Gardening in Colorado is Challenging to Say the Least
Gardening in Colorado is challenging! While tulips might be peeking out, the forecast predicts snow. I lived here all my life, and gardened as long as I can remember. Didn’t I say Gardening in Colorado is challenging! Yep, thought I did. From the short growing season to the huge hail storms. Still, we’ll soon be able to tackle April chores as our gardens emerge from winter’s sleep. Thanks to Kim Snowdon, Colorado Master Gardner, here are a few tips to get you going.
• Lawn care: Get lawns off to a good start by aerating and applying a light application of nitrogen fertilizer. Avoid broadcast pre-emergent herbicide; spot spray weeds if necessary. Check irrigation systems for leaks or broken heads. Water at a rate of an inch per week when weather is dry. Overseed thin or winter-damaged patches with appropriate grass seed. Yeah, well we gave up on the sloped front yard, installed artificial turf last year. Love it. But our dog refused the artificial turf idea for the back yard. Mystic wants real green grass to romp through.
• Trees, shrubs, and perennials: Once soil temperatures reach 55 degrees you can start planting trees, shrubs and hardy perennials. The cool soil will assist in establishment of transplants. This applies to plants you want to divide and transplant to different locations in your garden. Bare root (BR) roses should be soaked in water before planting. Fertilize BR roses with rose food or fertilizer with a high phosphorous content, such as 9-14-9 to promote blooms. Decomposed manure, bone meal or fish emulsion are good additions to the soil around newly planted roses.
• Spring pruning: Early blooming shrubs (forsythia, lilac, quince) flower on last year’s growth; prune after they finish flowering. Summer blooming shrubs (butterfly bush, blue mist spirea, other spirea species, mock orange, hydrangea) develop buds on new wood and can be pruned in early spring. Prune roses by 
cutting back winter-damaged canes, then remove canes that cross or grow inward for a more open structure. Healthy canes can be pruned back to 12-24 inches tall; cut 3 inches above an outward-facing bud.• Cool season annuals: Flowers such as pansies, alyssum, sweet peas and snapdragons tolerate light frost. Wait to plant more tender annuals until after Mother’s Day. Direct sow perennial seeds, collected or purchased, following the directions on the packet. Some seeds require stratification (exposure to cold) or scarification (breaking seed coating through abrasion).
• Spring weeds: Spring moisture encourages weeds. The roots of annual weeds are shallow and easy to pull. Early diligence pays off. Spread mulch 2-3 inches thick to reduce germination of annual weeds. Perennial weeds such as dandelions have a deep tap root but can also be removed by hand using specialized tools. Pollinators depend on some of these earliest of flowers, so pesticide application should be done carefully to minimize the impact on beneficial insects.
There you have it, tips for Gardening in Colorado. One last thing, hail. There is hail cloth or material in gardening shops to put over your garden that lets the sun and rain in but protects plants from that nasty four letter word HAIL. I saw it last year after hail devastated my tomato & veggie garden. You can bet I’ll get getting hail material this year. Be sure and check it out.
If you have more suggestions, please leave a comment below.
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Posted in My Say What Blog and tagged and perennials, Cool season annuals, Cool season veggies, Gardening in Colorado, hail, Lawn care, ornamental grasses, Short growing season, shrubs, Spring Pruning, Spring weeds, Trees by Tena Stetler with comments disabled.
Not Quite the Road Trip From Hell, But…
By now you know my trips wind up being the road trip from hell. So, why would I expect anything different? In my defense, who could have known that when we scheduled a California road trip a few days before Memorial Day Weekend, we’d be leaving Colorado in ten inches of snow. Really?! Now keep in mind we’re traveling with our new larger fifth wheel 
on it’s inaugural trip. The trailer is a little over seven feet longer at thirty-seven and a half feet, verses our old one measuring thirty feet long we’d had for fifteen years. It was time for a change. You would think driving it wouldn’t be much different, but you’d be wrong, the tail swing of the longer one made for an interesting trip. But my husband took it all in stride. Bless his heart. Although our
parrot, Taco, was displeased when he fell asleep after a long day of driving when she was conversing with him. LOL Pssst…don’t forget to enter Beach Blanket Book Giveaway below.
We crossed Wyoming in a blizzard leaving several inches of snow in its wake. Spent the night in Rock Springs waking up to more of the fluffy white stuff on the ground. Okay, its Wyoming, we kinda expected that. The state is synonymous with wind and spring snow. But rain and snow showers, including hail across Nevada and Utah was not a pleasant experience. Then lo and behold the sun peeked through momentarily in Zepher Cove at Lake Tahoe. Wind whipped the white capped waves crashing onto the beach. Braving the 
cold wind off the lake, we donned our coats and walked along the beach. Then we stared slacked-jawed at the twenty something males standing on the beach shirtless, shoe-less, and in shorts attempting to impress their group of friends. I guess we should add clueless to that description! LOL We shook our heads.
