Spring in my Habitat Hero Garden

Spring in my Habitat Hero garden

Published April 30, 2024, in the Cheyenne Habitat Hero Committee newsletter. To subscribe to the newsletter, send an email to bgorges2 at gmail.com.

By Barb Gorges

                Below are three ways I work with my pollinator/native plant garden in spring. Do you have any tips that work for you? Let me know, bgorges2 at gmail.com.

                Gardens are works in progress. Each garden bed in your yard is in its own microclimate and soil, plus each of us gets a different mix of wind, temperatures and precipitation to work with each year. And then, the genetics of each seed packet and nursery plant can be different even if they share the same species name. But be optimistic—if your garden can grow weeds, there’s a native plant that can grow there too.

A native bumblebee enjoys a non-native crocus in early April. Photo by Barb Gorges.

Last year’s stems and tree leaves

                I can leave last year’s stems uncut only so long in my home Habitat Hero garden. Usually, when the spring bulbs start to bloom, sometimes as early as March here in Cheyenne, I start a little snipping so they can be seen and appreciated better.

                Leaving stems in place for the winter helps trap snow moisture and the leaves from our trees which act as winter mulch. But the thicker stems are also potential nesting sites for beneficial insects. This winter I read that the stems are most useful the following year, probably because they become hollower at the right time in the insects’ life cycle. See this article, https://gardenrant.com/2024/04/gardening-pollinators-stem-nesting-bees.html.

                I’m not sure I want a lot of dead sticks, 6 to 12 inches tall, all over my garden. But as I snipped here and there through the month of April, I realized that I know how high the greenery grows for my favorite prairie plants (penstemons, Gaillardia, Rudbeckia, Monarda, asters, goldenrods, milkweed). I can cut the stems short enough that new growth will cover them. And maybe the old stems will form a barricade to help keep the rabbits out.

                For the part of the stems I cut away, I like the idea of cutting them into little pieces in place, forming mulch—and dropping seed heads that might still have seeds capable of self-seeding. My garden is too small to let everything just fall over. And it’s too lumpy with tulip clumps to mow.

But this year, there are so many tree leaves making the mulch already too thick. I’m going to have to pull a lot of it out (and compost it for the vegetable garden maybe) before spreading my snips of last year’s plants so that new growth isn’t smothered. Later, when summer heats up, and self-seeding sprouts are tall enough, I may replace some of the leaf mulch around them and keep the soil from drying out.

Rocky Mountain Penstemon seeds collected the previous fall have a high germination rate. Photo by Barb Gorges.

Transplanting winter sowing

[See also https://cheyennegardengossip.wordpress.com/2024/01/27/winter-sowing-magic.]

                This is the ninth year I’ve winter-sown seeds. I planted 30 milk jugs in February and left them in a partly shady spot. By mid-April, most of them showed seedlings (this year, three of the jugs seem to have dud seeds).

Since many of these jugs are going to the Laramie County Master Gardener plant sale May 11, I decided last week to move them to a sunnier spot so they will grow a little faster. But I’m leaving the tops of the jugs on to protect them from squirrels and drying winds. Frost is not a problem—these native perennial types have anti-freeze in their veins. However, letting the potting soil dry out will kill them. And so will leaving the lids on when it gets too hot.

                With 16 or 25 (or 200 once, when I must have spilled a whole seed packet) of seedlings in one jug, I’ve noticed that no matter how late into June I leave them, the seedlings never grow much beyond a couple sets of leaves. But their roots circle round and round.

                I transplant winter sown seedlings mid to late May, either into a little protected nursery space I have in my garden, or into 2.5-inch pots so they get a little size to them before transplanting into the garden proper by the end of June or early July. I leave flats of those pots on our sunny patio where they are easy to check on every day and water when needed. I also set up hail guards over them. Mark built ours and they look like coffee tables with tops of hardware cloth (wire screening with openings the diameter of pencils) instead of wood.

But before I can put anything new in the little nursery plot, I have to dig up the 1-year-old plants and plant them right away, or pot them in potting soil until I can take them where they are going.

                I believe in bare root planting. I try to keep potting soil out of my garden. Plus, this way I don’t need a big hole, so I just plunge my hand trowel into the bed, give it a little wiggle back and forth, making a slot to tuck a one-year-old plant’s roots into, then push some dirt in the slot, gently squeeze more dirt around the plant stem, water well and I’m done.

