Plant Select Announces 2011 Winners

Avalanche White Sun Daisy

Every year, Plant Select^® chooses new and underutilized plants to promote to regional gardeners and landscape professionals. New plants are evaluated on their ability to thrive in a broad range of garden situations in the Rocky Mountain region, their resilience to the region’s challenging climate, uniqueness, disease and insect resistance, ability to flourish in low water conditions, long season of beauty in the garden, and noninvasiveness.


You might want to take this list with you to the garden center!

Kendrick Lake Park a Xeric Wonder

Jefferson County's garden is world renowned. If you haven't visited, please do so. You will get so many ideas for your home garden!
!Kendrick Lake park a xeric wonder - The Denver Post

Try Brunnera in Dry Shade by Dusty M

Last year I attended a garden center class focusing on perennials for shady areas. I’m always looking for something that tolerates dry shade. I care for a family member’s yard filled with trees that cut off most sunlight except early and late in the day. The soil seems always dry, despite a thick layer of wood chip mulch plus the pine needles and leaves that collect there naturally. Tree roots suck up all the moisture in the soil. Grass stopped growing there some years ago. A little ivy has crept into the area, and there are a couple of other plants I’ll mention below. I place pots of shade annuals there in the summer. Fibrous begonias, impatiens, coleus, caladiums, and elephant ears do fine with daily watering.

At the end of the class I decided to try two possibilities. One was Paxistima canbyi (mountain lover), a low-growing spreading evergreen shrub that could provide some winter color, and Brunnera macrophylla ‘Jack Frost’ (Siberian forget-me-not), with blue spring flowers and silvery-patterned leaves for spring, summer, and fall. I planted the Brunnera at the edge of the grouping of annuals in their pots, which surround the trunk of a large old apple tree. It was watered daily along with the annuals through the summer but was neglected after frost and the annuals died away.

I was a little surprised a couple weeks ago when I noticed a hazy blue splotch near the apple tree trunk. I remembered the Brunnera and felt guilty forgetting it for half a year. I promised to do better next winter.

The Paxistima did not survive. Neither has bishop’s weed (Aegopodium podagraria), which I’ve tried in the past. In sunlight and more favorable conditions, it’s considered a pest that’s hard to control.

Others that do grow in this dry shade: Mahonia repens (creeping Oregon grapeholly) volunteers have moved in from a nearby foundation planting. An Agastache foeniculum (anise hyssop) plant has survived five or six years, after putting roots into the ground from one of the pots. (That’s a survivor!) This is not the popular xeric agastache that hummingbirds like. It’s a more compact anise-scented perennial with dark green leaves and blue/purple flowers, generally considered a plant for full sun and ample moisture.

(For more details about the Mahonia, see “Evergreen Shrubs for Home Grounds” at http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/garden/07414.html and “Native Shrubs for Colo Landscapes” at http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/garden/07422.html Paximista is among perennials and shrubs cited in “Ground Cover Plants” at http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/garden/07400.html

Wild About Wildflowers by Gardener Cumax

I'm not content to just yarden veggies. I love creating landscapes, too. My third big project this Spring is converting our front lawn into a showcase xeriscape.

The seedlings here are 3 weeks old. They just started sprouting right when the huge April 17-18 snowstorm slammed into the West Denver Metro area. Because they didn't have necks to break, they survived intact.

As you can see from the pictures I have about one seedling per inch, which means I have some serious and tedious thinning to do in a few weeks. Gardening is work but it's the best kind of work I can imagine.

