Blog Post

Top Perennial Flowers for Spring Color
By Jodi Torpey

One of the best flower combinations I’ve planted for spring color happened by accident. One year I planted the lovely low-growing perennial called basket of gold. The next year I planted several containers of creeping phlox. I wish I’d planted these perennials together sooner.
Basket of gold is a little treasure, with its dense green foliage and small, bright yellow flowers. The phlox has small lavender flowers, but the brilliant pink phlox would’ve been a nice choice, too.

The combination makes for a stunning spring flower display that returns year after year.
But you don’t have to wait for a happy accident for these spring bloomers to appear in your flower garden. You can plant this colorful combination together right now.
Use them as a border in front of taller perennials, plant them in your rock garden or add them along the walk that leads to your front door. These garden gems will creep and crawl to fill in the space with a super splash of spring color.
After the first blooms fade, the plants leave behind a lush green groundcover. If you trim the spent blossoms, there may be a second, smaller blush of flowers later in the season.
Once you’ve added these colorful groundcovers, keep going.

Flowering shrubs provide plenty of potential for spring color, too. One of my all-time favorites is Forsythia because its vivid golden-yellow flowers boldly announce spring has finally arrived.
Forsythia is an all-purpose garden shrub that can serve as an attractive specimen plant when planted alone or it can be used along a border as a flowering hedge when several shrubs are planted together. While shopping for flowering shrubs, you might want to look for those that can add even more oomph to your garden. There are many shrubs, like Nanking cherry, Serviceberry and Golden currant, that burst forth with brilliant flowers in spring, then set fruit that attracts wild birds to your landscape in summer.
After a full season of beauty, these deciduous shrubs shed their leaves, but their beautiful bare branches give structure to the garden all fall and winter.
Do you have any favorite flowering combinations for spring?

Planting Cool Season Crops

By Jodi Torpey

If you’ve had enough of winter, then it’s time to celebrate spring. Even if there’s a light dusting of snow on the ground, it’s time to start thinking about planting your cool season garden. Really.

March 17 typically signals the day to plant cool-season vegetable crops like carrots, lettuce, spinach, peas, radishes, broccoli, cabbage, onions and turnips. Getting outside to plant a spring garden, no matter its size, will banish winter-time blues and give you some fresh, good-for-you veggies.

These hardy vegetables can tolerate a light frost, and some can survive a hard freeze. Most of these cool weather crops can be planted anytime from 2 to 4 weeks before the average last spring frost.

You can either start by planting seeds or buying ready-to-plant cool season crops, like onion sets, that makes planting even easier.

Soil temperature plays a role in planting these early crops, so check to make sure the soil is diggable and is fairly dry. I’ve had good luck in the past planting a variety of leaf lettuces and spinach in my patio container garden.

This works well for me for several reasons: I can move containers into the sunniest spot on the patio, monitor the greens more closely, and toss a cover on the container garden if the weather turns especially cold. The containers are also right out the backdoor, making it easy to clip and bring inside.

An easy way to plant some cool-season greens is to use a garden fork to scratch the surface of the soil, sprinkle part of a package of seeds about 1/4-inch deep, lightly cover with soil and sprinkle with water. It will take about a week or so for the seeds to germinate.

If you have a spot along the sunny side of a fence, peas make for good planting there, especially if the bed is raised. There are lots of peas to choose from including shelling (or English) peas, sugar snap peas and snow peas. Choose several varieties or just the ones you prefer to use in your cooking.

To guarantee a long season of harvesting peas, plant early, midseason and late varieties. Some peas can be ready in just 50 days.

For best results, soak seeds overnight before planting to make for easier germination. Train peas to climb some kind of support, mulch and keep them moist. It’s especially important to water when the plants are in blossom and producing pods.

What would you like to add to your spring garden this month?

See more Cold Weather Crops Here

Spring Gardening Tips for Ornamental Grasses

By Jodi Torpey

Ornamental grasses ask so little from gardeners and give back so much. They offer nearly four seasons of interest to our gardens and require hardly any maintenance.

That is until it’s time for some spring cleaning in the garden.

Most ornamental grasses are perennial performers, and after winter they need to shed their old foliage so they can start growing again. Gardeners can help encourage healthier grasses by cutting back the old growth to make way for the new.

Besides growing a healthier plant, cutting back ornamental grasses in spring encourages earlier growth. That’s because the plant can spread out to let the crown to warm up faster.

It’s best to cut back grasses before they start growing. You don’t want to shear off any new growth while you’re cutting back the old. It’s a good idea to pull on a long-sleeved shirt and a pair of gardening gloves. Some ornamental grasses have sharp leaves.

