New horticulturist joins Laramie County Extension team
Published April 19, 2024, in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle
By Barb Gorges
I’d like to introduce you to the new University of Wyoming Extension horticulturist for Laramie County, Hannah Morneau.
Catherine Wissner, the previous horticulturist, retired last June, and the Laramie County Master Gardeners found themselves on their own for teaching this winter’s Master Gardeners 60-hour, 10-week class. Luckily, Hannah, who is also a Master Gardener, started her new job about the time the class started so she could absorb the same local knowledge as the 30 students.
The growing season will be Hannah’s busy time. Farmers, ranchers, gardeners and homeowners will all have plant questions. Sometimes she can forward those to Master Gardeners with expertise in a certain area that might call for a yard visit (Catherine always sent me the bird questions). Or maybe emailing a photo for plant ID or plant pest or disease ID will work.
In addition to detective work, the county extension horticulturist can make recommendations for not only solving problems, but avoiding them, such as recommending what to grow. For years, I’ve enjoyed the perennials recommended to my neighbor across the street for their front yard.
Besides Master Gardeners, Hannah will also be working with 4-H and other educational programs for youth and adults.
This is not Hannah’s first time working in Cheyenne. She was a summer intern for the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens in 2021, in the Children’s Village, for a combination of gardening and teaching experiences.
Hannah grew up on her family’s cattle ranch outside Lander, Wyoming. But she was more drawn to growing produce, preserving it and selling the excess at the farmer’s market.
Her first job on her resume is three years working at Sprouts Greenhouse outside Lander, a full-service garden center that grows most of the plants it sells.
Next, Hannah headed for Sheridan College, where she received an associate’s degree in horticultural science. While there, she was an intern for Rooted in Wyoming, which describes itself as a developer of “school and community agricultural projects to directly improve access to locally grown food for Wyoming families.”
Overlapping that experience, Hannah also worked at the Sheridan Research and Extension Center, one of four centers operated by the University of Wyoming in locations around the state.
Then it was on to the University of Wyoming for a Bachelor of Science in Agroecology and Rangeland Ecology and Watershed Management. While in Laramie she worked on campus at the Rocky Mountain Herbarium and the Williams Conservatory.
After a summer at the Pitkin Forestry Nursery of the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho, learning about growing seedling trees and more about greenhouses, Hannah finished her time at UW as an undergraduate teaching assistant for the basic botany classes.
Her first job after graduation was with Harris Native Seeds in Bozeman, Montana, where she learned about the production of native grass and flower seed.
Hannah’s resume mentions she also knows her way around a variety of agricultural equipment and knows how to maintain them.
So, what we have in Hannah is a well-rounded horticulturist.
If you aren’t familiar with Extension, or at least not in Wyoming, you should visit the University of Wyoming Extension website: uwyo.edu/uwe.
You’ll find written materials and videos on all kinds of ag and home gardening and landscaping topics. Plus, there might be classes coming up. If you have kids, look into 4-H. Kids don’t have to live on a farm or ranch to take part—it’s not all livestock. Hannah is helping teach a 4-H vegetable gardening class this spring, from seedlings to fair entry preparation, and it might not be too late to sign up. Contact dawns@uwyo.edu.
Do you have a question for Hannah? The day I interviewed her, she had just been out consulting with a landowner about replacing a windbreak destroyed by one of the recent fires. While fire is usually good for prairie grasses, Hannah stressed being mindful of erosion and how important reseeding with native grasses is. And how important it is to be prepared for wildfires.
Hannah can be reached by phone at 307-633-4480 or by email at hmorneau@uwyo.edu.
Laramie County Master Gardeners, interns and other volunteers plant the extension of the Habitat Hero garden at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens June 1. Photo by Barb Gorges.
Laramie County gardening wizard retiring
Published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle June 16, 2023.
By Barb Gorges
After 21 years, Laramie County Extension Horticulturist Catherine Wissner is retiring. She has often been my go-to person the 12 years I’ve been writing this column.
It’s difficult to find hyper-local gardening information online or in print. Every location is different. In Wyoming, it is hard to generalize because of our variety of elevations, precipitation zones and weather patterns.
You need the voice of experience, someone like Catherine who, over the length of her Extension career, has been on numerous yard calls to help locals solve landscape, gardening and farming problems. The plants she suggested to my neighbor are still colorful and going strong years later.
Catherine augmented her professional horticultural training and previous experience by listening to experienced local gardeners. She made her accumulated wisdom available to Laramie County, including teaching the Master Gardener classes.
By July 1, Catherine will no longer be officially available and there is no one immediately taking her place. I don’t know if she will be going from her role as Laramie County Master Gardener advisor to unpaid volunteer like everyone else, and still be available for questions. We should at least let her have a vacation first.
In the meantime, the “Ask a Master Gardener” committee is ramping up. Chair Marie Madison is setting up a table at every Tuesday Farmers Market at the mall, southside of J.C. Penney, starting June 13, 3 to 6 p.m. Bring your questions, pictures, unidentified plants and plant problems.
I’ve been doing a little teaching myself and realizing how much I don’t know. Wanda Manley and I went over to give a program about Habitat Hero for the Laramie Audubon Society, about planting native plants for pollinators and other wildlife. Even though Laramie is on the plains like Cheyenne, it is 1,000 feet higher, and their growing season is shorter. Their list of native plants might include more alpine species.
Then, at the last minute I was asked if I could Zoom in the next night with the same PowerPoint program for Evergreen Audubon in Evergreen, Colorado, a mountain town with the same elevation as Laramie. However, my list of prairie native plants might not all work there.
