Callirhoe involucrata - Winecups
When you are buying plants for your garden this spring, consider adding a few natives to your garden.
Native plants typically provide habitat and food for more wildlife than non-natives adding to biodiversity. In an urban environment where wild places are fast disappearing every little piece of native habitat helps.
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Spanish draba (Draba hispanica)
Poor drabas! Such a colorless name…and they have other image problems too–that acid
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First Crocus at the Gardens
I checked my gardening journal this week. (I start each spring with good intentions, but writing in the journal occurs in inverse proportion to the amount of work that needs to be done in the garden!) I have been imagining that this winter has been longer and colder than recent winters. I wanted to verify that perception, using my crocus-o-meter.
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When gardeners dish the dirt, they may speak of soil, either their own or the soil they wished they had. It really is the bed in which you make your garden lie. So 2008 MacArthur ‘Genius’ award recipient David Montgomery, author of Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations, is the perfect speaker to help peer into our soil’s soul and see what sustainable means to the planet’s soil.
Speaking at March 4th’s Down and Dirty: the Scoop on Soil, Dr. David Montgomery will share his thoughts on the human relationship with soil. Today’s gardeners interested in growing food, enjoying beauty and living sustainably have many of the same challenges that humans have faced throughout history. Plant nutrition, soil erosion, healthy harvests, sustainable production all have underground dimensions: any garden’s foundation is literally the soil.
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Good things come to those who wait we are told. Helleborus vesicarius seedlings were set out in spring of 2006 after a supplier donated a pot full of 20 seedlings with the warning that it was a very tricky species to grow. He was in Virginia, not exactly a similar climate to southern Turkey and northern Syria where it is native. Denver is perhaps not an exact match either, but closer with summer drought broken only by sporadic thunderstorms.
Originating from montane elevations in alkaline clay soils, it has so far been hardier than predicated. ”Hellebores: a Comprehensive Guide” by C. Colston Burrel and Juduth Knot Tyler guessed zone 7. It has survived -10 degrees Fahrenheit with almost no snow cover
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A new decade brings more exciting transformation–to the Gardens, to our Botanic Buzz
e-newsletter (sign up here to receive your copy), and soon, to our Web site. How do you like our new blog design?
We have so many authors from all parts of the Gardens (click on the “More Authors” link in the right column under “authors” to see all of our most recent bloggers) that we wanted to make it even easier for you to learn some of our points of view about Denver Botanic Gardens and Denver Botanic Gardens at Chatfield by navigating through our new blog layout. I’ll be posting photos of our authors soon so you can see who we are.
Continue to enjoy our blog and these topics:
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Its when it gets cold that you appreciate warmth. Thick socks, long underwear, hats with ear flaps and home-knit scarfs become some of my favorite things. Standing over the heat vent while the furnace is running is not far behind.
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Christmas rose (Helleborus niger)