                There is a trick to getting winter sown seedlings out of milk jugs. Take the top off. Water so soil is moist but not sopping wet. Spread your left hand over the top of the seedlings—or thread your fingers through the seedlings if they are taller than the top edge of the bottom half of the jug. Tip the whole thing over onto your hand and, shaking a little, use your right hand to remove the jug bottom. Then quickly tip the “brownie” (as Michelle Bohanan calls it) right side up into your right hand.

                If the roots are well-grown, the brownie does not crumble in your hand. But if it does, let it crumble into the bottom half of the jug and lay your seedlings in there with some loose potting soil over their roots while they wait for you to get them planted. Try to handle seedlings only by their leaves and roots—not their stems.

                A well-formed brownie, however, can be gently divided/pulled in half. I hold it upright in my two hands, thumbs on top, with my fingers on the underside teasing away potting soil along the halfway mark while I gently “fold” it in half, green sprouts towards each other, then reverse fold to potting soil brown sides towards each other a few times, while pulling my hands apart. With patience, you should be able to avoid ripping any roots.

                Then break each brownie half in half again, and again. While I work my way down, I put the waiting pieces of brownie back in the jug bottom to keep them moist. Finally, I’m down to a little piece of potting soil and maybe 3 or 5 individual plants and I can just shake the potting soil off and plant them. I do save the potting soil—but I spread it out in the sunshine to disinfect and dry completely for a few days, for use only with hardier mature plants—not picky vegetable seedlings prone to damping off.

                The bare root method can work for larger plants, though some that have been in a large pot for a long time might form a thick net of roots and it might not be worth trying to get them bare because they could be easily damaged as you try to work your fingers into the dense root mass.

This native pasqueflower was purchased from High Plains Environmental Center and bloomed this year in my native plant garden a couple weeks ahead of the wild plants up at Curt Gowdy State Park. I also grow the European pasqueflower, a much leafier plant, in my herb garden. Photo by Barb Gorges.

Editing

                I don’t have much of an overall garden design because, the front garden especially, has slowly been enlarged year by year as Mark removes a shovelful of turf and I pop in a new plant I want to try.

                Or I change my mind. Years ago, the Conservation District was giving away seed packets that included great bee-friendly plants, but some were prolific non-natives. I’ve been pulling those out. On the other hand, after taking several years to get going, the milkweed seems intent on crowding everything else out. Time to dig some of it up and share it.

                Weeds are of course the biggest editing challenge. The front garden seems to have spontaneously erupted with small clumps of bluegrass that are easy to pull when the soil is moist.

For annual weeds, remember that Nancy Loomis showed us the best technique is to remove the above ground growth to kill them without disturbing the soil and inadvertently giving more weed seeds the daylight they need to sprout.

Removing greenery from perennial weeds like bindweed and thistle can starve them eventually, but you almost need to keep after them every other day—not feasible for a large infestation.

Good luck this season!

Winter sowing magic

Translucent plastic jugs planted with seeds can be left outside for the winter. Seeds are protected from wind and critters and will sprout in spring. Photo by Barb Gorges.

Winter sowing magically protects and sprouts seeds outdoors

Published February 9, 2024, in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

By Barb Gorges

            Winter sowing is a fun technique I originally learned from Laramie County Master Gardener Michelle Bohanan in 2016.

            It’s now so popular that an internet search brings 149,000 results.

            Winter sowing imitates nature by leaving seeds outdoors over the winter. Sowing seeds in a container with a clear or translucent cover protects them from wind and critters but exposes them to snow and cold. Some kinds of seeds need to freeze and thaw to sprout.

            The seeds sprout starting late April in Cheyenne. They can be transplanted directly into the garden (usually late May) without having to gradually harden them off the way indoor grown seedlings need to be.

Seeds

            I use the technique primarily for native perennials, but it can be used for other perennials, annuals, and cold happy vegetables (cabbage, kale, etc.). Tomatoes, eggplants and other heat happy vegetables, not so much—it would give them too late a start to have ripe fruit before our first fall frost.

