Three quick steps for planning low water landscapes

 Posted by: John Stolzle, Jefferson County Extension

Note: Many vegetable gardens are in the midst of full production. If you find yourself with an abundance of excess produce, I would encourage you to look into CSU Extension’s Grow & Give program where you can learn helpful tips to grow produce and information about how you can share the harvest. More information can be found on the Grow&Give program's website: http://growandgivecolorado.org/

This blog is not going to focus on vegetables, but instead present starter tips for planning a xeric or low water landscape. Across the state, summer heat is impacting our gardens and it has resulted in many common landscape plants struggling with heat and drought. Creatively designed and carefully planned landscapes which incorporate hardy xeric, or native plants can flourish under hot and droughty conditions.

Penstemon and sagebrush, Denver Botanic Gardens. Photo by Irene Shonle
Provided in: CSU Factsheet for Low Water Native Plants - SE Colorado.

Step 1. Planning & Plant Selection

The first step is to assess your landscape and begin selecting plants and to develop a general layout and plan. You’ll want to consider the amount of sun that your landscape receives; southern and western exposures particularly near buildings or pavement (with reflected heat) will often have the greatest losses of water – to address this, consider using plants that are especially tolerant of dry conditions. In exposed locations that are particularly steep or difficult to irrigate such as terraced areas, you might consider planting a xeric groundcover which can also help to prevent erosion. Once you have selected plants for your landscape, it can be helpful to group them by water requirements.

A great list of xeric groundcover plants to help get you started can be found at this following link: https://extension.colostate.edu/docs/pubs/garden/07230.pdf

Additional resources to help start planning a xeric garden can be found towards the end of this blog post.

Heat reflected by the sides of buildings can be especially
 stressful for plants not well adapted to heat and drought.

Step 2. Soil Prep and Irrigation Planning.

Once you have a plan in place for your landscape and plants picked out, you can help ensure the successful establishment of your plants by properly amending your soil when needed. If your soil is too sandy, nutrients and water can be lost to leaching below the root zone of your plants; if the soil is thick clay, a landscape can lose water to runoff. To cultivate a soil that is just right, you can add organic matter annually to garden areas to help improve moisture retention. Additional information regarding soil amendments can be found in this following link: https://extension.colostate.edu/docs/pubs/garden/07235.pdf

Drip irrigation isn't just for vegetable gardens,
it can be very effective for other landscapes as well. 

Native and Xeric plants can withstand very trying conditions; however, they are vulnerable and more sensitive when first becoming established. This process can take up to three years after planting, and so it is important that newly planted xeric and native plants are provided supplemental water during their initial years in a landscape. If you have an irrigation system already installed, you may wish to conduct an irrigation system self audit; if you do not have a system installed, you may be interested in setting up a drip irrigation system. Drip irrigation can be much more efficient than standard above ground sprinkler systems.

Irrigation System Self Audit: https://extension.colostate.edu/topic-areas/yard-garden/lawn-irrigation-self-audit-lisa/

Drip Irrigation: https://extension.colostate.edu/docs/pubs/garden/04702.pdf

Step 3. Just add mulch.

Mulch can greatly help to conserve soil moisture, it can reduce soil temperatures, the amount of soil exposed to wind, and help manage weeds. Wood chips and pea gravel can make a great choice for trees, shrubs, or perennials; but stone mulch should be limited to less than half and inch in diameter for weed management and water conservation. Black rolled plastic, or woven ‘weed fabric’ can interfere with the flow of oxygen and water between the soil and air and this can sometimes harm plants. These types of mulch are not recommended for many landscape situations; however, they can be effective in vegetable gardens when used very carefully. You can find a reference link with more information on using fabric mulch in vegetable gardens, below.

If you are interested in learning more about xeriscaping or hardy drought tolerant plants, I would encourage you to look through the follow links for additional information on these topics.

A view of the Jeffco Plant Select garden. Plant select is a program
run in partnership with Colorado State University and the Denver Botanic Gardens
 http://plantselect.org/plants/find-a-plant/

More information about Xeriscaping:

Retrofitting a Yard: https://extension.colostate.edu/docs/pubs/garden/07234.pdf

Low water native plant guides for all areas of Colorado: https://cmg.extension.colostate.edu/gardening-resources/online-garden-publications/native-plants/

More detailed overview for creative xeriscaping: https://extension.colostate.edu/docs/pubs/garden/07228.pdf

Native & Xeriscaping Plant Lists:

Perennials and Annuals: https://extension.colostate.edu/docs/pubs/garden/07231.pdf

Groundcover: https://extension.colostate.edu/docs/pubs/garden/07230.pdf

Trees & Shrubs: https://extension.colostate.edu/docs/pubs/garden/07229.pdf

Native Trees & Shrubs: https://extension.colostate.edu/docs/pubs/garden/07422.pdf

Native Herbaceous Perennials: https://extension.colostate.edu/docs/pubs/garden/07242.pdf

Mulch:

Mulches for vegetable gardens (includes information on fabric mulch): https://cmg.extension.colostate.edu/Gardennotes/715.pdf

Mulches for home grounds: https://extension.colostate.edu/docs/pubs/garden/07214.pdf

Mulching trees: https://cmg.extension.colostate.edu/Gardennotes/658.pdf

Extra:

Fall and winter watering during drought:https://planttalk.colostate.edu/topics/trees-shrubs-vines/1751-fall-winter-watering-drought/

And as always, best of luck in your gardening endeavors!