One of the questions was how to grow flowers under evergreens, especially lodgepole pine. Property owners in Cheyenne recognize the same problem and vainly try to grow grass when the better solution is to not cut the lower branches of spruce and pine and enjoy the natural groundcover of old needles. Less work.
However, in the mountains, it seems to me property owners should be studying Firewise recommendations (search for the column I wrote at my http://www.CheyenneGardenGossip.wordpress.com site) in which evergreens, being very flammable, should be removed within a certain distance of buildings, replaced by a less flammable rocky or grassy or flowery terrain.
Some horticultural advice can pertain to wider areas. Kenton Seth, the crevice garden guru who designed the one at the entrance to the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens conservatory, showed me a new way to plant.
When transplanting a potted plant to the garden, pop the plant out of the pot. Then gently remove all the potting soil from the roots. Some people even wash the roots before planting directly into the new soil. Kenton does this because a regular root ball isn’t going to fit into one of his rock crevices.
Removing all the potting soil means that instead of confining themselves to it, the roots will have to reach into the new soil and will establish more quickly.
I’m not planting in rock crevices like Kenton, but holding a small plant with wispy roots coming from a 2.5-inch pot, I realize I can essentially plant it in a crevice I make with my hand trowel, hori hori or soil knife. I just plunge the tool in the soil, wiggle it enough so there’s room to tuck the roots in and press some dirt in the opening – much easier than digging a hole.
I’m not sure all 11 volunteers helping me plant the extension of the Habitat Hero garden at CBG June 1 caught on to my planting technique. But all these daily rain showers have erased any inconsistencies. When I checked June 4, all the transplant droopiness was gone.
We didn’t have enough fence to protect all the new plants, but Isaiah Smith, the horticulture and operations supervisor, thinks that with so much lushness to choose from everywhere, the rabbits won’t decimate the unprotected plants, like they did when we planted the first part in 2018.
At home, I’m doing a little editing of my own Habitat Hero garden. I’m replacing more non-natives that filled in the gaps early on with natives I started last summer in my little nursery plot. We will see if the bees, butterflies, bats and birds notice.
The layout of Lois and Dan Prickett’s backyard garden uses the “room” concept, giving it a sense of intrigue. Photo by Barb Gorges.
Grow your garden room by room
Published March 17, 2023, in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle
By Barb Gorges
Last summer, Lois and Dan Prickett invited her fellow Master Gardeners over to tour their garden, which was 25 years in the making. I volunteered to stay out front to welcome visitors while they chatted with people in the backyard.
Much of the small front yard was devoted to a berm with a wonderful show of native flowers for pollinators. But when I finally got around to the back…oh my gosh!
Yes, it is bigger than the average backyard for the central part of Cheyenne, but it was the multiple horizons that made me want to follow the flagstone path to the points of interest in the distance.
Now, in bleak late winter, while sitting at their table, Dan explained to me the “room” concept he and Lois have implemented. He saw a TV show about it years ago.
Instead of one lawn area with shrubs and flower borders around it, the yard has been subtly divided into rooms. But each area is not square or entirely walled in – it just has enough trees, shrubs and tall flowers marking its boundaries to keep you from seeing everything all at once.
Each section offers a peek to pique your interest. And yes, there is still some lawn.
Some of the highlights include fountain and pond in the far corner, gazebo, garden shed/greenhouse, dead tree, patio, and flagstone paths and retaining walls.
Dan was trying to remember how many tons of flagstone they ordered. Many pallets were delivered. But now plants curl around the edges and they look like they’ve been there forever.
However, this spring, some of those flagstones will have to be pried up. Lois and Dan will be installing drip irrigation and sprinklers with timers because they want to travel, and no family members are available to water.
Previously, Dan had a system for getting each area watered about twice a week by moving a sprinkler around. Lois got him a timer so he would have a reminder for moving the hose and wouldn’t accidentally leave the water on all night.
A shirttail relation, recently trained in designing residential irrigation systems, will be helping the Pricketts plan the placement of the lines and the size of the emitters. But there will undoubtably be rocks in the way needing to be moved temporarily.
Lois told me she wishes she’d taken the Master Gardener training 25 years ago, when they first started working on the backyard, instead of waiting until retirement. They might have planned a little better and saved themselves some extra work.
The other advantage to the training is understanding where to plant which plant. Back where she grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, “You stick stuff in the ground and it grows,” said Lois. But here, she lamented, “Things lay down and die.”
Master Gardeners trained her to analyze information to choose the best plants for her location to improve her rate of success and save money.
At this point in her life, Lois is looking for more perennials – food, as well as flowers, like her iris bed and butterfly garden, so she won’t have so much to plant each year. She and Dan already have fruit trees and shrubs, grapes and rhubarb. The new asparagus patch is coming along. Next on the list, horseradish.
A long time ago Lois discovered the efficiency of tulips reblooming year after year and said she has planted them heavily in the backyard. There are so many that every May she was always able to cut a big bouquet for her office for National Nurses Week and you couldn’t tell any were missing. However, a few years ago, voles got in and ate quite a few bulbs, and she’s been replanting each year since.
By chatting with Lois and Dan the last day of February, I thought I might get some tips on their early garden preparations, like seed starting. But Lois said she’s just getting into that. She usually relies on the Master Gardener plant sale for tomato and pepper plants. This year, it is May 6, out at the Archer Events Center. Next year, their garden shed/greenhouse should be ready for some seed starting.
March is a good time to start some greens in a cold frame, or tomatoes under LED grow lights. I have lots of information from local gardeners at my website https://cheyennegardengossip.wordpress.com/, or in my book, “Cheyenne Garden Gossip,” available at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens and other local gift shops or online.