            My native seed choices for beginners include:

–Narrowleaf Coneflower (purple coneflower’s Wyoming sister)

–Mexican Hat, also called Prairie Coneflower

–Blanket Flower, also called Gaillardia

–Black-eyed Susan, also called Rudbeckia

–Rocky Mountain Penstemon

–Beebalm, also called Monarda

–Showy Milkweed (most common milkweed in southeast Wyoming)

–Columbine

            Look for these at the Laramie County Library’s Seed Library or from companies that specialize in prairie plants like Prairie Moon Nursery, Prairie Nursery, and High Country Gardens.

            For more inspiration, see the Habitat Hero information at https://cheyenneaudubon.org/habitat-hero-resources/.

Timing

            I aim to get seeds sown in January and February, when it’s finally cold enough, yet there is still enough cold weather for seeds that might need eight weeks of cold (stratification) to break dormancy.

Jugs

            Michelle’s and my containers of choice are the 1-gallon pliable, translucent water, juice or milk jugs because they are deep and roomy, and even if you don’t buy those beverages, you probably know people who do.

            My problem is that our family’s preferred brand of milk now comes in white containers. Because I donate jugs of seedlings to the Master Gardener spring plant sale, I’ve learned to hang onto the old translucent lids and reuse them with new white bottoms. If you store jugs in the dark the rest of the year, they will last for years.

Jug prep

            Plastic jugs are so flimsy these days that my pointy kitchen shears are sharp enough to make a hole level with the bottom of the handle and then I can cut all the way around. I also poke four holes in the bottom for drainage.

            Run-of-the-mill, peat-based potting soil works for me, though I should think about trying something more ecologically friendly.

            Peat can be dry and very hydrophobic so I dump a bunch in a large tub, water it well, mix it and let it sit for a bit to get it wet evenly. Then I scoop it into the bottom of each jug 3 inches deep.

            I use a Sharpie permanent ink pen to write the seed names on the sides of the jug bottoms.

Seed planting

            Michelle counts out her seeds, planting them in grids of 4 x 4 or 5 x 5 per jug. Me, I tend to just scatter seeds. Once, I ended up with 200 in one jug. When crowded, seeds sprout but then don’t grow much, except for their roots, so they need transplanting much sooner.

            Some seeds, usually the tiny ones, need light to germinate so just sprinkling them and pressing them against the soil is good enough. Plant 1/8^th inch and larger seeds 1/8^th inch deep. Check seed packets or the internet for more specific information.

            After planting, force the top of the jug into the bottom. It’s Ok if the sides buckle. Remove the jug’s lid—more access for snow to get in.

Jug placement

            Find a safe, semi-shady spot where snow likes to drift. If you have only a sunny spot, you may have to water periodically. After sprouting, move jugs to a sunny location and remove the tops of the jugs on nice days.

Removing seedlings

            Good root growth holds the soil together in a jug like a giant peat brownie.

            Remove the top of the jug, stretch your fingers across and through the seedlings. Then tip over the container gently to let the brownie drop out onto your hand.

            Gently break the brownie apart, teasing out the individual seedlings for planting directly into the garden or into pots with more room. Be sure to gently shake off most of the potting soil before transplanting a seedling into the garden.

10th Annual Cheyenne Habitat Hero Workshop Feb. 3, 2024

10th Annual Cheyenne Habitat Hero Workshop

Feb. 3, 2024, 8 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Laramie County Community College:

 “Ways to Make and Keep a Garden for the Birds and Bees Plus Advice on Trees”

          This year we look at how different people approached making a Habitat Hero-style garden and how they maintain it.
 We will introduce the makers of six local gardens who will be panelists for discussion on what works and doesn’t work:
Gary Kayser has created a meadow at the corner of 3rd and Carey avenues that drew the attention of the Wyoming Tribune Eagle photographer.
Eric Dalton has made Habitat Hero gardens at his home and his business, Bella Fuoco Wood Fired Pizza on Warren Avenue.
Nancy Loomis keeps the weeds at bay in the garden at the Laramie County Library.
Isaiah Smith, horticulture and operations supervisor at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens installed gravel garden beds in the parking lot last year.
Isaiah Smith and Jacob Mares prepared the Habitat Hero garden site at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens and Barb Gorges keeps it weeded.
Rex Lockman, wildlife and range specialist for the Laramie County Conservation District, will report on the Native Prairie Island project, sowing seeds over new septic fields.