1. Stand back and visually divide the grass into thirds. You’ll want to leave about one-third of the grass standing.
2. For easier handling after the grass is cut, bundle the leaves together and tie with a rope, twine or bungee cord. Tie about two-thirds of the grass into the bundle.
3. Use pruning shears, an electric hedge trimmer or hand pruners and cut across the plant, leaving about one-third standing.
4. Take the bundle of grass to the compost bin for shredding or place it in a large trash bag to chop and use for mulch later in the season.

 An added benefit of cutting back ornamental grasses is you can see if there’s any die out in the center of the plant. This is fairly typical with older perennial grasses and it’s a sign the plant needs dividing.

Depending on the size of the plant, use a trowel or a shovel to carefully dig up half of the grass, including plenty of roots. Transplant to another part of your garden or pass along to another gardener.

Cutting back and dividing perennial grasses is a great way to spring forward on your early season garden clean up.

What tips do you have for taking care of the ornamental grasses in your landscape?

Growing Healthy Houseplants

By Jodi Torpey

Have you taken a good look at your houseplants lately? Are there yellowing leaves, brown leaf tips or leaf drop? If so, your plants are trying to tell you something.

Many houseplants, like philodendron, palms and ferns, are tropical plants and they don’t like cold weather any more than we do. A winter’s worth of low light, fluctuating indoor temperatures and dry air means plants need some extra special care.

Besides adding greenery to the indoor scenery, healthy houseplants provide the vital function of exchanging carbon dioxide for oxygen to improve indoor air quality. Plants also filter common toxins and keep our green thumbs in shape for gardening season.

Houseplants do so much for us, they deserve a little TLC. Here’s how to give your houseplants a boost of good health by adjusting temperature and humidity, lighting, watering and fertilizing.

Temperature and Humidity

Houseplants prefer a consistently temperate indoor climate. In general, houseplants do best when daytime temperatures are 65 to 70 degrees and 60 to 65 at night.

Keep plants away from entry doors to protect them from cold drafts and make sure leaves aren’t touching chilly windows. Some plants may need to be moved to a warmer spot, as long as it’s not near hot air vents, fireplaces or radiators.

Humidity, the amount of water moisture in the air, benefits people and plants alike. Experts recommend an indoor humidity level between 30 to 40 percent. While some homes are equipped with a whole-house humidifier, a portable room humidifier can also do the job.

Placing plants on trays of moist gravel and clustering them close together can also increase the amount of humidity around plants. Although it works temporarily, misting isn’t an effective way to sufficiently increase humidity levels.

Light

Light levels change from winter into spring and some plants may need to be moved to a sunnier window. Because plants will grow toward the light source, be sure to turn plants every so often to prevent them from becoming leggy or misshapen.

If you have blooming houseplants, like begonias, fuchsias or African violets, consider supplementing natural light with fluorescent or plant grow lights. Artificial lighting is usually placed one foot above plants. Expose plants to about 16 hours of light each day.

Water

Did you know over watering is the reason most houseplants meet an untimely demise? Instead of watering on a regular schedule, adapt your watering habits to match the plant’s needs. Some plants need consistently moist soil; others need soil that dries a bit between waterings.

If you’re not sure when to water, allow the upper one inch of soil to dry before watering again. Discard any excess water that drains into the saucer.

Fertilizer

Spring is the time when houseplants start growing again, so it’s time to begin fertilizing. Use an all-purpose houseplant fertilizer or a plant-specific fertilizer to get the best results.

One last thing, show your plants how much you care by dusting their leaves with a soft, moist cloth. Not only will they shine, but you’ll be able to catch any plant health problems early so you can nip them in the bud.

This gardening season is going to be an especially healthy one if gardeners follow advice from the National Garden Bureau (NGB). The organization has decided 2017 should be the year of the underappreciated vegetables in the Brassica family.

Brassica plants, like cabbage and broccoli, are some of the most delicious and nutritious vegetables we can grow in our gardens. Some of the other healthful vegetables in the Brassica group include Pak or Bok Choi, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, collards, kale, kohlrabi, radish, rutabaga and turnips.

These vegetables provide loads of vitamin C and soluble fiber, plus they’re known for their healthy doses of glucosinolates. Research shows this important compound helps reduce the risk of some cancers of the digestive tract. Red Brassicas, like purple cabbage, are even more nutritious because they contain a powerful antioxidant.

Besides being known for their health benefits, Brassica vegetables are some of the earliest to harvest because they thrive in chilly weather. Gardeners can begin planting these cool-season crops 4-6 weeks before the average date of the last killing frost (around the middle of May in our area) or when nighttime temperatures are still in the 40s.