Just remember, Cheyenne’s average last day of frost is around May 25, but you should be ready to protect your tender plants from frosty nights as late as the first week in June.
Growing tomatoes without staking them is a common practice where Charlie Pannebaker is from. Photo by Barb Gorges.
There’s more than one way to grow a tomato in Laramie County
Published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle Nov. 18, 2022.
By Barb Gorges
Tomatoes are the epitome of backyard vegetable growing. They test both your gardening know-how and your ability to adapt to your circumstances.
This past summer, two of Laramie County Master Gardeners’ informal garden tours, open to members, friends and family, featured tomatoes, but grown in radically different ways. However, both gardens were located west of town at substantially higher (read “colder”) elevations than Cheyenne.
Ron Morgan discusses his greenhouse tomato growing method. Photo by Barb Gorges.
The first garden, off Happy Jack Road about halfway to Curt Gowdy State Park, is the playground of Ron Morgan. His solution to cold growing conditions 500 feet higher than Cheyenne is to use a greenhouse.
With plenty of experience in the construction trade, Ron built a sturdy wooden frame covered in plastic sheeting used for high tunnels and other less-than-permanent structures. Wind and hail made short work of the sheeting, so he installed rigid plastic, 6 millimeter twinwall, which has survived the hail so far.
Ron is also an able internet researcher, and found a clever irrigation system he could build out of used kitty litter buckets and new rain gutters, based on Larry Hall’s “Gutter Grow System.”
Each tomato plant gets its own 5-gallon bucket. A hole is cut out of the bottom and a small basket-like device fits in it, extending below. The buckets sit side by side on top of the rain gutter, with the soil in the little baskets catching the water that fills the gutter, watering the buckets by osmosis. A float determines when more water is automatically added to the gutter.
Ron has 104 buckets on one system, 23 on a shorter system, and is currently growing a few other kinds of vegetables besides tomatoes. You can see how once it is set up it saves time and water.
Ron Morgan grows tomatoes in his greenhouse using a 5-gallon-bucket and gutter system for irrigation. Photo taken Aug. 30 by Barb Gorges.
Ron also uses an economical support system for his vining tomatoes, training them to grow upward by way of strings attached to the ceiling. Little plastic clips clip onto the string and hold the stems. He adds more clips for each stem as it grows. But he also pinches off any secondary stems, or suckers, to concentrate all the energy into the primary stem.
Ron said his favorite tomato for flavor is a cherry-type called “Sweet Millions.” It forms grape-like clusters. His favorite mid-sized tomatoes are “Tasty Beef” and “Big Beef.”
He starts his vegetables in his shop under lights. Though he could transplant them to the greenhouse in April, Ron’s found the required heating isn’t cost effective. He waits until the first or second week in May to plant them – still a couple weeks earlier than in an unprotected garden. By mid-summer he uses shade cloth to keep his plants from getting sunburned.
Charlie Pannebaker, red shirt, discusses his tomato trials with visiting Master Gardeners Sept. 8. The empty row is where the beans have already been harvested. Photo by Barb Gorges.
Charlie Pannebaker, on the other hand, lets his tomatoes sprawl on the ground, uncovered. This summer he trialed 10 varieties to see which would be the earliest, tastiest, most productive in his growing conditions.
None of the visiting gardeners had ever seen tomatoes grown without a support of any kind, but I had, at the Rodale Institute near Emmaus, Pennsylvania. I asked Charlie if it was a Pennsylvania thing. It might be, as it turns out he grew up on a Pennsylvania farm, and this was the way farmers grew tomatoes.
Charlie and his wife moved to their place off Horse Creek Road a couple years ago, after 30 years in southeast Colorado. He knew his new place at 6900 feet elevation, 800 feet higher than Cheyenne, would require short-season vegetable varieties.
When we visited September 8, jumbles of tomatoes in tangles of vines lay on top of black plastic in rows along the drip irrigation lines.
A month later, after unusually late killing frost, Charlie sent me his results.
Of the total 507 pounds from all 10 varieties, the top four producers made up 70%, or 337 pounds. They were, beginning with the most productive, Fireworks, Siletz, Bush Early Girl Hybrid and Summer Girl.
However, he and his wife, Fran, liked the taste of Ru Bee Dawn best and he liked Summer Girl for shape, size and uniformity. Fireworks had the best fruit quality – Early Girl had a lot of blossom end rot.
Fourth of July had fruit ripening two weeks earlier than the others. It had the best yield through August, until the higher yield varieties passed it in September and October (unusually late for killing frost this year).
Next year Charlie is planting Fireworks for yield, Fourth of July for earliness, Ru Bee Dawn for taste and Summer Girl for fruit quality.
He hopes to find new varieties that combine all four attributes, as well as look for an early paste variety.
And Charlie should think about getting some hail protection in case there’s no drought to dry up the hail next year.
“Bush Early Girl” is one of Charlie Pannebaker’s trial tomatoes. Photo by Barb Gorges.
“Cheyenne Garden Gossip: Locals Share Secrets for High Plains Gardening Success,” by Barb Gorges.
WTE garden columns collected in new book: “Cheyenne Garden Gossip”
Published Aug. 7, 2021, in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.
By Barb Gorges
Would you be interested in a collection of my Wyoming Tribune Eagle gardening columns? The book, “Cheyenne Garden Gossip: Locals Share Secrets for High Plains Gardening Success,” is available, so far, at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens, Cheyenne Depot Museum, Wyoming Game and Fish Department and Wyoming State Museum gift shops.