Lunch – Included in registration
Jacob Mares, Community Forestry coordinator for the Wyoming State Forestry Division, will introduce trees appropriate for water-wise Habitat Hero gardens.
Scott Aker, director of the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens, formerly in charge of horticulture and education at the U.S. National Arboretum in Washington, D.C., will show how to prune young trees to help protect them from wind, snow and ice damage. 
          To bring us an update on the size and scope of the Habitat Hero program, we will hear from Audubon Rockies staff.
         Finally, everyone’s favorite part–Michelle Bohanan has selected native seed for everyone to take home for winter sowing.

Registration for in-person attendance will be $25 and will include lunch. Registration for Zoom only will be $5. Registration information at: www.CheyenneAudubon.org/habitat-hero/

Or register directly at: https://act.audubon.org/a/make-keep-garden-birds-bees

Habitat Hero workshop about prairie restoration, water

Habitat Hero workshop considers prairie restoration as a means for saving water

Published February 17, 2023 in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

By Barb Gorges

            Earlier this month, the ninth annual Cheyenne Habitat Hero workshop was held at Laramie County Community College. It attracted about 100 in-person registrants and 400 online. The topic was how to garden in a future with less water available.

            Keynote speaker Jim Tolstrup, director of the High Plains Environmental Center in Loveland, Colorado, gave us the background on how the high plains plant and animal communities have fared, first under the indigenous people, then trappers, settlers, ranchers, farmers and suburbanites.

            Ninety-seven percent of American grasslands are degraded. It means that what we need today is not conservation – there is barely anything left to conserve – but restoration.

            Restoration with native prairie plants is obvious for acreage owners. Prairie flowers replacing our urban lawns benefit pollinator species, if not antelope – unless you live near the base.

Rudbeckia (Black-eyed Susan). Photo by Barb Gorges.

            One attribute of prairie plants is that once established, they don’t need irrigation.

            The voices of experience included Jim’s, with his slide of lush vegetation that is no longer irrigated. Rex Lockman from the Laramie County Conservation District discussed the Native Prairie Island Project that started a seeding program for old and new septic leach fields last year. Nancy Loomis explained how to harvest free water.

            Instead of driving over the snow in your driveway, shovel or blow it onto the lawn on either side. Nancy has put in a garden next to her driveway and the water from the snow she places on it means she doesn’t have to water it in the summer. She planted traditional groundcovers like creeping phlox, partridge feather and candytuft. Her future garden expansion will favor the natives she encourages at the garden next to Laramie County Library’s parking lot.

            In Nancy’s and my 1950s-1960s neighborhoods, the sidewalk is adjacent to the curb – no green strip in between. It makes total sense to throw the shoveled snow on your lawn or garden instead of in the street – which makes it difficult for people to park in front of your house when they visit anyway.

            A fair amount of your harvested snow from your hardscape, walks, decks, driveways, will evaporate on windy days. Plus, it isn’t going to sink much into the frozen ground. Obviously, more of the water from spring snowstorms will sink in.

            But extra snow cover provides longer protection from our drying winds for your lawn and garden.

            There is another way for you to harvest snow away from your hardscape areas. Let last year’s garden growth act as snow fence that collects blowing snow in drifts.

            However, I recommend removing vegetable garden vegetation because those plants are prone to diseases. Consider replacing them in winter with other obstacles for collecting snow.

            The most thought-provoking presentation was by Cheryl Miller, from the U.S. Geological Survey. She has a groundwater demonstration setup that reminded me of an ant farm. Sand and dirt were pressed between two clear vertical panels. Tubes inserted vertically represented wells. Food coloring representing pollution in one well could be seen to migrate into a neighboring well that was being pumped.

            The representation of a stream was kept flowing by snowmelt and stormwater runoff as well as groundwater. Pumping nearby wells caused it to dry up.

            Cheryl showed why septic systems need to be monitored so that they don’t adversely affect wells for drinking water. The same can be said for nitrates from over-fertilization.

            I think the take-home for rural as well as urban residents and gardeners is that groundwater is precious and maybe shouldn’t be wasted on landscaping, especially when there are low water alternatives for lawns and flower gardens.

            Zach Hutchinson from Audubon Rockies gave us an update on the development of a pollinator survey we can use in our home gardens.

