What the heck is turning your plants into lace-y skeletons? If it's late June, July or August in the Front Range of Colorado, Japanese beetles may be to blame. "What do Japanese beetles look like?" you may be wondering. Japanese beetles are metallic green insects with...
I used to leave everything in my flowerpots until spring. The whole shebang. Dead flowers, old potting soil, all of it. And for a few years, everything was fine. But then, I lost a few flowerpots to cracking. (Ugh.) I also learned about some pesky insects that like to...
What NOT to Plant in Fall Gardens Early fall can be a good time to plant perennials in many places in the intermountain West. (Perennials are your flowers that return year after year.) But as I’ve learned the hard way in my Colorado garden… There are some flowers you...
It was a winter week to make a gardener shudder. In February 2021, an arctic blast covered the western United States like a frosty ice pack from the kitchen freezer. Where I live in Colorado, the high temperature for several days was a not-so-balmy zero degrees. The...
You want your spring flowers to look pretty, but what's the best way to design them? How do you make the biggest impact? Great questions! In this week's post, you'll find 4 simple tips for spring bulb garden design. Use these tips when you plant your bulbs in the...
Let’s say you’d like to grow pretty spring flowers in your western garden, like tulips or daffodils. Awesome! These spring flowers grow from bulbs that you plant in the fall in Colorado, Utah and the West. Here are a few examples of spring flowering bulbs: In this...
Let's say you’ve noticed some strange, round holes in your plant leaves. These circular holes have fairly smooth edges. It almost looks like someone took an office hole punch and punched circles along the edges of your leaves. What’s making these round holes in your...
9 ways to prepare for hail to minimize damage to your western garden Hail can leave you wanting to yell, “WHHHHYYYYYYYY?????” to Mama Nature. Sometimes, thunderstorms pop up so suddenly, there's very little that can be done except for cleaning up the damage. But other...
When you live in states like Colorado, Wyoming and Texas, you may not get hail every year, but some years, you’ll get it 2 … 3 … 7 times. (I’m not crying. I have something in my eye.) It’s like playing the lottery, except hail is a prize you DON’T want to win. In this...