The book is a collaboration with more than 100 people—those I interviewed, plus people such as Chris Hoffmeister, the book designer; content reviewers Jessica Friis, Susan Carlson and Jane Dorn; and many Laramie County Master Gardeners. In the seven pages of acknowledgements, you might find gardeners you know and what chapters they contributed to.
The book’s advice aims to minimize expense, time, water and chemicals, and maximize the time you enjoy strolling in your garden. It includes 64 updated columns, a plant list, plant and garden photo galleries, a garden book list, lists of other resources and a key word index.
Becoming a gardener changes your perspective. Mowing the lawn becomes a way to harvest green stuff for your compost. Raking leaves is gathering winter mulch to protect spring-blooming bulbs.
Giving up rototilling the vegetable patch every year means preserving soil microbes you need for a better harvest. Not mowing your patch of prairie out in the county more than every couple years means more bird song.
I can’t review my own book so instead, I’m giving you the foreword written by Shane Smith, the founder and director emeritus of the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens, who explains why we need our own gardening book around here.
Foreword byShane Smith
“This is a book that speaks to you directly, by not only the author, Barb Gorges, but many accomplished gardeners on the High Plains in Southeast Wyoming. To be a successful gardener here is no easy task. In fact, I believe it is the most challenging garden climate in the lower 48 states.
“Why is gardening here such a challenge? Let’s look at Cheyenne, which is indicative of much of the High Plains. It has the highest average number of hailstorms per year in the nation, between 8 and 11. Cheyenne is the fourth windiest city in the nation with a daily average wind speed of 13 miles per hour. This means for every calm day you must have a 26-miles-per-hour day to make that average work.
“Cheyenne also has unpredictable spring and fall frosts. This kills fruit blossoms in spring and can turn a garden brown even in early September.
“Plants grow at night. The warmer it is at night, the faster they grow. Because of Cheyenne’s 6,000-foot elevation, it has cool summer nights, staying mostly in the 40s and 50s. Gardens grow much faster when most of the nights are in the upper 50s to mid-60s. This is why that 65-day tomato still takes 80 days to produce.
“Finally, Cheyenne often has many winter days with little or no snow cover. There are years when Cheyenne has fewer days with snow on the ground than other lower altitude Front Range towns. This lack of snow cover combined with the relentless wind desiccates plants. That is why you often must drag out the hose in winter to water your trees, shrubs and perennials to keep them alive and in maximum health. Whew! Gardeners on the High Plains deserve a medal for their harvests and beautiful flowers.
“Because of the challenging climate, Cheyenne and High Plains gardeners must do things differently. To have a successful garden in this climate you often need different scheduling and different varieties, and you must develop creative hail-protection strategies. On top of all that, it helps to become an accomplished weather watcher.
“In this book, Barb has put together a diverse and experienced group of expert gardeners, who first appeared in her regular writings for the Wyoming Tribune Eagle in her excellent Cheyenne Garden Gossip column and blog. Barb also offers up her own great tips from her extensive gardening experiences.
“This book has a wide breadth of gardening and landscaping subjects. Besides the traditional flowers and vegetables, Barb discusses how to successfully grow habitat gardens, rain gardens, xeriscapes, ground covers, fruit trees, worm farms, hoop house gardens, straw bale gardens and more. Both newbies and experienced gardeners are sure to find enlightening information.
“While the High Plains are an exceptional challenge, this book will help you even the odds in your garden’s favor. Go get your hands dirty!
“Best Regardens!”
Shane Smith, Founder and Director Emeritus of the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens
“WTE garden columns collected in new book: ‘Cheyenne Garden Gossip'” was published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle Aug. 7, 2021.
“Cheyenne Garden Gossip: Locals Share Secrets for High Plains Gardening Success,” by Barb Gorges, Yucca Road Press.
By Barb Gorges
Would you be interested in a collection of my Wyoming Tribune Eagle gardening columns? The book, “Cheyenne Garden Gossip: Locals Share Secrets for High Plains Gardening Success,” is available, so far, at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens, Cheyenne Depot Museum, Wyoming Game and Fish Department and Wyoming State Museum gift shops.
You can see a preview at https://yuccaroadpress.com/books/. [For those of you outside Cheyenne, the book will eventually be available on Amazon. If you can’t wait, contact me at bgorges2 @ gmail.com.]
The book is a collaboration with more than 100 people–those I interviewed, plus people such as Chris Hoffmeister, the book designer; content reviewers Jessica Friis, Susan Carlson and Jane Dorn; and many Laramie County Master Gardeners. In the seven pages of acknowledgements, you might find gardeners you know and what chapters they contributed to.
The book’s advice aims to minimize expense, time, water and chemicals, and maximize the time you enjoy strolling in your garden. It includes 64 updated columns, a plant list, plant and garden photo galleries, a garden book list, lists of other resources and a key word index.
Becoming a gardener changes your perspective. Mowing the lawn becomes a way to harvest green stuff for your compost. Raking leaves is gathering winter mulch to protect spring-blooming bulbs.
Giving up rototilling the vegetable patch every year means preserving soil microbes you need for a better harvest. Not mowing your patch of prairie out in the county more than every couple years means more bird song.
I can’t review my own book so instead, I’m giving you the foreword written by Shane Smith, the founder and director emeritus of the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens, who explains why we need our own gardening book around here.
My back garden in early August is full of fruiting shrubs, tomatoes (under the hail guard), coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, blanketflower, beebalm, bees and birds. Photo by Barb Gorges.
