The Gardens on Spring Creek

  What’s Blooming:   The Welcome Garden by Selena Kunze, Horticulturist, Gardens on Spring Creek The Welcome Garden was started in 2019 following completion of construction on the new building addition…or should I say it was pulled from the compacted earth, through parched patches of turf and crushed perennials. Initially coined “The Giant Pit”, lovingly of course, the garden began with removal of the suffering remnants of old beds, long unirrigated because of construction and frequently trampled by equipment and workers. The dwarf Forsythia , originally planted by former Curator Sherry Fuller as babies from her grandmother’s shrubs, were carefully dug and potted, while surviving perennials and grasses were relocated to nearby gardens or divided for our annual Spring Plant Sale. Big Daddy , the praying mantis sculpture made from repurposed metal dumpsters by Josh Jones, was commissioned to keep watch over the canal by the Theme Gardens instead, and volunteers painstakingly ...

Blooms on 'Golden Delicious' apple trees in the Garden of Eatin' What’s Blooming:  Fruit Tree Varieties for the Front Range by Sherry Fuller, Horticulturist, Gardens on Spring Creek Blossoms are starting show, and not much is as rewarding as a large crop of home-grown fruit.   With just a little forethought you can have that bonus in your own yard!     First, a few considerations.   How much room do you have?   Standard size fruit trees can grow too large for a city lot in just a few years.   Dwarf fruit trees are available and are cute, but sometimes the root stocks they are grafted onto aren’t as winter hardy as needed for our climate.   Semi-dwarf trees usually mature in the 10 - 12 feet size range and are often the most readily available at nurseries.   Or consider growing raspberries, currants or strawberries that are much smaller plants.   (More about them later.)   Some varieties of fruit trees won’t produce fruit unles...

  What’s Blooming:  Plans for Vegetable Gardening by Mary Miller, Community Garden and Outreach Coordinator, Gardens on Spring Creek   Each growing season brings new opportunities to one’s garden. Whether your garden space is quite small or is large, spring affords the chance to try a new tomato or add beets and chiles to the list of what to grow. As a nearly-lifelong gardener, I have explored growing a bajillion different varieties of vegetables.   Some are abandoned after the first year.   Others remain as favorites forever (or at least as long the seed remains available).   Sometimes treasured varieties are dropped from the trade. At times, it feels easier to go with what I know and plant many of the same crop varieties season over season.   Responsibilities for me include managing the Gardens on Spring Creek’s Garden of Eatin’.   It is a three-quarter acre site wholly dedicated to edible crops and the plants that support those crops. ...

  What’s Blooming:   Structural Pruning by Jacob Mares, Arborist and Horticulturist, Gardens on Spring Creek   Winter is a great time to take a moment to assess the plants in our landscapes. Deciduous trees remain dormant during these stretches of low temperatures, and the absence of leaves provides us with an opportunity to critique and correct structural issues.  Often, the care of trees in our landscape is relegated to what happens at ground level. While watering and mulching are integral parts of establishing healthy trees, the shape of your trees’ crown can develop problems over time that can lead to limb failure and an untimely demise. We can mitigate this damage by correcting structural defects early and often. Keeping an eye out for these problems starts the minute we purchase the tree and should continue well into the tree’s lifetime. Most trees can be assessed and / or pruned every other year during establishment, and every three to five years onc...

  Bee Balm What’s Blooming:   Plans for a Wildflower Garden by Sherry Fuller, Horticulturist and Curator, Gardens on Spring Creek   Wildflowers are popular now for good reason: they are often drought tolerant, easy to maintain and provide food and habitat for our native birds and insects. In this article, I’m using the term wildflower loosely to mean herbaceous native plants with showy flowers. Here are a few things to consider when planning to grow your own wildflower garden from seed. Choose a location:  Most showy wildflowers native to our area prefer at least six or seven hours of sun a day.  They won’t thrive directly under a large tree or on the north side of a building in the shade.  And while most are quite drought tolerant, they will still need water to get established. An area irrigated with a lawn system will usually work to get plants started but will ultimately be too much water for native plants. An area accessible with a hose would be ...

  Christmas cactus ( Schlumbergera x bridgesii What's Blooming:  Holiday Cacti by Bryan Fischer, Horticulturist, Gardens on Spring Creek   Holiday cacti have intrigued me since I was a kid. Particularly, I’ve been fascinated to see how common they are in the homes of family and friends, yet how poorly understood they are, both in identification and in care requirements. This post seeks to demystify these ubiquitous, durable and exceptionally long-lived houseplants, for our benefit and theirs alike. While they are true cacti (family Cactaceae), the plants we call holiday cacti today did not originate in the desert as many would expect.   Rather, they grow as epiphytes in tropical and subtropical South American rainforests, meaning they live on the bark of a host tree.   They differ from parasites in that they glean no nutrition from the trees upon which they grow.   As a result of their origins, all holiday cacti perform well in homes with indirect li...

Winter squash previously grown in the Garden of Eatin' What’s Blooming: Winter Squash and Pumpkins by Mary Miller, Community Garden and Outreach Coordinator, Gardens on Spring Creek With leaves changing and the first hard frost behind us, the season of winter squash and pumpkins is upon us. The array and diversity colors, shapes and sizes of winter squash is stunning, and the taste, texture and color of the flesh of the different squashes is equally diverse.   While many people are familiar with the most popular varieties of butternut, acorn, delicata and spaghetti squash, there is a dizzying number of other excellent varieties.   Let’s dive into the wonderful world of winter squash – also known as hard squash.   Botanically, pumpkins are the same as winter squash, though . . . . we know as a pumpkin when we see it!   Members of the cucurbit family of crops include summer squash, zucchini, cucumbers, melons, pumpkins and gourds along with winter squash.   H...