At long last, Spring has finally returned!

Posted on March 20, 2021 by John Kevin Hickey

Spring has finally returned! The days are longer than the nights, the sunlight is more intense and life is finally returning to the garden. It’s time to get out there and do some gardening!

Oh.

Well, crap.

Such is the nature of spring; one day it’s sunny and warm and the next day you’re shoveling out from almost 2 feet of snow. If one is going to garden, then one must learn to roll with the punches.

While I have been waiting for conditions more conducive to gardening to return, I have been busy scheming on what I want to accomplish this year in my little slice of Eden.

Last year I sowed some Love-in-a-mist, California poppies and sunflowers directly into the garden. Sadly, my results were underwhelming. I did ok with the sunflowers, and a few of the Love-in-a-mist germinated, but the poppies were a bust.

This year I am going to try different annuals, and I am going to sow them out in the garden earlier than I did last year.

All of the annuals I am trying this year should reach heights of 4 to 6 feet. I have come to the conclusion that my borders need some taller plants. Most of the perennials in my garden are under 4 feet tall. This tends to make the view a tad monotonous in my view. I am hoping that a few taller plants will give the borders a stronger vertical element, which in turn will force the eyes to slow down and linger over the view.

The advantage of using tall annuals, as opposed to tall perennials, it that if I don’t like the look they provide I haven’t spent a ton of money on a mistake.

While these annuals are fairly tall, they are also fairly “sparse”, which means they shouldn’t overwhelm the borders.

The Cosmos is usually a fairly easy annual to grow, and I’ve had luck with them in the past. It should start blooming, if all goes well, in mid-summer. I chose ‘Rubenza’ because I want to add more red to the garden.

Tithonia, or Mexican Sunflower, will hopefully provide a pop of orange and yellow in late summer. I’ve never tried growing this annual before, so I have not idea what to expect.

The Verbena is also a new annual for me, and this one looks like it might be a little more involved than the other two. The seed packet recommends that I stratify the seeds, which means sticking them into the fridge for 2-4 weeks before sowing them. The instructions also say to sow them a few weeks before the average last frost date, unlike the other two which suggest sowing after the last frost date. The average last frost date in my area is usually early May, but most Colorado gardening experts recommend waiting until Mother’s Day before putting tender plants out.

I’ll probably look for potted versions of these annuals at my local nurseries to supplement the seed sowing, so as to improve the odds of succeeding.

Stay tuned for updates and wish me luck.

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Getting back out into the garden

Posted on March 10, 2021 by John Kevin Hickey

The first day of spring is now less than two weeks away. Hallelujah!

Temperatures late last week and early this week were consistently in the 60s and 70s, which allowed me to get outside and do a little spring cleaning. Or more precisely, a little late winter cleaning. However, colder temperatures and the possibility of two feet (!) of snow looms ominously in the forecast later this week.

But that is the nature of spring, for spring is a big tease. One day the skies are clear and the temps are in the 60s, the next you’re freezing your ass off while digging out from a foot of heavy wet snow. But that’s alright, for the days are longer and when the sun is shining its light warms the body and soul, even on days that are cool and windy.

No more procrastinating, it’s time to clean up the garden

As I mentioned above, the weather was conducive for cleaning out the deadwood from last years garden. I don’t clean my garden up in the fall for a couple of reason. One, I like to leave the plants so as they can provide a little bit of winter interest. I would much rather look at the remnants of last year’s garden than vast swaths of bare ground.

Two, because the seed-heads of many of the flowers provide a food source for the birds that don’t migrate, and the stalks and faded leaves are excellent safe havens for the offspring of the “good” insects such as ladybugs and masonry bees.

Three, because never do today what you can put off for 4 or 5 months!

Some before and after pictures:

The cleanup of the long border is going to be delayed for awhile until the snow melts.

There isn’t really a whole lot to say about the cleanup itself. It was a mess, now it isn’t. Oh, and a lot of back and hamstring pain for my efforts.

However, one of the fun (?) aspects of cleaning out the old remnants of last year’s garden is hunting and finding signs of life for this year’s garden.

Jupiter’s Beard stirring from its slumber
It’s ALIVE! (‘May Night’ salvia)
Young columbine leaves peaking out from the wreckage.