Foreword byShane Smith
“This is a book that speaks to you directly, by not only the author, Barb Gorges, but many accomplished gardeners on the High Plains in Southeast Wyoming. To be a successful gardener here is no easy task. In fact, I believe it is the most challenging garden climate in the lower 48 states.
“Why is gardening here such a challenge? Let’s look at Cheyenne, which is indicative of much of the High Plains. It has the highest average number of hailstorms per year in the nation, between 8 and 11. Cheyenne is the fourth windiest city in the nation with a daily average wind speed of 13 miles per hour. This means for every calm day you must have a 26-miles-per-hour day to make that average work.
“Cheyenne also has unpredictable spring and fall frosts. This kills fruit blossoms in spring and can turn a garden brown even in early September.
“Plants grow at night. The warmer it is at night, the faster they grow. Because of Cheyenne’s 6,000-foot elevation, it has cool summer nights, staying mostly in the 40s and 50s. Gardens grow much faster when most of the nights are in the upper 50s to mid-60s. This is why that 65-day tomato still takes 80 days to produce.
“Finally, Cheyenne often has many winter days with little or no snow cover. There are years when Cheyenne has fewer days with snow on the ground than other lower altitude Front Range towns. This lack of snow cover combined with the relentless wind desiccates plants. That is why you often must drag out the hose in winter to water your trees, shrubs and perennials to keep them alive and in maximum health. Whew! Gardeners on the High Plains deserve a medal for their harvests and beautiful flowers.
“Because of the challenging climate, Cheyenne and High Plains gardeners must do things differently. To have a successful garden in this climate you often need different scheduling and different varieties, and you must develop creative hail-protection strategies. On top of all that, it helps to become an accomplished weather watcher.
“In this book, Barb has put together a diverse and experienced group of expert gardeners, who first appeared in her regular writings for the Wyoming Tribune Eagle in her excellent Cheyenne Garden Gossip column and blog. Barb also offers up her own great tips from her extensive gardening experiences.
“This book has a wide breadth of gardening and landscaping subjects. Besides the traditional flowers and vegetables, Barb discusses how to successfully grow habitat gardens, rain gardens, xeriscapes, ground covers, fruit trees, worm farms, hoop house gardens, straw bale gardens and more. Both newbies and experienced gardeners are sure to find enlightening information.
“While the High Plains are an exceptional challenge, this book will help you even the odds in your garden’s favor. Go get your hands dirty!
“Best Regardens!
Shane Smith
Founder and Director Emeritus of the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens
The Habitat Hero Demonstration Garden at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens is full of blooming columbines, penstemons and other prairie flowers in late June-early July. Photo by Barb Gorges.
The Laramie County Master Gardeners’ Garden Walk is back. The theme is “Habitat Hero” gardens. It’s scheduled for July 11, 1-4 p.m. It’s free, but donations are appreciated.
Five gardens are on the walk, and all are certified Habitat Hero gardens. You can start at any garden and pick up the booklet that has the location and description of each. It might be easiest to start with the Habitat Hero Demonstration Garden at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens, next to the parking lot in front of the conservatory, 710 S. Lions Park Drive.
This garden will be hosted by two people who have been supporting the Habitat Hero gardening movement for about eight years, my husband, Mark, and me.
Habitat Hero is an Audubon Rockies program, https://rockies.audubon.org/habitat-hero. It was first conceived of by a woman who moved from Florida to Colorado. She soon realized she needed to relearn how to garden. Her love of birds and her recognition of the lack of water in the west helped her formulate the tenets of the program.
The Habitat Hero certification process looks for water-wise gardening and landscaping practices that are bird and pollinator friendly and that emphasize native and native-type plants.
Bird and pollinator friendly practices include:
— Switching out bluegrass turf for native grasses or plants
— Foregoing chemical pesticides and fertilizers for other proven options
— Keeping cats indoors or at least in a screened patio or “catio”
— Finding plants that are native to Wyoming that will support native bees, or non-native ornamentals that haven’t been overbred and still produce nectar and pollen.
The Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities replaced turf at their headquarters with a water-smart, bird-friendly certified Habitat Hero garden. Photo by Barb Gorges.
The five gardens are proof that a bird-friendly garden doesn’t need to look like a weed patch. The one by garden designer Kathy Shreve coordinates perennials into a season-long succession of blooms in the Habitat Hero Demonstration Garden at the Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities office, 2416 Snyder Avenue.
Nursery plants were purchased and planted in 2018. Garden host Sarah Bargsten, the new BOPU water conservation specialist, is quickly learning to distinguish weeds from self-seeded seedlings so that eventually the spaces between the original plants will fill in.
Three private gardens are all tended by people who love to collect plants, so while you will see borders and raised beds like a normal garden, there is a lot of variety.
Experiments growing Wyoming native plants and other plants that might find Cheyenne’s climate comfortable fill Michelle Bohanan’s flower beds. Photo by Barb Gorges.
Master gardener Michelle Bohanan uses the database function on the National Gardening Association website, https://garden.org, to track 900 species or cultivars she’s planted to date, though many have not survived Cheyenne’s climate.
Michelle has a mix of natives, horticulturally “improved” native cultivars and non-natives from parts of the world with climate similar to ours. Her garden is more of a laboratory but the overall effect around her pre-1890s house is quite charming. Her husband, Dean, is in charge of the temperamental roses.
Jutta Arkan’s ranchette landscape includes a variety of pollinator-friendly plants in raised beds, a rock garden and wildflowers out on the prairie. Photo by Barb Gorges.
Master gardener Jutta Arkan has an eye for landscape design. She and her boyfriend, Gus Schliffke, both retired Air Force, moved to their ranchette in 2018, about two miles north of Little Bear Inn.