Protecting your plants from wild weather this spring

Posted by: John Stolzle, Jefferson County Extension

Spring weather in Colorado can be temperamental, it can sometimes feel like we experience all of the seasons in a single day. This past weekend, if your garden was located around the Front Range, it likely experienced warm springtime weather ripe for growing; but later this week, forecasts predict cooler temperatures and even a possibility for snow! These erratic fluctuations provide challenges for our gardens, but CSU Extension has put together some techniques which can help gardeners to extend the growing season and to protect plants against some these drastic weather patterns.

In this post, I have highlighted some techniques and provided references with more information for managing your garden with our spring weather in mind.

Seedlings purchased from a garden nursery may need to be hardened off before they are planted in your garden [click here for more information on this topic]. 

One of the most important factors to consider in vegetable gardening is when to plant your garden, and the length of your garden’s growing season. If planted too early, some vegetables can encounter challenges with frosts which can kill tender plants; but if planted too late, crops may not mature by the time fall comes around. By planting the right plants at the right time you can help to cultivate a successful crop.

Planting Guides can help you decide
when to plant certain things.

Cool, hardy season crops can often tolerate minor frosts and thrive in cooler weather conditions which dip as low at 40°F, some examples are broccoli, spinach, and onions. Warm season crop are much more sensitive to frost and should not be planted until all danger of frost has past. These plants do better in temperatures ranging from 70°F - 95°F, some examples are tomatoes, peppers, and watermelon. A longer list for these plants, and more details on this topic can be found in the following link to CSU Extension's vegetable planting Guide:  https://cmg.extension.colostate.edu/Gardennotes/720.pdf

There are a range of techniques which can be used to extend our growing season. These include things such as planting gardens on south-facing slopes, providing windbreaks, mulching, and even covering plants when frosts are suspected. Sheets and blankets can be used to trap heat from the soil around young vegetables at night; these covering should be placed low to the ground and secured. In the morning after using sheets, if this fabric has become damp it should be dried before being used for this purpose again.

Simple hoops over a garden can provide great
fastening points for hail cloth and shade cloth.

More techniques and helpful tricks to extend the growing season can be found in the following link to a factsheet on this topic:
 https://cmg.extension.colostate.edu/Gardennotes/722.pdf

Frosts and cold snaps are one challenge, but hail can be one of the greatest risks to our gardens.  Hoop houses or high tunnels can both extend the growing season and offer protection from hail. Hoops can also provide structures to which tightly woven ‘hail cloth’ can be fastened for added protection; hail cloth can also be placed over tomato cages or other structures available in your garden.

Walls of water and gallon milk cartons (with the bottoms cut off) can be used to protect new seedlings. If you leave the cap off of these cartons, they can even be left over seedlings until the plant outgrows this structure. Your imagination is the limit! Before a hailstorm, cardboard boxes, plastic buckets, and even sheets can help prevent some of the most extreme damage from occurring; however, you should never risk personal safety to protect your garden and should only implement these methods if you are able to get out far enough ahead of a storm for it to be safe.

A seven minute video on Hail Mitigation and cleanup can be found in the following link to more information provided by CSU Extension staff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ9G6S4ODtA

A factsheet on this topic can be found on the following link: https://elpaso.extension.colostate.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/44/2017/05/May-27-2017-Hail-mitigation.pdf

Sometimes it isn't possible to protect our gardens from a rapidly developing hailstorm. If you don’t find yourself with enough notice that a potential storm is coming or perhaps find yourself away from your garden when this weather occurs, you should know that our plants can recover! They want to grow.  To include a direct quote from our Plant Talk page on this topic:

For perennials with foliage intact but stripped, remove flower stalks and cut them back leaving as many intact leaves as possible. Lightly cultivate the soil, and apply a light dressing of low-nitrogen fertilizer.­  

Flowering annuals with no remaining foliage probably won’t recover after a hailstorm. Petunias usually survive if there is at least some foliage still on the plant. Clean the plants of ruined foliage and apply a light application of fertilizer to help them recover.  

Early vegetable root crops with no remaining foliage will not recover. They need the green leafy foliage to produce energy for the roots to grow. Leafy vegetable crops may recover; replant if you see no signs of new growth after a week or so.

 

The reality is that Colorado's climate and weather patterns are challenging for gardens. But, CSU Extension is here with specialized knowledge to help you grow successful gardens of abundance. To get started, check out the following two links to the Colorado Vegetable Guide: 

en Español

and In English

For a wealth of information on gardening, I would also highly encourage you to check out our 'Growing' resources at http://growandgivecolorado.org/