Their common names are below followed by their latin name if I have it. They are perennials unless noted as annual with (A).
Baby's Breath (Gypsophila elegans (A)), Blanketflower (Gaillardia aristata), California Poppy (Eschscholzia californica), Cornflower (Centaurea cyanus (A)), Dwarf Red Coreopsis (Coreopsis tinctoria), Lance-Leaved Coreopsis (Coreopsis lanceolata), Missouri Primrose (Oenothera missouriensis), Red Yarrow (Achillea millefolium, rubra), Drummond Phlox (Phlox drummondii (A)), Catchfly (Silene ameria (A)), Baby Blue Eyes (Nemophila menziesii (A)), Blackeyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta), Blue Flax, Clarkia, Corn Poppy, Indian Blanket (Giallardia pulchella), Lemon Mint (Monarda citriodora), Scarlet Flax (Linum grandifloram rubra (A)), Shasta Daisy (Chrysanthemum maximum (A), Upright Prairiecone, Siberian Wallflower (Cheiranthus allioni), and Painted Daisy (Chrysanthemum carinatum (A)).

The annuals will probably provide most of the color and then the perennials will do that the following years. It's just a little different for me this year as I prefer perennials over annuals; so planting this kind of mix gets me out of my comfort zone.

Kendrick Lake Gardens by Carol King

Jefferson County Colorado Master Gardeners were treated to a visit at the Gardens at Kendrick Lake Park this week. We were given a VIP tour by Greg Foreman, Urban Parks Specialist for the City of Lakewood and two of his top aides. Located on Jewell just west of Garrison, Kendrick Lake Park is a veritable botanic garden for drought-tolerant plants. We saw more than 350 flowers, shrubs, ground covers, trees, and roses. In 2001, Greg and his staff set out to create the new western garden, using flora that makes sense in Colorado. Greg is a man on a mission: showcasing just what wonderful gardens we can create with plants appropriate to six habitat areas that encompass Colorado: plains, foothills, upper Sonoran, montane, and alpine. The one acre garden features six beds of beautiful native and non-native plants that will grow in these life zones. Many plants are from other dry areas on the planet like Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan. There are also flowers native to Texas, California, Utah and others. The Rocky Mountain region has become known for horticultural innovation of drought-tolerant species thanks in large part to people like Greg.
These gardens prove that if we choose the right plants, properly prepare the soil (this garden uses fine gravel called slurry, mixed half and half with garden topsoil) and water correctly, we can have lovely gardens that are much more appropriate to the western landscape. Mulching for moisture control is a large part of the process. This magnificent garden demonstrates several types of mulch: rock, bark, and my favorite, buffalo grass. These plantings need very little water. They water less than once a week during the hottest months and none in the fall and winter. Visits to this garden will, dear gardener, encourage even the most resistant of you to try some new kinds of plantings and perhaps join the anti-lawn, native, or xeriscape plant movements.
Incidentally, the Urban Parks Division maintains all the parks within Lakewood. It also cares for plantings in the 1,550 acres of parks, on 242 miles of street medians, all the public buildings and right of ways in the City. And all with only 34 staff members (plus some seasonal help)! Once you have visited the Kendrick Lake gardens, I am sure you will see Greg Foreman’s innovative, thoughtful hand in many public garden areas throughout Lakewood. We are fortunate to have this talented man with his dedicated staff working to make our City most beautiful. (and water wise!).

*“The word "Xeriscape," was coined by the Denver Water Department in 1981 to help make water conserving landscaping an easily recognized concept. The word is a combination of "landscape" and the Greek word "xeros," which means dry.”* It is in fact a trademarked word owned by them. Xeriscape does not mean “zeroscape”. or no water, it means wise water use. A reduction of 60% of water use is quite common when using xeriscaping principles.

* From the Colorado WaterWise Council website: www.xeriscape.org.

XERISCAPE AND NATIVE PLANTING INFORMATION

Here's some information about xeriscape and water wise gardening.

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• Principles of Xeriscaping, City of Lakewood
http://www.ci.lakewood.co.us/comres/page.cfm?ID=327&PrinciplesofXeriscaping/.hrml

• Xeriscape Colorado
http://coloradowaterwise.org//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=88&Itemid=21.html

FACT SHEETS FROM CSU EXTENSION

• Xeriscaping: Creative Landscaping
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/PUBS/garden/07228.html
• Xeriscaping: Ground Cover Plants
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/Garden/07230.html
• Xeriscaping: Retrofit your Yard
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/PUBS/garden/07234.html