Immediately, they went to work on a multi-year plan that included adding a third raised bed made with 70-pound stones, a rock garden, a “she shed” with a potting shed attached, vegetable garden, other garden beds and wildflowers seeded into the native prairie.
You will notice that the turf adjacent to the house looks like a golf course. It’s Gus’s domain and is managed with conventional practices as an intense recreational space. But Gus fully supports Jutta’s flower mania, calling himself her “indentured servant.”
Jack Palma, a member of the Cheyenne Habitat Hero Committee, provides water for wildlife in the shady garden behind his circa pre-1890s house. Photo by Barb Gorges.
Jack Palma is a member of the Cheyenne Habitat Hero Committee and has long been interested in birds and gardening. He and his wife, Do, own a pre-1890s historic house a couple blocks north of the Capitol. Big old trees make for a secluded backyard that he has enhanced with plants that appeal to him yet survive in shade.
Since joining the Habitat Hero committee, Jack has started to incorporate more natives. New this spring is a gravel garden at the side of the house that is almost entirely western natives.
As for the Habitat Hero Demonstration Garden at the Botanic Gardens, it started in 2018 with the seedlings I’d planned to put in my own garden plus other donations. It reflects my attraction to the prairie plants I first learned to identify in the “Sticks and Weeds” class at the University of Wyoming. It has lots of penstemons, coneflowers, columbines, milkweeds, yarrows, blanket flowers—all self-seeding and easy to grow. We’re all looking forward to welcoming you to the 2021 LCMG Garden Walk!
May 4: Tiny hail shower engulfs species tulips. Photo by Barb Gorges.
Published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle May 7, 2021, “Finding new growth is a spring gardening pleasure”
By Barb Gorges
We had to buy new grow lights because we had so many tomato seedlings this spring. If you arrive at the Laramie County Master Gardener Plant Sale early enough, you can buy one.
Mark saved seed from our Anna Maria’s Heart heirloom tomatoes and our friends’ ‘Sunrise’ cherry tomatoes. He doesn’t test for seed germination, just seeds thickly. This year, he has 96 tomatoes growing on shelves in the bathtub and in the basement.
April 29: Mark Gorges uses fluorescent and LED (bottom shelf) lights to augment a skylight over the bathtub of this small bathroom to grow tomatoes for the Laramie County Master Gardener plant sale.Photo by Barb Gorges.
We bought two new shop light-type grow lights. These have red and blue LEDs. I was surprised to see that within a year of my last visit to Menard’s lighting department, there is not a fluorescent bulb to be found. You either buy a new fixture with integrated LEDs, or LEDs in a tube that can be made to work with some types of old fluorescent fixtures.
I thought the 30-inch snowstorm mid-March (technically still winter) made my bulbs late to bloom. Then I realized I needed to remove a layer of leaf litter from over the crocuses. Later, when I glimpsed what I thought was a piece of windblown trash, it was really the big white “Giant Dutch” crocuses finally open.
April 10: “Giant Dutch” crocus. Photo by Barb Gorges.
Last spring my gardening was curtailed when I leaned over to pick a piece of trash out of the garden and wrenched my back. This year I’m trying not to do too much at one time. Then it snows or rains or blows too hard and limits me anyway.
I was out again the last week in April pulling more leaves, finding many of my perennials sprouting greenery. Our front yard is a wind-swept expanse on which I’ve established mini windbreaks by planting a couple 18-inch-high junipers and by not cutting back my perennials in the fall. It works great for catching leaves and snow and protecting over-wintering pollinator insects.
I leave a lot of leaves as mulch to save moisture and to compost in place, but not so many that self-seeding plants can’t get some light. Later in the summer I add leaves back to suppress weeds.
I also spent several hours in April cutting back last year’s perennial stems, chopping them into 3 to 6-inch segments and leaving them to become mulch/compost.
Some gardeners would have you leave old stems up longer or let them decompose without help, but in a publicly visible place like my front yard, or the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens Habitat Hero garden, where a crew of volunteers made cutting back go fast, it’s better to do it in April. Plus, it makes it easier to see the small, early bulbs blooming: crocus, squill, grape hyacinth and iris reticulata.
Mark and I bought a new whiskey half-barrel planter, with the “Jack Daniels” stencil barely visible. Our old barrel lasted more than 30 years and two others the same age persist in more protected locations.
Five years ago, in one of the few sunny spots in the backyard, I planted daylilies and iris I received free. Unfortunately, it is right where anyone needing access to our electrical connections needs to stand. I think it is time to move those plants and try a hardy groundcover planted between flagstones, maybe the “Stepables,” www.stepables.com. The trickiest part will be to find some to buy.
May 5: Perennial seeds planted in milk jugs in February (milk jug tops scrunched into the bottoms) sprout. Photo by Barb Gorges.
In February I planted 24 milk jugs with perennial flower seeds and left them out in a cold, snowy corner of the backyard (see “winter sowing” at www.CheyenneGardenGossip.wordpress.com). I moved them all to a sunnier location mid-April and all but five have seedlings already [the last five sprouted by May 8]. The question is, where do I plant them in June?
I’ve been studying the front yard all winter from my office window. There’s still some lawn I can dig up to expand a bed and yet leave a wide margin of lawn along the sidewalk for shoveled snow, dogs on loose leashes and energetic children. I’ll continue to leave little turf trails for the mail carriers’ shortcuts.
If you are tree planting this spring, be sure to remove all the burlap, twine and wire. Gently spread those roots out and get the transition from roots to trunk right at ground level. See Steve Scott’s excellent how-to at www.cheyennegardengossip.wordpress.com, “How to plant a tree in Cheyenne, Wyoming.”
