Fort Collins Nursery

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.

Looking for some late-summer, early autumn perennial bloomers? Add a colorful chrysanthemum to your flower bed or fall container garden! In the autumn, Fort Collins Nursery offers hundreds of these prolific, hardy and beautifully bushy perennials.

Mums come in a wide variety of colors, from yellow, pink, magenta, red, lavender, and more. Blooms on mums typically last for weeks providing a late-summer boost when other flowers have given out. And did you know that mum’s flowers are edible?

Fort Collins Nursery also offers a great selection of colorful asters, also a hardy late-summer and autumn bloomer. Small, abundant, star-shaped flowers tower on 2-3 foot plants, providing a nice backdrop in perennial beds.

Both mums and asters appreciate full sun, and a good dose of compost when planted. They also prefer water at their base, not on the leaves, which encourages powdery mildew.

Now that most of the planting has been done, summer blooms call us to linger in the garden a little longer. As you’re relaxing outdoors, it’s a great time to think structure and embellish your landscape.

Have a small, tucked away corner? Add a sturdy garden bench to linger and renew your perspective. Lead the way with our bee, dragonfly and butterfly stepping stones.

How about a hot, dry patio? Imagine the cooling effect of trickling water from a beautiful and unique patio fountain from Al’s Garden Art or . The birds will appreciate it, too! You could also encourage more backyard birds with strategically placed bird baths.

Add height anywhere with a freestanding trellis, perfect for climbing clematis, or plant stand, a great way to feature a blooming annual patio pot!

Hardscape features add focal points and year-round interest. Spend some time on our patio and you’ll see!

Saving seeds can be an inexpensive way to continue the great harvest of a vegetable or flower garden. For hundreds of years, it was part of the task of growing food. Now, buying seed packets can be inexpensive and easy, with a wide variety available (especially in our Garden Shop!).

If you spread a handful of flower seeds last spring, chances are you are still enjoying the reseeded flowers this year. Clip and save seed pods to broadcast next spring, or just let the flowers go wild; that’s what they do naturally!

Seeds from peas, beans, tomatoes, peppers, squashes and herbs are easy to save. After harvesting ripe, but not rotted fruits, remove as much pulp as possible. Beans and peas should be left on the plant until the pods are dry, and squashes should be left until the first frost, than harvested.

Spread seeds on a paper towel and air dry. You can try to speed up drying in the oven or a dehydrator, but temperatures over 100° F will damage the seed. Never use a microwave.

Store seeds in a cool, dry place away from hungry critters. Only seal seeds in a container when they are completely dry, since any moisture can lead to mold.

Use seeds the following season, since seeds will lose their viability after the first year.

If the vegetable seed you used was a hybrid, which is genetically modified, chances are seeds from these will not be true to its parent. This is often the case with saving seeds from store-bought vegetables. The best results are also from self-pollinated plants, listed here.

With a wonderful bounty of fresh produce, sometimes the garden overflows. Many home gardeners consider preserving the fruits of their labor to enjoy throughout the years to come. Preserving your own food can also be a big cost savings.

Freezing is one of the easiest ways to preserve food, but canning, drying or creating a root cellar work for particular foods and aren’t as labor intensive as they sound.

Cucumbers, green beans, peppers, onions, cauliflower and even watermelon rinds can be pickled.

An easy pickling recipe from Mother Earth News requires no canning, just a few weeks in the refrigerator.

Tomatoes can be preserved as salsa, sauce or just diced. Using a boiling water bath, tomatoes and pickles can be preserved without a canning pressure cooker due to the acidity content.

Cherries, plums, rhubarb, plums, pears and apricots can be made into jams and jellies and canned. Fruits can be packed into jars raw or preheated and packed hot.

To can fruit without adding sugar or salt, check out the CSU Cooperative Extension’s article “Food Preservation Without Sugar or Salt.” 

Dried fruits, such as apples, cherries and grapes, last well into the winter, if you don’t eat them all before then! Use a drying tray or an oven. Keep dried foods for up to a year by using a vacuum sealer.

Freeze shredded Zucchini for later use. Pumpkin can be steamed, pureed, and frozen. Try freezing pre-measured amounts for easy defrost. Turn a bumper basil crop into pesto, frozen into cubes, which is also easy to defrost for a quick dinner. Remember to label each with the date.

Hard-sided squash, such as acorn, butternut and spaghetti, can last for months in cool, dry areas, no preparation needed!

The CSU Cooperative Extension Office offers classes on a variety of preservation methods.

Kentucky bluegrass has gotten a bad rap as a high water-consuming lawn grass. Many folks have ripped out bluegrass and started over with fescue, blue gramma or buffalograss.

The establishment period of these alternative grasses often takes more water, and usually has to be reseeded. In many periods of drought and watering restrictions, some alternative grasses die out while bluegrass bounced back.

Alternative grasses work in specific applications, but if you already have bluegrass, it is possible to “toughen” it up. Even though many long for a golf-course green lawn, a little browning in the heat of summer is not a bad thing, it’s normal. Less frequent watering assures the grass can tolerate more heat stress.

Regular mowing, aerating and fertilizing is also essential for a healthy lawn. Our garden shop representatives can help pick a fertilizer that’s right for your lawn and discuss the optimal time of year.

If crabgrass is taking hold in your lawn this summer, now is the time to act. Grassy weeds like quackgrass, crabgrass, tall fescue and bromegrass are common invaders in Colorado lawns.

They spread by seed, and have a nasty habit of growing in large, thick clumps. The best control is an herbicide, but it will also kill the lawn grass with the weedy grass. Dead sections can be reseeded or sodded.

The overall best prevention is to keep a healthy, well maintained lawn. Regular mowing, watering, aerating and fertilizing keeps lawn grass thick, with little room for any invaders.

If all else fails, try applying pre-emergent again in the spring, before seeds germinate.

After a brief summer vacation outdoors, houseplants come back inside for a comfortable winter. Some may return with unwelcome visitors, such as fungus gnats, whiteflies, mealybugs, scales, aphids or spider mites.

Allowing soil to dry between waterings helps discourage egg-laying of pests in soil mixes, as does repotting. Wash pests off leaves with a quick spray of water.

Also, remove dead plant material and leaves, since they harbor larvae.

If the problem persists, bring a sample of the pest in and ask one of our knowledgeable greenhouse staff for a recommended treatment.