Editor’s note: This is part of The Know’s series, Staff Favorites. Each week, we offer our opinions on the best that Colorado has to offer for dining, shopping, entertainment, outdoor activities and more. (We’ll also let you in on some hidden gems).
Gardening in Colorado isn’t for the weak-hearted.
It’s taken me decades of battling clay soil, grubs, slugs, beetles, weeds, drought and my own ignorance to arrive at a comfortable truce with my yard. No more do I throw my hands up in disgust every time I walk outdoors.
But it’s been a difficult — and costly — road.
In the spring, I would say prayers over my victims when I purchased hundreds of dollars worth of perennials and annuals, many of them destined to die in short order. An East Coast transplant, I once had high hopes for those acid-loving rhododendrons and Cape Cod-blue hydrangeas. I had silly visions of South Florida azaleas and bougainvillea thriving at 5,000 feet (RIP, lovely plants). Thousands spent on soil additives, organic fertilizers and pampering, all useless.
Even plants that should have survived around my central Denver home (I’m looking at you, the dozens of Columbine that rejected my affection, or the handful of clematis that wilted on my trellis) haven’t stood a chance. Every year, the same thing. Crushing rejection.
It takes its toll on the spirit.
But this year, I have come to terms with my inability to consistently nurture nature. Thanks in part to this spring’s unusual rains, I am focusing instead on what I can grow more than what I can’t. And it all started early, when my beloved bleeding hearts poked their little heads up on the sides of my raised bed, a reminder that I don’t completely suck at growing things.
Those babies speedily spread out into little mounds of foliage, and when that first little drop of pink appears … ahhh. “You can do this,” they whisper.
And I can. The zinnias are coming up, from seeds originally given to me by a now-deceased friend who would proudly show his own flowers to guests; a new dwarf apple tree is pushing out little shoots of life; red and orange poppies are thriving hallelujah in a partly sunny spot where nothing would grow before; baby boxwoods are staying green along a newly rebuilt fence.
And I marvel at the survivors: two 15-year-old Rose of Sharon bushes that have decided to overwhelm a little side garden but get chewed up by beetles each summer; a Japanese red maple from a Massachusetts stand of saplings nurtured by my long-gone father, a tree that for years struggled to make it in Colorado’s climate but now looks like it might stay for a while; vines of concord grapes and blackberry bushes that grace me with sweet fruit every season; and the north-facing lilac that flowers still, 25 years on.
They are supplemented by some hardy annuals that most years can withstand my attempts to kill them: flowing calibrachoa, spreading petunias, spiky dianthus, leafy coleus and feather grass. And look at me go: I even saved some heirloom seeds from last year’s tomatoes and actually grew seedlings this winter, which are now 4 feet tall and fruiting in giant pots and in my raised beds.
As for the bleeding hearts, when the blooms finally disappear in early summer and the leaves turn anemic, I cut them down and plop pots packed with bright geraniums on top of the hibernating roots until those, too, give up in the fall.
Next year, I may try a new perennial somewhere, recommended to me by Denver Post gardening columnist Betty Cahill: mountain mint (Pycanthemum muticum). “It attracts the most pollinators I’ve ever seen in my garden, ever,” Cahill said. “It’s not a huge head turner in blooms, but the shape, gray/green leaves and subtle flowers make it ideal to plant in any sunny to part shade garden.”
Will I ever learn to pass by that periwinkle hydrangea in the garden center that so reminds me of summer back home instead of condemning it to a horrible death? Probably not. Cause that’s part of what gardening is, too, amirite? Dreaming of what we might be able to grow.
And starting all over again next year.