It’s a grand time to be in the garden, discovering all the new flowers and green growth, with the accompaniment of birdsong.
May 1: Honeybee visits Nanking cherry bushes in our backyard. Photo by Barb Gorges.
Varieties of New England Aster, Symphyotrichum novae-angliae, a North American plant native to central and northeastern U.S. and southeastern Canada, are popular fall garden flowers. These are at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens’ Habitat Hero Demonstration Garden. Photo by Barb Gorges.
Published Oct. 10, 2020, in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, “Assessing the season: How did your garden grow?”
By Barb Gorges
I’m trying to follow my own advice to use a notebook to track what I plant (and where) and what the results are. That way, in the depths of winter, when the catalogs and nurseries tempt me with their 2021 offerings, I might review my notes and make better informed decisions.
Growing season 2020 in Cheyenne started out well. We had Laramie County Master Gardeners interested in submitting photos for “Show and Tell” for the Zoomed monthly membership meetings in the spring.
But then some gardens were hit with hail in July and sometime in August we realized it hadn’t rained in more than a month and we were having record-breaking heat. Then in early September we had an inch of snow with ice that brought down tree branches but didn’t freeze the perennials. A few weeks later we had a day of thick smoke and ash from the Mullen fire.
The early September snow and ice storm brought down a large branch that barely missed our new trellis (upper left). Photo by Barb Gorges.
Seedlings
In late spring I transplanted part of my January winter sowing—perennials started from seed in milk jugs with tops cut off and then replaced (https://cheyennegardengossip.wordpress.com/2016/03/21/winter-sowing/). Some seedlings went in my own garden, some to the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens and Board of Public Utilities Habitat Hero gardens and the rest in 1-gallon pots on the patio to hold over for fall planting.
Sally guards the winter sowing milk jugs (and kitty litter jugs) back in May. Photo by Barb Gorges.
The CBG transplants did not do well because the lack of rainfall eventually made it evident the irrigation there needed to be reconfigured. Because volunteers were absent for several months at the beginning of the pandemic, it took a while before the overworked staff could adjust it.
Funds to buy more plants are lacking since our Habitat Hero workshop in February used the online ticket seller, Brown Paper Tickets. It refuses to pay the $2000 we are owed, citing the pandemic. They have many other victims across the country.
Thrips
The seedlings survived several light hail storms. Mark built a second hail guard when the seedlings were up-potted. Photo by Barb Gorges.
Because of the threat of hail, I had crowded all the patio starts under free-standing hail guards Mark knocked together. They look like wooden card tables with hardware cloth mesh tops. I watered but didn’t look closely until late August when I realized all the patio plants had an infestation that looked like yellow designs drawn on the upper surfaces of the leaves.
Catherine Wissner, Laramie County Extension horticulturist, diagnosed thrips and asked me to take a photo of the leaf undersides too, where I saw little flighty white things. These were the plants I was planning to add to the Board of Public Utilities’ Habitat Hero garden.
Bare-root planting
I read that thrips lay their eggs in the soil so when we planted a couple weeks later, we washed the white insects off with water. Then we knocked off as much potting soil as we could and swished the roots in a bucket of water before planting.
More and more experts are recommending planting without any of the previous soil attached, especially trees, shrubs and perennials. That’s how the crevice garden by the front door of the CBG conservatory was planted.
The advantage is the roots immediately reach out into their new surroundings instead of staying curled up in a pot shape.
Fall-blooming asters
The BOPU garden is looking good—see it at 2416 Snyder. One species, a New England aster variety, is buzzing! Frequently “improved,” this native species now comes in a variety of sizes and shades of white, pinks, lavenders and purples that bloom in fall.
At the Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities Habitat Hero Demonstration Garden, this variety of New England Aster is “New England Pink.” Can you find the five bees? Photo by Barb Gorges.
Kathy Shreve’s plant choices for this garden are, this third growing season, filling in nicely and attracting butterflies and birds as well as bees. But the runnerless strawberries that made it through the first winter quit the second winter.
Stressed trees
At the LCMG summer meetings, Catherine shared problems she was seeing on yard calls. Many were trees receiving too little water, becoming stressed, leading to diseases and pests.
I was concerned about the pocket park in my neighborhood and the survival of the eight trees in it when the city cut back its number of employees and didn’t water it this summer. One spruce died. But I’m happy the city found the money to turn the sprinklers on in September. Every little bit helps, even once-a-month watering in winter.
Tomatoes
Catherine’s photos of tomato diseases were alarming, but more easily solved, at least next growing season, by not planting tomatoes in the same location for the next two years and picking disease resistant and better varieties for our area.
This hot summer, the Anna Maria’s Heart short-season, Russian heirloom tomatoes did very well. Photo by Barb Gorges.
Here in our garden, the record-breaking heat gave Mark the best crop of Anna Maria’s Heart Russian heirloom tomatoes in the six years he’s been growing them. Friends who bought his starts at the LCMG plant sale agreed they were early, huge and tasty.
In conclusion, an experienced horticulturist can predict what plants will do well in a particular garden, but every site and every growing season is unique. All you can do is your best to try to match the plant with expected conditions and see what happens.
White Prairie Aster is an intriguing native I found this fall in the field in town where I walk the dog. It’s only a few inches tall in this location and would make a good garden groundcover. Photo by Barb Gorges.
I planted this unknown variety of New England Aster 30 years ago here in the front yard. It grows about 2 feet tall and has loose panicles of flowers. Photo by Barb Gorges.A friend passed on this unknown variety of New England Aster. In my yard it grows about 3 to 4 feet tall with all the flowers in a topknot. Photo by Barb Gorges.