Zach Hutchinson (center, green shirt) demonstrates how to do a pollinator survey one morning in July 2022 at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens’ Habitat Hero demonstration garden. Photo by Barb Gorges.

            Michelle Bohanan gave us a pep talk on winter sowing, and provided the jugs, soil and native seed to try it at home.

            We are already talking about a theme for next year’s workshop: getting back to basics. How do you restore, or install, a piece of prairie on your property?

            Meanwhile, check the Habitat Hero information available at Audubon Rockies and Cheyenne Audubon websites.

            This spring, look for native prairie plants for sale, but not the fancy varieties at the big box stores. Try shopping online at the High Plains Environmental Center’s plant sale featuring 150 straight native species. It starts March 31 and continues into September.

            Place your order and then drive down to Loveland in the next day or two to pick it up. Be sure to allow time for a walk around the demonstration gardens there. It’s hard to believe only the new transplants are irrigated.

Jim Tolstrup discusses prairie plant propagation at the High Plains Environmental Center June 2022. Photo by Barb Gorges.

Prairie plants adapt to town

Purple Coneflower, Echinacea purpurea, attracts bees. Photo by Barb Gorges.

“Prairie plants can be part of low-water town landscapes” was published Feb. 19, 2022, in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

By Barb Gorges

            The Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities is looking for examples of low-water yards. I can point to several in my neighborhood that received no irrigation last summer, but they aren’t pretty. Either they filled with thistles or they developed bare patches where the topsoil was blowing away and leaving grit behind.

            Sarah Bargsten, BOPU’s water conservation specialist, is looking for examples of low-water residential and commercial landscapes that are inspiring and informative and that would be identified on a map available on the BOPU website. If you think your landscape would be a good candidate for this project, send her an email at sbargsten@cheyennebopu.org.

            Low-water landscaping is one aspect of the series of annual Habitat Hero workshops put on in Cheyenne since 2015. Last month, Jeff Geyer, water specialist for the Laramie County Conservation District, took the audience through his experience converting his lawn from non-native bluegrass to native buffalograss.

            It struck him as expensive insanity to spend money on irrigating his large yard, anywhere from $400 to $600 per month during the growing season, plus fertilizer and herbicides, just to grow a “crop” of bluegrass that cost him and his wife even more time and money to mow just so they could pay the city compost facility to pick up the clippings.

            He experimented with establishing buffalograss, which is native to our naturally low-water prairie. It takes a lot less water to green up once established. It doesn’t need fertilizer. After a year or two of hand weeding, it will be thick enough to shade out any further weeds. It’s only 4 to 5 inches tall so you can get away without mowing and the seed heads look ornamental.

            However, one drawback is that it doesn’t grow well in shady yards. And its season of green is shorter than bluegrass, a small thing when you consider how water will become a costly commodity in the dry West.

A bee investigates the disk flowers of this composite flower, Purple Coneflower. Photo by Barb Gorges.

            Everyone’s favorite part of the Habitat Hero workshop is talking about the plants. The other prong of the Habitat Hero program is encouraging people to plant for pollinators—but plants that need less water than traditional flower gardens. Guess what? The plants native to the grassland surrounding Cheyenne are perfect. And popular.

            Showy prairie flowers like blanketflower (Gaillardia), black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia) and coneflower (Echinacea), have been very popular for years with conventional horticulturists wanting to develop cultivated varieties that are showier, taller, shorter, prettier and maybe even hardier.

            There’s a variety of purple coneflower that was introduced in 2012 called “Cheyenne Spirit.” Any given seed packet will give you a combination of white, pink, purple, orange and red flowers. It was developed by a plant breeder in Holland who apparently equates the name of our city and the tribe with this flower native to the Great Plains.

            Some coneflower cultivars however, get so showy that the daisy-like center disk flowers become more like the ray flowers, or petals, and they don’t produce pollen and nectar. Steer clear of those if you are trying to attract bees, butterflies and hummingbirds.

            Also steer clear of stores where the clerks can’t tell you if the plants and seeds were grown without neonicotinoids. Neonics are a group of powerful systemic (internal)  insecticides. Any insect that chomps on leaf, stem or flower will die. Not good if you are encouraging caterpillars that feed baby birds or that you want to have become butterflies. Neonics also get into pollen and nectar and kill the bees and butterflies that way.