All of the cool-season vegetables are easy to grow whether you have a large vegetable garden, a few raised beds or even a container garden on the patio or balcony.

You can also plant and grow these beneficial vegetables from seeds or transplants. One of the easiest ways to get started with your cool-season vegetable garden is to purchase transplants at Nick’s Garden Center. Then as soon as the time is right and the soil is dry enough to be workable, plant them in a spot that gets 6 or more hours of sun a day.

If you’d like to grow your own vegetable transplants, like cabbage and broccoli, follow seed package instructions and start seeds indoors the required number of days or weeks ahead of planting time. Slowly expose transplants to their outdoor conditions before planting.

Some Brassica vegetable seeds can be planted directly in the garden, like kale and radishes. Just dig a furrow in the soil and plant seeds ½ to 1-inch deep and several inches apart, depending on the seed packet instructions.

Cover lightly with soil, water in gently and keep consistently moist. Follow the instructions for thinning seedlings after they’ve grown about 2-3 inches tall.

Brassicas can withstand light to moderate frosts and even a layer of snow; however, be prepared to protect plants at night if a hard freeze is predicted. Use row cover cloth, old sheets, plastic milk jugs, buckets or other plant coverings. Remove plant protection each morning.

Harvest your healthy vegetables while they’re still small and tender. Then enjoy them grated into salads, tossed into soups, sautéed with other vegetables, simply steamed, or quickly stir fried to get the tastiest and most nutritious results.

Bonsai is the art of finely-sculpting miniature trees to recreate how they appear in their natural setting. It’s a hobby suited for any gardener who enjoys spending time nurturing plants. Unlike a typical houseplant that needs intermittent care, bonsai trees need a few minutes of attention on a regular basis.

That’s because these miniaturized trees are planted in shallow pots where soil can dry quickly. But with attention to detail, bonsai trees can live to be more than 100 years old.

To see some fine examples of beautiful bonsai exhibits, take a stroll through the Bill Hosokawa Bonsai Pavilion at the Denver Botanic Gardens. When the weather warms in late spring, the trees move from the greenhouse to outside for the summer. This bonsai collection is especially relevant because it includes Colorado native species, like Ponderosa pine, Aspen and Colorado Blue spruce, some over 250 years old.

Each bonsai is like a little work of art, grown in a specific style and shaped with a sculptor’s eye while pruning the roots and branches. Each bonsai is meant to replicate the look of an ancient tree on a miniature scale.

Bonsai that take years to cultivate may cost thousands of dollars, but it’s inexpensive for beginners to get started at the hobbyist level. A suitable plant, soil, bonsai pot and scissors are all that’s needed.

A good option for bonsai beginners is to select a tree that’s meant to grow indoors. Tropical plant plants, like ficus, schefflera, portulacaria, cherry, and serissa, can do well indoors.

Bonsai can be grown outside in cold weather areas, if the tree is matched to the growing conditions. While most growers use greenhouses to protect their trees in winter, some trees can be protected through the winter in a cold frame or other sheltered area and watered to keep it from becoming dehydrated.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the hobby is that growers can start with a small tree and grow it larger or start with a large tree and grow it smaller. The difference is how it’s pruned and cared for.

Select a container that complements the tree’s size, shape and color. Most containers are shallow so they can show off some of the tree’s roots. Because of this, consistent watering is critical, and the soil should never dry out completely.

Be sure to give bonsai 5-6 hours of direct sunlight each day, whether the tree is grown inside or out.

Growing bonsai in the Japanese tradition means a little time each day is spent with the tree in quiet observation. This time allows the caretaker to observe the tree’s growth and consider how to prune, trim or wire the branches for the future.

There are some classic bonsai shapes that represent how a tree looks in its natural environment. Shapes can include formal upright, informal upright, slanting, semi-cascading, or cascading. Within these basic shapes are categories referred to as broom, windswept, driftwood or exposed root.

If you’re interested in exploring this ancient hobby, there are a number of good books that provide step-by-step instructions for getting started.

There are some exciting garden trends emerging for this New Gardening Year. I’ve looked into my crystal ball and can clearly see gardening will become more than just planting the landscape or tending the garden.

In 2017 people will still turn to gardening for exercise and a way to relax in the outdoors. But gardening will take on new meaning as individuals look for a deeper connection to their lawns, landscapes and vegetable gardens.

First, I’ve noticed more attention is focused on creating wildlife-friendly spaces. One reason is a growing awareness about the plight of Monarch butterflies and honey bees. News reports have led to more interest in not only planting to attract wildlife, but helping to sustain it. Even non-gardeners understand how important it is to care for wild birds, bees, butterflies and other important insects.

