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What's Blooming in The Gardens: Native Plants

thread-leaf groundsel, Senecio flaccidus  




What’s Blooming in The Gardens:  Native Plants

by Sherry Fuller, Curator, The Gardens on Spring Creek

 

Summer’s heat might slow us down, but the native plants in our Foothills Garden are still providing abundant flowers.  Adding native plants to your garden provides pollen, nectar and seeds uniquely adapted to our pollinators and birds.  Native plants require little or no soil amendment, or fertilizer, and generally less water.  They also tolerate the extreme temperature fluctuations, high intensity sunlight, low humidity, high winds, unpredictable precipitation and poor soil that we all struggle with in our Northern Colorado gardens. 

The Gardens on Spring Creek began planting the Foothills Garden in the fall of 2018 and are continuing to add plants as we grow new varieties.  Currently we have at least 4,500 plants in the garden with about close to 300 species of native plants and their cultivars represented. 

paintbrush, castilleja integra


When you visit The Gardens, take the time to walk the unpaved paths up into our Foothills Garden and enjoy some of these plants that should be blooming now: 

  • Pearly everlasting is native across much of North America and is very easy to grow.  It has felted, silvery leaves and stems that grow one to three feet tall, topped in summer by dense clusters of small, white, papery flowers that are long-lasting.  
  • Wild bergamot or bee balm is also native across North America.  It has fragrant foliage and tends to reseed on its own, if it is in a good location.  Large heads of lavender-pink flowers in summer attract a wide range of pollinators.  It is quite resistant to mildew, which plagues many other bee balms, and is very adaptable to soil and water conditions. 
  • You might still catch the paintbrush blooming into July.  Their seeds require a cold treatment to germinate and the plants are partially parasitic, so they do best when growing near native grass or artemisia.  We have wholeleaf paintbrush that is one of the most drought tolerant of the genus with large, bright red bracts. 
  • One of my favorite, lesser known natives is thread-leaf groundsel, Senecio flaccidus.  About two feet tall and wide with narrow gray leaves and stems, it is topped in summer with yellow, daisy-like flowers that are visited by native bees and butterflies.  It is very drought tolerant and blooms for a long time.
  • A tall plant sure to attract your attention in this garden in summer is Ipomopsis rubra, called standing cypress or Texas plume.  We purchased starts of this plant as our native scarlet gilia, Ipomopsis aggregata, and quickly realized we had the wrong plant.  This grows two to five feet tall, much larger than our native.  Since the Foothills Garden is still establishing, we’ve left it for a few years to provide its spectacular summer and early fall color.  As we get our native scarlet gilia established, we’ll remove this interloper and encourage it to grow elsewhere.  Standing cypress is an annual or biennial in this area, with robust, tall stems lined with bright red tubular flowers with flaring tips.  It has feathery foliage, and as you might guess, is favored by hummingbirds.  We offer it at our annual Plant Sale if you’re interested in adding it to your own garden. 
yarrow, achillea terra cotta

Other flowers you might find this summer in the Foothills Garden include both red and yellow Mexican hat coneflower, hairy false goldenaster (great name, isn’t it?), yarrows, gaillardias, blue skullcap, Engleman’s daisy and many other species of perennial sunflowers.  We hope you’ll get a chance to enjoy our gardens soon.


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