In other news, a pain in the ass announces his return

Another sign of spring’s impending arrival is the return of the woodpecker Lothario who likes to use my chimney cap as an avian version of Tinder. It’s not even spring yet and he’s already waking us up at ungodly hours on the weekends.

Jerk.

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Gardening in the West: why brighter colors are better

Posted on February 15, 2021 by John Kevin Hickey
Vibrant colors of red, orange and yellow on Blanketflowers

Judging by what I’ve read in gardening books and magazines over the years, pastel colors in the garden are what every ornamental gardener should aim for. Supposedly, pastel colors make for soft and subtle effects in the garden, and thus create a sense of harmony.

For those of us who garden in the American West, I must reply: rubbish and other such strong language. Out West, bolder and brighter is the way to go.

But first, a little exposition

I enjoy watching BBC’s “Gardeners World”, especially the segments that take place in the garden of Monty Don, the show’s host. Ol’ Monty and his wife live in Herefordshire, England, on a plot of land they call ‘The Gardens at Longmeadow‘. Because Longmeadow is so large, Monty has broken it up into smaller sections or “rooms” (check out his garden here: Longmeadow — Monty Don) to make it more manageable.

While a large portion of his landscape is dedicated to edible gardening, he does have quite a few ornamental borders. But many of his ornamental gardens are predomintly pastel. In fact, he has a section he calls “the white border” that is completely devoted to white and light pink flowers! While I will admit his ornamental borders look absolutely phenomenal, and ones I am envious of, the fact is that most of them fail to enthrall me.

Except for one: he has named one border the “jewel garden”. And, as you can imagine by the name, this border is full of blooms of intense hue and tint. And, because I am a fan of strong colors in my own garden, this border is my favorite. It is much like the one that I am attempting to create in my own landscape.

Color wheel gardening

There are a couple of reasons why I like strong colors in my garden. For one, I am not afraid of color. In fact, I like colors that punch me in the eyeballs. I think many gardeners are afraid that plants with bright colors because they fear they will “clash”. These are gardeners are the ones most likely to use a color wheel to ensure their garden “harmonizes”. Thus, they end up with a garden that looks a lot like the decor in our houses: various shades of beige.

Color wheel

Perhaps it is because I grew up on the high prairie that borders the Rocky Mountains that I am not inclined to worry too much about colors clashing. On the prairies of the West, plants of all hues and tints grow near one another and the effect is pure magic. Nature doesn’t use a color wheel, and for the most part, neither do I. I’m not going to say I don’t try to incorporate color wheel techniques, but I am not one to follow the method slavishly.

The sun is a harsh mistress

That brings me to my other reason for preferring bright colors: out here in the American West, landscaping with bright colors is practically a requirement if the gardener wants to create any impact at all.

The East and South have much higher humidity levels in the atmosphere than we do out West. All that moisture in the air tends to create a “haze” that diffuses and softens light from the sun. This softer sunlight allows pastel colors to separate themselves and stand out. It allows these paler colors to truly shine.

Those regions are generally at much lower altitudes than we are out here in the West. This means the atmosphere is a bit thicker in those regions, which also contributes to less intense sunlight.

(As an aside, I have read several articles over the years that state one of the joys of autumn gardening in the East is that with cooler temperatures the humidity drops, which leads to the haze dissipating. One side effect of this is that the sky suddenly turns a bright clear blue. The descriptor “cobalt blue” is used quite often in these articles. Heck, in most places out here in the West, the sky looks like that most days of the year!).

“Karl Foerster” reed grasses, Russian sage and Black-eyed Susans stand out against a bright blue sky in early August.

Not so out West; due to the lower humidity levels and the higher elevations that we have throughout most of the West, the sun here is very bright and intense. One might even say it is downright harsh. And that intense sunlight tends to wash-out pastel colors. All those subtle colors of pink, yellow and blue get bleached out and turn the garden borders into giant blobs a shade of dirty-white .

Nope, out here in the West, color saturation is a gardeners friend.

Intensely red tulips greet greet the springtime sun.
Bright blue penstemons and deep blue salvias stand out in the praire garden next to the driveway.
Bright yellow Black-eyed Susans practically glow in the early morning sun in late August.

Monty Don has inspired me to come up with a name for my own garden. I am pondering ‘The Gardens at Ironing-board Flats’. What do you think?

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