            So, if the clerk doesn’t know what you are talking about or can’t show you some documentation, go somewhere else. Or grow your own. It’s not too late for winter sowing—search for the topic at my website: https://cheyennegardengossip.wordpress.com.

            A terrific resource for learning about native plants for our area and finding sources for them is the new document by Jane and Robert Dorn, “The Cheyenne Plant Selector.” Find it and other resources at https://cheyenneaudubon.org/habitat-hero-resources.

            To remove bluegrass lawn to plant buffalograss or native flowers and other grasses, there are choices: smothering with sheets of cardboard, solarization by covering with sheets of clear plastic (cooking the existing vegetation), poisoning with an herbicide (get recommendations from the Conservation District) and what Mark does at our house, remove the turf with a shovel and compost it. Don’t till or the bluegrass will just pop up again.  

            Planting natives does not mean you have to give up all your favorite ornamentals and vegetables. Think of it as a new aspect of gardening to explore, one that benefits many more creatures and by extension, people.

This bee has collected a lot of pollen. Photo by Barb Gorges.

Spring gardening pleasures

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.

Gardeners busy in February

Amaryllis flower begins to open. Photo by Barb Gorges.

“Gardeners are busy in February” was published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle Feb. 6, 2021.

By Barb Gorges

            February is a busy time for those of us who enjoy a plant-filled life.

            The first half of the month is overshadowed by Valentine’s Day. Did you know that 80 percent of American-sold cut flowers are grown in Columbia and flown here? Those growing conditions are often toxic to the environment and workers. Read about how that happened at www.BrownPoliticalReview.org, by searching for “Veriflora.”

            Veriflora, a program offered through SCS Global Services, is an attempt to encourage sustainable ornamental horticulture. You are most likely to find certified plants and flowers somewhere like Whole Foods, but try The Home Depot too.

            If your beloved is a gardener, try a gift certificate to a nearby or online nursery instead. Or one of the myriad garden books from Timber Press.

            Winter is when gardeners gather for lectures and conferences—virtually this year. Here in Cheyenne the 7^th Annual Habitat Hero Workshop in mid-January featuring Douglas Tallamy and two other speakers had more than 300 people register. You can watch the recordings by using the links at www.CheyenneAudubon.wordpress.com, on the Habitat Hero tab.

            Feb. 27 is the Landscaping with Colorado Native Plants Conference, with a day’s worth of speakers. See https://landscapingwithcoloradonativeplants.wordpress.com/. There you can find the speakers’ handouts from conferences dating back to 2017.

            Fort Collins Nursery has its usual list of Saturday classes, now through early March: https://fortcollinsnursery.com.

Amaryllis flower at its peak. Photo by Barb Gorges.

February is the peak of my amaryllis collection flowering. I don’t put the plants through dormancy to try to get them to bloom at Christmas. Instead, I keep them watered and green year-round and they naturally bloom anytime between January and April.

I now have two Phalaenopsis orchids and their bloom schedule is similar. The new one started blooming shortly after it arrived by mail last April, and a couple flowers never dropped off. At the end of January, as I write this, they are still hanging on, surrounded by fresh blooms.

I might have hyacinth blooming by mid-month. In the fall I buried a pot of bulbs out in the vegetable garden. I marked the calendar for Feb. 2 to dig them up and bring them in.

The geraniums I brought in last fall are also blooming, so I don’t think Mark will be thinking I need more flowers for Valentine’s Day.

February isn’t too late to buy or order seeds. Last year, seed sellers ran short trying to keep up with demand—one garden news source says the pandemic encouraged 16 million people to garden for the first time last spring. Everyone should be better prepared this year.

Try regional online seed catalogs:

–High Desert Seed of Montrose, Colorado

–Wild Mountain Seeds of Carbondale, Colorado

–High Ground Gardens of Crestone, Colorado

–Snake River Seeds of Idaho

–Grand Prismatic Seed Company of Salt Lake City, Utah (also carries seeds for dye plants)

February is my last chance to get my winter sowing done. This is the technique well suited to cold-weather vegetables and perennial seeds, especially those that require cold treatment.

