The Gardens on Spring Creek

  Liatris pycnostachya  (purple bloom) , Pycnanthemum muticum (upper right foliage) , Symphyotrichum laterflorus (dark purple foliage in foreground) What’s Blooming in August:   The Prairie Garden by Bryan Fischer, Horticulturist, The Gardens on Spring Creek   While the “dog days” of summer represent a quiet time in many gardens in our region, emblemized by plants that brown-out or resort to a scorched, stupor-like state of semi-dormancy, these hot days usher in the fashionably-late arrival for the  bloom  of many prairie natives. Thriving off warm nights, which take longer to arrive here on the Front Range than in much of the Midwest due to our elevation, the residents of our Prairie Garden have finally made their gaudy entrance onto the scene.  Guara lindheimer  and Artemisia frigida Perhaps the first arrival this year from the late season bloomers in the Prairie Garden,  Oenothera (Gaura)  lindheimer  (commonly called...

Pawnee Buttes, Josh Cornell 2013 The Pawnee Blooms Again by Josh Cornell, Horticulturist, The Gardens on Spring Creek One of the most anticipated arrivals to the winter weather weary residents of Northern Colorado each spring is that of the annual wildflower bloom.  While most people’s thoughts drift to the mountain slopes, as they eagerly wait for the snowpack to melt, there is another place that can prove to be just as soul stirring as any alpine scene.  The Pawnee Buttes are often unheard of, as they reside in the overlooked (and underappreciated) eastern half of the state, but the area has much to offer.  The Buttes (the tallest of which is more than 300 feet tall) are located in the 193,000-acre Pawnee National Grassland, which is one of the few remaining examples of the natural, short-grass prairie that once dominated the landscape of the Great Plains.  In prehistoric times, this area was part of a large inland sea, and most would be surprised by looking at thi...