In addition to providing more food-producing plants for winged wildlife, the trend is toward using fewer pesticides, herbicides and synthetic chemicals, too. Fortunately, there are more organic options on Nick’s Garden Center’s shelves than ever before.

The second gardening trend is that gardeners simply want to garden more. In our cold-weather climate, that means trying to stretch the gardening season so it lasts longer. Gardeners want to get an earlier start each season, and they want to keep gardening even when the outdoor season ends.

Thanks to new developments, gardeners can do more than garden on the window in winter. Today’s hydroponic and aquaponic systems make it easy to grow indoors 365 days a year. New advances in high-intensity lighting provide super-bright, full-spectrum light, that’s also energy efficient.

T5 lights are small-sized fluorescent light bulbs that can fit into smaller spaces. They can be used to start seeds in spring or keep herbs and other edible plants growing indoors all year long. Houseplants also benefit from the bright lighting, and vertical planting systems make growing an indoor wall of plants a reality.

A third gardening trend will have a positive effect on those who want to grow their own food, even if they don’t have space for a vegetable garden. Small-space gardens can now sprout just about anywhere, from balconies to front porches and concrete driveways.

Plant breeders keep coming up with smaller-sized plants that produce full-sized fruit. And garden suppliers keep inventing new systems that can fit smaller spaces. Experienced and first-time vegetable gardeners alike are turning to online classes and gardening apps for ideas to help with planting and growing small-space gardens.

As part of this vegetable gardening trend, growers are looking for organic options, and they have a no-GMO mindset. That’s why new labeling on nearly every seed packet clearly states the seeds are untreated and non-GMO.

A fourth gardening trend has to do with saving water in the landscape. Some gardeners will replace thirsty lawns with water-wise plants and others will be on the lookout for more efficient ways to water them. I envision a future of more drip irrigation, soaker hoses and old-fashioned hose dragging. Smart technology will help improve irrigation efficiency, too.

Those are the four gardening trends I see this coming year. What trends would you like to add to the list?

I know a gardener’s real wish for the holidays is for planting time to hurry up and get here. Instead of trying to rush the season, let’s shake off the doldrums by giving (or getting) a dwarf citrus tree for the holidays. It’s like adding a little sunshine to every chilly day.

An orange, lemon, grapefruit or kumquat tree may be more at home in California landscapes, but as container plants they do just fine in Colorado. Potted citrus trees are a novel holiday gift because they provide many seasons of enjoyment, especially those with fragrant, sweet-scented flowers.

For the best present, select a healthy potted tree, that’s several feet tall. Make sure it’s in a container with good drainage, and be sure to include a saucer large enough to catch any excess water. A thoughtful addition to the gift is a rolling plant stand to make it easier to move.

In fact, moving a citrus tree is part of the fun of growing one. These trees like to spend time outside during warm weather, but need to be moved indoors when the temperatures start to drop in fall. A slow transition from outside to inside and back again helps trees become acclimated to each temporary living space.

Now that winter is near, dwarf citrus trees become extra-special houseplants as they spend the cold months indoors. Trees can do just fine in a cool indoor setting, but they will do best in a sunny, south-facing window.

No sunny spot? No problem. There are plenty of simple supplemental lighting options to ensure the tree gets enough light through winter.

Light is certainly important, however, watering is the most critical aspect of caring for trees – as in don’t overwater! Indoor trees need soil that’s on the drier side to prevent roots from rotting.

Too much water is the number one reason for an indoor container tree’s decline. Because the tree doesn’t use as much water as it would during a hot summer, it simply needs less. The soil has to dry between waterings.

Before watering, wait for signs of wilting, like droopy leaves. Another gardener’s test is to use a short ruler to poke into the soil and measure whether it’s dry to at least 2 inches before giving it a drink.

In addition to root rot, consistently wet soil can encourage other problems, like attracting insect pests.

When gardening indoors with container citrus trees, it’s important to keep an eye out for signs of insect activity. A weekly inspection for small white insects, webbing on branches or brown lumpy areas on leaves is all it takes to spot a potential problem.

Similar to treating some insect pest issues on outdoor plants, a good spray of water may dispatch pests quickly. Some gardeners also add a small amount of alcohol to the water spray and wipe leaves with a soft cloth.

When the nighttime temperatures are consistently warm in spring, move your container tree outside to a sheltered area, like a covered porch or patio, and protect leaves from sunburn.

Spring is also a good time to fertilize with a citrus tree formula or a well-balanced, slow-release plant food.

After the tree flowers, it may take six months or longer for fruits to mature and ripen. Be patient, and you’ll be rewarded with the gift of fresh oranges or lemons to enjoy no matter what the season.