In a translucent milk jug that has been sliced horizontally just below the handle, I put wet potting soil about 3 inches deep. Seeds are planted at a depth of twice their width and then the top of the milk jug is forced into the bottom—they are flexible so it works. Leave the jugs on the north or east side of a wall so they don’t get too much sun.

Maybe move them into a sunnier location in late April, early May, when seedlings start popping up. No expensive lights or heat mats required. Just make sure the potting soil doesn’t dry out and that you slashed some slits in the bottoms of the jugs so that melting snow doesn’t cause all the contents to float.

Itching to spend time outside? Have any tree or shrub pruning to do?

With our lack of snow this winter, you have plenty of time to get out a measuring tape and measure your yard and plot its current accoutrements on paper. Make copies so you can sketch in different ideas for next season. I want to enlarge my front native/perennial/pollinator beds using the ergonomic shovel, HERShovel, Mark gave me for Christmas.

Finally, visit the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens conservatory. Walk through the tropical display on the first floor, following the arrows. The humidity will feel wonderful. Across the lobby in the Orangerie, continuing through March 13, is the Annual Glass Art Show, full of all the colors we crave in winter.  

Assessing the gardening season

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

---

Native plant gardening for SE Wyoming

Rudbeckia (Black-eyed Susan)

Gaillardia

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.

Katie Collins, Ft. Collins Water-Wise Landscape program manager, who spoke about and demonstrated the technicalities, has information at https://www.fcgov.com/utilities/residential/conserve/water-efficiency/xeriscape.

Prepare for planting

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.

Perennials from seed

Laramie County Master Gardener Michelle Bohanan supervised the winter sowing hands-on activity for all 105 workshop participants, https://cheyennegardengossip.wordpress.com/2016/03/21/winter-sowing/.

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.

Plant so that the transition between stem and root is at surface level–not below it or above it. Loosen the roots–gently knock off some of the potting soil. For trees, see https://cheyennegardengossip.wordpress.com/2014/04/22/how-to-plant-a-tree-in-cheyenne-wyoming/.

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.

Shrubs

Buffaloberry

Chokecherry

Golden Currant

Red-twig Dogwood

Mountain Mahogany

American (Wild) Plum

Rabbitbrush

Silver Sage

Western Sandcherry

Serviceberry

Yucca

Perennial flowers

Beebalm, Monarda fistulosa

Black-eyed Susan, Rudbeckia hirta

Rocky Mountain Columbine, Aquilegia caerula

Coneflower, Echinacea angustifolia

Prairie Coneflower, Ratibida columnifera

Gaillardia, Gaillardia aristata

Fleabane Daisy, Erigeron species

Gayfeather or Blazing Star, Liatris punctata

Harebells, Campanula rotundifolia

Milkweed, Asclepias speciosa

Rocky Mountain Penstemon, Penstemon strictus

Poppy Mallow, Callirhoe involucrate

Native Yarrow, Achillea millefolium

Panayoti Kelaidis to inspire Wyoming gardeners to go native Feb. 29

“Going Native: International plant explorer Panayoti Kelaidis wants to inspire Wyoming gardeners”

Published Feb. 9, 2020, in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, https://www.wyomingnews.com/features/outdoors/international-plant-explorer-panayoti-kelaidis-wants-to-inspire-wyoming-gardeners/article_213c7e0a-9bc6-5de5-9130-d5521285bd47.html.

---

6^th Annual Cheyenne Habitat Hero Workshop: “Rethinking Wyoming Landscaping – Native Plant Gardening 101”

Feb. 29, 8 a.m. – 4 p.m., Laramie County Community College

$25 fee includes lunch. Register by Feb. 27 at https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/4463444, where the complete schedule can be read.

Questions: Mark Gorges, 307-287-4953, mgorges@juno.com.

---

By Barb Gorges, with Niki Kottmann

Panayoti Kelaidis stepped out to pour us a couple cups of Ceylonese tea. While I waited, I noticed his office at the Denver Botanic Gardens has floor-to-ceiling shelves full of plant books for parts of the world he’s travelled to.

Numerous plaques and certificates on one wall commemorate his contributions to horticulture over a lengthy career. His latest accolade is to being chosen as a judge at this year’s Philadelphia Flower Show.

The windowsill features a parade of small, unique succulents and cactuses, part of Kelaidis’s extensive personal plant collection at his Denver home. I toured the nearly half-acre garden on the Garden Bloggers Fling last summer.

