Successive sowing of seeds in your vegetable garden will ensure a harvest all season long. Plant bush beans, beets, carrots, broccoli, kohlrabi and peas now for a fall crop.
Warm season vegetables, such as beans, corn, cucumbers, melons, okra, eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, pumpkin and squash should start to flower and fruit.
Removing ripe fruit will ensure these plants keep producing through the season.
Our Colorado environment is home to some amazing native shrubs. Not only are these shrubs disease resistant and perfect for our native soil, they attract birds, butterflies and provide year-round interest.
Try adding to your landscape a sumac, Apache plume, serviceberry, rabbitbrush, fernbush, mountain mahogany or buffaloberry.
These shrubs have some very unique features, such as the curly, furry fruit of the mountain mahogony, reddish-orange berries of the buffaloberry or the white clusters of flowers of the serviceberry. After proper placement and establishment, these shrubs require little care.
You won’t find these shrubs outside the southwest region. Adding them to your landscape helps keep the area diversified and encourages the local ecosystem. They can be blended seamlessly with non-native plants, depending on the shrubs water and sun needs.
Ask for a tree and shrub representative to help find these native shrubs to match your landscape needs. We also offer many native trees and perennials, come out and see!
Looking beautiful color all summer long? Try adding a shrub rose for summer color, even in a harsh location. Some of our most popular shrub roses to try include Morden Sunrise, Winnipeg Parks, Hope for Humanity, Sunrise Sunset or a Knockout.
Shrub roses do well in most parts of Colorado and are the hardiest of rose varieties. Choose a full-sun area with well-drained soil. Avoid areas with other shrubs to cut down on root competition.
Make sure to amend the soil when planting, digging a hole about twice the size of the container wide a deep.
Shrub roses also benefit from early spring pruning. Remove dead, diseased or winter-damaged canes, and open up areas for air circulation and shape. There is no need to cut back shrub roses to the ground like the hybrid roses. Past-bloom flowers develop into attractive rose hips, which add a dab of winter color and food for birds.
Ask a nursery tree and shrub representative for more tips, fertilizers and maintenance on shrub roses.
Try fighting pests with their natural enemies! Beneficial insects prey upon pests that damage both your plants.
In our Garden Shop you can find ladybugs, praying mantid eggs, earth worms and nematodes. We can also order predatory mites to control spider mites, tricho-gramma to control caterpillars, green lacewings to control aphids and delphastus to control white flies.
We offer Plan Bee! mason bee nests, to encourage these wonderful (and threatened) pollinators, and Ladybug houses to encourage an active population in your yard.
Got grasshoppers? Try Nolo Bait, a long-term grasshopper suppression agent made of wheat bran coated in spores. The hoppers eat the bran and become infected. This bait is safe to use around humans, pets, birds and wildlife!
Diatomaceous Earth is another natural insect control. The “earth” is actually tiny fossilized hard-shelled algae that is mildly abrasive. For insects like ants, this irritates them and causes dehydration.
We also offer Red Wigglers, nature’s original soil improver! Worms waste product (castings) make excellent fertilizer!
Call 970-482-1984 for availably.
Even the hardiest of vegetables and flowers need protection from frost and freezing temperatures. In Northern Colorado, the average last frost date is May 15, and in Southern Wyoming it can be as late as the first or second week of June, so don’t let those 70 degree days fool you!
Most early spring bulbs resist the unpredictable weather, but the actual blooms are more likely to be damaged. The same goes for vegetables; early season crops may thrive in cooler conditions, but may be devastated by a hard cold snap.
There are many ways to prevent cold damage to your plants. We recommend using frost cloth, whether laid directly over plants or attached to a structure.
Using black plastic to cover soil in vegetable gardens will also warm the soil, prevent moisture loss and keep weeds at bay. You can do the same in landscape beds with a layer of mulch.
We also recommend Hot Kaps to cover tender (but hardened off) crops. Even an upside down nursery pot can cover plants overnight. Just remember to remove any covering during the day so sunlight can get in.
These frost protection items are all available in the garden shop at the nursery.
February and March are excellent times to get a head start on your garden! Seeds are a wonderful and cost-effective way to try new varieties of vegetables.
After choosing your seeds, be sure to follow specific starting instructions. Provide a draft-free 65-75 degree area, and a sunny window or full-spectrum grow light to get seedlings off to a great start. A special seed starting heating pad can help regulate temperatures and give your seedling the warm soil they love.
Fort Collins Nursery offers trays, plastic pots, peat pots, potting mix, and of course hundreds of varieties of organic, heirloom and traditional seed.
Questions? Ask one of our Garden Shop or Greenhouse representatives for ideas or recommendations to make this year’s garden something to talk about!
With rising gas prices, and grocery market mark up, eating fresh produce can make quite a dent in your pocketbook. Healthy, homegrown fruits and vegetables are a fraction of the cost, and need no shipping to get to your plate!
A few ounces of seeds will produce many pounds of fresh produce (sometimes too many pounds!). Anyone who has grown a zucchini plant will know. Share with your neighbors, set up a produce exchange with your gardening friends or donate to the food bank.
Seed packets range from 99¢ up to a few dollars. One seed packet is less money than one fast food meal, and keeps producing food all season long! Can your Big Mac do that?
If you don’t have room for a vegetable garden, or time to nurture one, try buying shares in one of our local Community Supporting Agriculture (CSA) farms.
Ever wonder why you’d need to harden off a vegetable starter plant? This term refers to the acclimation process of preparing a plant to move from warm indoor growing conditions to cooler outdoor conditions.
About two weeks before planting, move plants outdoors to an area protected from blustery winds. Each day, gradually give them more sun exposure, but avoid setting out plants when the temperature is below 45 degrees. Bring them in at night and repeat this process.
Hardening off plants applies to vegetables grown from seed, vegetable starter plants, and flowers. Our nursery stock that is outdoors in early spring has already been hardened off for you, but greenhouse plants will still need that extra TLC!
Crabapple, redbud, pear, hawthorn and plum trees have a wonderful way of announcing, “Spring is here!” After a long, cold winter, these trees are some of the first to wake up and share their fragrant, vivid blossoms.
Not only do many of these trees produce edible fruit, but also are well adapted to Front Range conditions, which is why you’ll find them all over town.
We also appreciate the positive psychological effect these ornamental early bloomers bring: warmer, longer days are on their way! All of these varieties are available at the nursery.
The recommended height for blue grass lawns is 2 ½”-3″. Mow frequently so that no more than 1/3 of the grass height is removed during a single mowing. With this program, you will be mowing every 4-5 days in the Spring and every 7-10 days in the Summer.
