Front Range gardeners, fear not: You have not been transplanted to British Columbia, though this spring’s weather may have led you to believe so.
Given cold rains this week, you may have taken advantage of time you could not actually spend in your garden by spending money in a nursery greenhouse.
But if you have not yet purchased your plants, while it’s still nasty outside, and you’re inside reading about gardening, allow me to make a case for one of my favorite resources: Plant Select.
When you’re shopping for plants this season, look for the Plant Select tags. Why? I’m glad you asked. Here are several reasons:
• I spend so much time writing about gardening that I don’t always have a lot of time to research which plants grow best in my neck of the woods—or city, as it were.
Plant Select does our homework for is. All due diligence on the Plant Select palette is conducted by the real pros—leading experts from Colorado State University, Denver Botanic Gardens, and Colorado’s green growing industry. The scientists are on it: That impresses me.
• Plant Select holds up a long list of rigorous requirements for their plants. If a plant makes the Plant Select cut, you can rest assured that it won’t be too thirsty or too invasive or display other annoying qualities in a plant.
• Plant Select favors native plants, which makes sense for your garden and for our planet.
• Plant Select has a wonderful website that allows you to browse, checking out images and growing habits of all plants in the now extensive palette that includes a few annuals, a lot of perennials, trees, shrubs, rose, vines, groundcovers—pretty much every category in the plant kingdom.
If you seek success in your Front Range garden and you care about the planet and your pocketbook, familiarize yourself with Plant Select. I’ve attended that last two workshops sponsored by Plant Select at Denver Botanic Gardens. I plan to attend again this June to learn more about these cherry-picked plants and to sample more of the palette in my own garden, where so far my Plant Select selection lives up to its name.
••• "Cultivate your corner of the world. You grow your garden; your garden grows you." •••
Colleen Smith’s first novel, “Glass Halo”— a finalist for the 2010 Santa Fe Literary Prize — is available in hardcover or e—book.
To learn more:
• Become a friend on Facebook, or follow FridayPublisher on Twitter.
Comments