Kelaidis, senior curator and director of outreach for the Denver Botanic Gardens, will be the keynote speaker at the sixth annual Cheyenne Habitat Hero workshop Feb. 29.

            As part of his job at the gardens, Kelaidis leads plant tours to foreign countries, most recently Tibet. A tour of the Sichuan, China, planned for June will depend on world health concerns. It’s helpful he reads Chinese, having once been a student of the language.

Kelaidis is also enthusiastic about Wyoming, where he visited two favorite aunts as a child. In the 1980s, he also travelled our state for his native seed business. He likes to take people on plant tours to the Cody area. As the president-elect of the North American Rock Garden Society, he’s considering a future convention in Cheyenne—we have natural rock gardens nearby to show off.

Kelaidis’s plant knowledge is extensive, especially grassland and alpine species. He co-authored the 2015 book “Steppes, The Plants and Ecology of the World’s Semi-arid Regions,” about the four major steppe regions in the world, including the Great Plains. He also writes a blog called Prairiebreak, http://prairiebreak.blogspot.com/, and he established the Rock Alpine Garden at the Denver Botanic Gardens.

How does he describe himself? “Plant nerd” and a friend calls him a plant geek. I think he’s both. He’ll tell you he isn’t a garden designer, but I’d say he looks at an even bigger picture. And that is why he’s been invited to be the Habitat Hero workshop’s keynote speaker.

Kelaidis’s Feb. 29 talk, “Rethinking Wyoming Landscaping—Native Plant Gardening 101,” will echo Douglas Tallamy’s book “Bringing Nature Home.” Both it and Rachel Carson’s book “Silent Spring,” mark sea changes in our relationship to nature. Carson’s book, published in 1962, showed the devastation caused by indiscriminate use of pesticides, while Tallamy’s 2007 book showed us our conventional landscaping and gardening practices are detrimental to native insects, birds, other wildlife, and consequently, people. We need to plant native plants to support native insects, including native bees and butterflies. They are the foundation of the healthy ecosystems we enjoy and require.

At first, Kelaidis thought Tallamy was a little too radical, saying all ornamental plants from elsewhere needed to be replaced with natives. For many generations, the goal of landscaping and ornamental gardening has been beauty, Kelaidis said. But now he recognizes the other goal must be “ecological services.”

“We really need to figure out how to create a garden that is part of the natural system, not an obstacle,” said Kelaidis. Can that be beautiful? Can we shift the paradigm completely?

Can we make beautiful gardens with native plants? What we mean by “native” varies. For some American gardeners, it means the species originated on our continent, even if 3000 miles away. Or “native” for Cheyenne could mean any Great Plains species, or even just those from the prairie outside town.

Xeriscaping, gardening with less water, began about 45 years ago in the Denver area, Kelaidis said. With a growing population that could quickly run out of water, smart people realized changing from landscape plants popular in parts of the country with high rainfall to plants that need less water would help. The Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities promotes this philosophy as well. Many of the more xeric plants are natives.

Kelaidis worked with the Denver Botanic Gardens and Colorado State University to help form Plant Select, https://plantselect.org/. The brand develops plants native to our high plains and intermountain region for the nursery trade. It makes it easy for gardeners to grow beautiful plants by planting those that love to grow here—and use less water. Although, Kelaidis said, there’s still room to grow the occasional prized non-native, water-hungry ornamental.

The water-wise and pollinator-friendly movements were combined a few years ago by Audubon Rockies’ Habitat Hero program. The five previous workshops in Cheyenne have been well-received. I think it’s because people enjoy doing something positive like gardening to support our environment.

After Kelaidis’s keynote address, “Rethinking Wyoming Landscaping – Learning from the Natives,” the workshop’s other presenters will walk attendees through the steps to take to make a Habitat Hero garden.

Talks will include how to protect and maintain natural prairie if you have some already, deciding on a location for a garden, removing unwanted plants whether turf or weeds, choosing plants, proper planting techniques, maintaining plants and gardens, and how to apply to be a certified Habitat Hero. The two hands-on components will be about how to install drip irrigation and how to use the winter sowing technique to grow native plants from seed (seeds, soil and containers included).

Panayoti Kelaidis checks out plants at Soapstone Prairie Natural Area in northern Colorado.