my garden - actually I don't have too much yellow, but if I did, I'd still defend this true color symbol of spring's arrival.
The top three spring yellow plants that come to mind are shrub forsythia, perennial basket of gold and Cornelian Cherry Dogwood, which is more of a small ornamental tree than shrub.
In our garden, we have one of the three - Cornelian Cherry Dogwood (Cornus mas) which is not as common as the other two plants. A neighbor down the street has an entire corner lot full of basket of gold - it over seeds and over populates more yellow plants each year - quite a head turner display when in full bloom. A simple prune of the seed heads after blooming would prevent the spread. My guess is this neighbor likes yellow too.
Forsythia is a fairly common plant almost anywhere in the country and can be quite impressive each spring, provided it is pruned properly. Too often on rarely pruned forsythias all that blooms are a smattering of blossoms on an old, tired shrub - pulling all the weight to show its yellow. Read here for an easy primer on pruning forsythia.
As I write this blog, our CCDogwood is in full bloom, the yellow isn't as bright as forsythia or basket of gold, but it is exciting to see this small tree's buds swell and bloom before a leaf even thinks of making an appearance. The honey bees are well aware of early pollen sources so they're buzzing and bundling up all they can get from our yellow blooming beauty.
Some of the photos below unfortunately don't capture our CCDogwood well, I think it's simply not very photogenic without leaves to give it more depth. Or it's me or the sun's fault. That just means you'll have to grow one yourself to see its unique yellow spring welcome. Read more here on growing Cornus mas.
The top three spring yellow plants that come to mind are shrub forsythia, perennial basket of gold and Cornelian Cherry Dogwood, which is more of a small ornamental tree than shrub.
In our garden, we have one of the three - Cornelian Cherry Dogwood (Cornus mas) which is not as common as the other two plants. A neighbor down the street has an entire corner lot full of basket of gold - it over seeds and over populates more yellow plants each year - quite a head turner display when in full bloom. A simple prune of the seed heads after blooming would prevent the spread. My guess is this neighbor likes yellow too.
Forsythia is a fairly common plant almost anywhere in the country and can be quite impressive each spring, provided it is pruned properly. Too often on rarely pruned forsythias all that blooms are a smattering of blossoms on an old, tired shrub - pulling all the weight to show its yellow. Read here for an easy primer on pruning forsythia.
As I write this blog, our CCDogwood is in full bloom, the yellow isn't as bright as forsythia or basket of gold, but it is exciting to see this small tree's buds swell and bloom before a leaf even thinks of making an appearance. The honey bees are well aware of early pollen sources so they're buzzing and bundling up all they can get from our yellow blooming beauty.
Some of the photos below unfortunately don't capture our CCDogwood well, I think it's simply not very photogenic without leaves to give it more depth. Or it's me or the sun's fault. That just means you'll have to grow one yourself to see its unique yellow spring welcome. Read more here on growing Cornus mas.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)