Returning to the roomy new fifth wheel, we watched a movie, ate popcorn, and went to bed. The next morning, yep, you guessed it big, white, storybook snowflakes floated through the air, but didn’t stick. Still our friends from Las Vegas, Nevada, who joined us, enjoyed the snow as did their two dogs. By afternoon the sun was back and we strolled along the beach with our dog as wildlife scampered on the 
shore and ducks paddled across the water. A few gulls screamed as they dove for dinner on the lake.
Family commitments required we leave Lake Tahoe after only a few days and head to northern California where we encountered a bit of rain but otherwise pleasant temperatures. Met up with a friend and fellow author in Elk Grove, CA for lunch and had a wonderful chat. On the trip back to Colorado we encountered windy conditions in Utah and Wyoming, Gee imagine that! LOL But other than that the trip was pleasant. The vibrant colors of the Wind River Valley in 
Wyoming are amazing. We stopped in Riverton, Wyoming to visit with friends. My award winning book AN ANGELS UNINTENTIONAL ENTANGLEMENT was set in Riverton. Where Warrior Angel, Caden goes, 
trouble follows until he discovers a badly beaten woman barely clinging to life. Unprepared for the entanglement she brings to his doorstep, will he move heaven and earth to save her?Yep, that was a blatant plug for my book. LOL I couldn’t help it. You owe it to yourself to take a peek. https://www.amazon.com/Angels-Unintentional-Entanglement-Demons-Witch-ebook/dp/B07DYWKLYK
The moral of this story is don’t plan a road trip before Memorial Day, with a new fifth wheel and a strict schedule. Mother Nature will mess with you every time.
FYI, now that warmer weather has arrived. I am participating in Beach Blanket Book Giveaway! Summertime is here and before you head out to the pool or beach to catch some sunshine, check out this a-m-a-z-i-n-g giveaway hosted by N. N. Light’s Book Heaven. Win bestselling and award-winning books both in digital and print. The list is long If there’s a particular book or prize you’d like to win, be sure to say which prize you want when you enter via Rafflecopter. Enter below and good luck! Beach Blanket Book Giveaway: https://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/92db775030
Literary Giveaway Portal: https://www.nnlightsbookheaven.com/literary-giveaway-portal
Have a wonderful weekend!
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Posted in My Say What Blog and tagged An Angel's Unintentional Entanglement, Beach Blanket Book Giveaway, Colorado, Fifth wheel, hail, Lake Tahoe, Rain, Reno, Riverton Wyoming, Road Trip, snow, Utah, WInd by Tena Stetler with 3 comments.
Monsoon Rain Quiets the Fire Danger.
Good news! In part due to monsoon season, my garden is doing phenomenal! We are harvesting lettuce, snap peas, kale, loads of tomatoes on the vines, and carrots about ready.
It’s monsoon season in Colorado, massive amounts of rain, thunder, lightning, hail, and more rain. Don’t get me wrong, the rain keeps us from having 
catastrophic wild fires like we had in 2012 and 2013. But the worry for flash floods is real on the burn scars. After the unbelievable softball hail storm July 27th 2016, when storm clouds gather now I worry rather than revel in them. Along with most of our community we still haven’t completely recovered, roofs and fences are still being replaced. The upside, lots of work for contractors.
Any way I digress. With the monsoons come the overnight appearance of two to five foot tall weeds in all shapes and sizes. I pull ‘em up one day and the next morning two take their place. How does that happen? On the flip side it gets me out of the house away from my computer as I fight the never ending weed battle. You know what I mean?
My utility bill, grass and flowers are loving the moisture, except for when the hail comes and we haven’t had much of that so far. Fingers and toes crossed. For only the second time since we’ve lived here (going on 23 years) we know the sump pump works cascading water out of our rock retaining wall. Good to know. LOL
However, this year my outside plants are portable, on a little red cart and I haul them into the garage. An all-purpose fabric screen is rolled on the side of my garden waiting to be hauled over the garden for hail protection. All this works IF we are home at the time the storm is predicted or occurring. But it’s all we can do in Colorado, land of the frequent hail and lightning storms. I wouldn’t trade it for the world, Colorado is still a great place to live. How is you summer going? Did you plant a garden? I’d love to hear from you!
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Posted in My Say What Blog and tagged cart, Colorado, Fire danger, flowers, garden, hail, monsoon by Tena Stetler with comments disabled.