This more modern (unknown) variety of New England Aster grows short and compact, forming a small mound about 1 foot tall. Photo by Barb Gorges
What we learned at the 6th Annual Cheyenne Habitat Hero Workshop
Published April 12, 2020, in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle
By Barb Gorges
What we learned at the recent Cheyenne Habitat Hero workshop is there are three alternatives to standard landscaping (turf and foundation junipers).
Water-wise plantings
Western cities like Cheyenne and Ft. Collins are encouraging businesses and homeowners to install landscaping that takes less water than bluegrass lawns so that there will be enough water for their growing populations.
Many Wyoming native grasses, shrubs, trees and flowers fit this definition, as well as many plants from desert lands in the U.S. and other parts of the world. Plant Select features these kinds of plants for xeric gardens. The plants can be found at independent Colorado nurseries and by mail order from High Country Gardens, https://www.highcountrygardens.com/.
Pollinator-friendly/wildlife-friendly gardens
The drastic decline in native bees and butterflies has been in the news for years now. Choosing to grow flowering plants is a happy way to do something for the environment.
Native plants
However, not all flowering plants appeal to our native bees and butterflies. Douglas Tallamy, http://www.bringingnaturehome.net/, points out that native bees and butterflies are adapted to the plants native to their own area. Native insects need native plants so that they can become food for native birds.
There are different levels of native. If you are raising honeybees (natives of Europe), anything producing pollen will do, if it hasn’t been improved by horticulturists too much–double and triple-petal cultivars are often sterile–no pollen.
Plants native to distant parts of North America will not do much for most Wyoming native bees and butterflies and may require too much water for water-wise gardens.
Plants native to the western Great Plains–if they haven’t been domesticated too much, will provide what our native critters crave. Skip the ones that naturally grow in wet areas unless you have a natural wet area.
Finding the right species—see plant list—is still difficult. Ft. Collins Nursery (offering online ordering and curbside pickup this spring), https://fortcollinsnursery.com/, has the closest, large selection.
Maintaining native prairie
If you’ve got it, flaunt it. Laramie County Master Gardener Wanda Manley wants you to appreciate our native prairie—and treat it right if you are lucky enough to own a piece of it.
Don’t treat the prairie like a lawn. Frequent mowing creates more of a fire danger. Mowing March – July kills ground-nesting birds.
Keep an eye out for invasive plants and consider renovating your prairie. Consult with the Laramie County Conservation District, https://www.lccdnet.org/.
Don’t graze when the grass is actively growing. It’s cheaper to feed hay than to repair the damage.
Locate and design your native garden
Laramie County Extension horticulturist Catherine Wissner can give you a three-hour lecture on how to select a site for a new garden. If you are proposing a new vegetable or ornamental flower garden, you look at sun, slope, wind, soil, proximity to water source and kitchen.
However, if you are replacing water-hogging turf with natives, you have more options. There are native plants that like sun (like vegetables), others that prefer part sun and a few that need shade. There are some that like sandy soil and others that are fine with clay. Some like rocky soil.
And for pollinators, you want to strive to have something in bloom from late March to early October.
Figuring out which plants go where takes a little research. By next year the Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities hopes to have a plant finder database to help you match plants with your conditions.
Irrigation
You must water new plants the first year—even xeric species—to get them established. It’s possible to pick plants that need very little supplemental water after that—and maybe none at all.
But any irrigation that uses 50 percent less than what bluegrass turf requires is applauded by BOPU.
You might still have one bed of traditional flowers requiring frequent watering and other areas that are more xeric. If you don’t want to drag hoses around all summer, you can set up sprinkler systems and/or drip irrigation for differentiated zones.
At this point in the season, your best option for removing turf is with a shovel as soon as the most recent snow melts and the soil dries out a bit.
If you have really nice turf, you might be able to get someone to use a machine to strip it off and use it to repair damaged turf elsewhere—what we did for the BOPU Habitat Hero demonstration garden.
Rototilling is not an option—it leaves a lot of grass that will re-sprout. But a shovelful of turf can be broken up, the roots shaken out and composted elsewhere and the soil replaced.
If you have time, you can suffocate turf with 12 layers of newspaper or some cardboard over a few months (usually winter), explained Laramie County Master Gardener Maggie McKenzie. Herbicides are a terrible last resort.
If you are building a vegetable garden, you’ll want to amend the soil with lots of composted organic material but that isn’t necessary for native plants if you match them to your soil type.
It’s too late now for that technique this year, but you can try direct sowing. Some catalogs specialize in prairie flowers, like https://www.prairiemoon.com/.
Picking and planting
Nurseries are not open for strolling this spring so Kathy Shreve’s advice on finding healthy plants changes to only accepting plants curbside fulfilling your order that are healthy and not rootbound or misshapen—especially trees and shrubs.
Kathy reminded us that all plants, no matter how well-adapted, need to be watered for months when first planted. Not so much that they drown and don’t let them wilt.
Enjoy your garden often–it’s also an easy way to see if problems are developing.
Become a Habitat Hero
The goal is to be recognized as a Habitat Hero. Take pictures of your yard transformation during the growing season. See https://rockies.audubon.org/habitat-hero for information on applying as well as more on water-wise planting for birds and other wildlife.
Popular Southeast Wyoming Native Plants
It is nearly impossible to find “straight species” at nurseries—you’ll find horticulturally improved varieties instead. If the petals haven’t been doubled or the leaf color changed from solid green, they will probably work.
Cheyenne Garden Gossip 