The first time I remember noticing this beautiful mid-summer blooming purple bush was about twenty years ago, up near Masonville, west of Fort Collins.
I couldn’t get over how cool and refreshing it looked in the midst of such a hot summer day!
So when I moved up to 7,000 feet and started my own garden five years ago, I knew I would have to have a few of these bushes sprinkled throughout.
This plant has turned out to be one of my most dependable bloomers every summer. It needs no extra water once established, the deer and critters don’t touch it and it comes back every year bigger and better than before. It attracts lots of bees and butterflies, and this year it’s begun creating new plants around itself! I love the way it starts blooming in mid-July when most of my other flowers are finished.
Tucked in with a Rocky Mountain Bee Plant and some native sunflower volunteers...
I found out online that these can be propagated from seed by “collecting their fruit—a light brown, winged nutlet. Harvest these seeds and place them in damp sphagnum moss in a plastic bag. Put that in the refrigerator for three months, then sow them in pots. Transplant them outside in spring.”
Mine seem to be propagating themselves with no assistance from me!
One week ends another begins, but both seem the same. It’s that sameness that wears on us. The near term is the same, and the future seems clearly uncertain. It’s impossible to make travel plans, not just for now but for the fall and winter. Some people have started referring to 2020 as the “Lost Year.” Imagine how those in my family feel, having lost my Dad right before “the virus” took over our lives.
I am saddened to learn that COVID-19 may be taking a toll on Americans’ heart health even if we’re not infected with the virus. According to new research, cases of ‘broken heart syndrome’ are on the rise among those without any specific illness. This occurs when part of the heart becomes enlarged and is unable to pump blood effectively, preceded by intense emotional or physical stress.
Everybody deals with this kind of stress differently. I think it’s easier for us gardeners. We have something in our lives that brings us daily joy. We can go outside each morning and enjoy the summer blooms! The fact that our plants need us, even marginally, also helps. Let’s face it, we all need to feel needed. This is why we all need to find positive distractions from this sad time in all of our lives.
I relate to these issues more than most. I sometimes pass out from lack of oxygen and am not certain if I will take my next breathe. I struggle daily to find the good in everything, like the 4th of July celebrations on TV last week. I want to feel good about my country again and positive about our future, but it isn’t easy if I watch the news too much.
So I go outside and walk around my garden. I hang out with the birds and bees, literally! I watch the birds taking a carousel ride on Mike’s great purple wind sculpture.
I sit quietly and observe the end to another glorious day, as the sun sets over Mount Mestas to our West.
Sometimes I take photos of the sunny still life developing on my bedroom wall as the sun comes up each morning. My appreciation of my eye sight is increased one hundred-fold as it diminishes with worsening cataracts.
These are the moments that sustain me… What are yours?
Lavandula (common name lavender) has 47 known species of flowering plants in the mint family, Lamiaceae. It is native to the Old World and is found from Cape Verde and the Canary Islands, Europe across to northern and eastern Africa, the Mediterranean, southwest Asia to southeast India.
Certain cultivars of lavender do GREAT in my high (7,000 feet) and dry Colorado foothills garden. I believe they survive because they are woody plants and smell funny to critters who might want to eat them.
This is Lavendula angustifolia next to a flowering Stonecrop. This one is three years old now!
According to my favorite place to buy plants in Rye Colorado, that just quit selling retail 😦 there are two types of lavenders that are hardy in Colorado,
“Lavandula angustifolia (the English lavenders-called English, but originally from the Mediterranean) and Lavandula x intermedia (the English hybrids). Other lavenders, like French, Spanish, and various cultivars you may find sold at Home Depot are not hardy here! We have talked to so many customers who ask “Why does my lavender die?” and it turns out they planted a type that is not winter hardy. Please don’t make that mistake. The ones we grow are all hardy to Zone 5, and some brave gardeners have had luck with them at 8000′ elevation.”
“Lavandula angustifolia ‘Hidcote Blue’: Along with Munstead, Hidcote Blue tops the list of most hardy lavenders. Hidcote has a deeper violet blue flower and tighter flower clusters and more compact habit than other English lavenders, and it’s our go-to lavender for xeriscape and rock garden plantings. Winter hardy, deer resistant, drought tolerant– this lavender is a good choice for the Front Range. 18″ tall. Zone 5.”
I believe this one is Lavendula intermedia. It’s only two years old.
“Lavandula x intermedia ‘Phenomenal’: Silver foliage is covered with a cloud of lavender blue flowers for most of the summer. It’s a very tough variety, even outperforming Hidcote and Munstead in many trials. Grows to 30″ tall and 3′ wide. If you want a lavender with landscape pizazz, this is the one for you. Edible, fragrant, deer resistant, xeric….we can’t say enough good things about this one. Zone 5.”
Most of the plants sold at places like Home Depot and Lowe’s will not survive the winter here! Those plants are grown in places like Arkansas. Also, be sure not to water lavender much. It can lead to brown flowers and root rot!
Note: Can you tell I was raised by a botanist?My Dad hopes so! Much more fun to think about than Covid-19!
After five years of trying to get a Colorado foothills garden going, I have discovered how much I LOVE Penstemons!
First of all, I have a very early blooming native, I believe it is Penstemon buckleyi, that volunteers as one of the earliest blooms in my garden!
Then I started some Penstemon Strictus (Rocky Mountain Penstemon) four years ago and look at them now! They also bloom quite early, in mid-May. They spread nicely too!
This year I bought two new versions that are supposed to be red. My garden is almost all purple at this point in time.
Amazingly, the Red Riding Hood variety (Schmidel?) is already in full bloom!
I also bought twoPenstemon pinifolius and put them in. According to my book exclusively on Penstemons, “Penstemon pinifolius is an attractive low-growing evergreen plant with showy, scarlet flowers in June to August.”Mine are just tiny this year. I hope they bloom next year!
My point is that these are the kind of plants to grow here because they are natives! The critters don’t eat them (at least not so far…). They spread nicely and fill up their space by a foot or two, and they love it here!
Want to learn lots more about penstemons? This is a wonderful book for that purpose:Penstemons: TheBeautiful Beardtongues of New Mexico.
I cannot think of anything I have seen in the past few years that adequately tells the story of unequal justice under the law for African-Americans like this important true story. This film tells the story behind one of the first cases Bryan Stevenson argued and won before the Alabama Supreme Court.
The story behind “Just Mercy”: After graduating from Harvard, Bryan Stevenson headed to Alabama to defend those wrongly condemned or those not afforded proper representation. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian (played by Jamie Foxx), who was sentenced to die in 1987 for the murder of an 18-year-old girl, despite no true evidence proving his guilt. In the years that followed, Stevenson encountered constant racism and legal and political maneuverings as he tirelessly fought for McMillian’s freedom.
Mr. Stevenson has since founded and is the Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a human rights organization in Montgomery, Alabama. Under his leadership, EJI has won major legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing, exonerating innocent death row prisoners, confronting abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill, and aiding children prosecuted as adults.
Mr. Stevenson has argued and won multiple cases at the United States Supreme Court, including a 2019 ruling protecting condemned prisoners who suffer from dementia and a landmark 2012 ruling that banned mandatory life-imprisonment-without-parole sentences for all children 17 or younger. Mr. Stevenson and his staff have won reversals, relief, or release from prison for over 135 wrongly condemned prisoners on death row and won relief for hundreds of others wrongly convicted or unfairly sentenced.
In this moment in American history, when we wish to change as a country to not be seen as the racist society we have been, this film tells true stories of unbelievable injustice, in hopes of stimulating real change that our future and our children will be proud of.
Please see this film and then give to the Equal Justice Initiative!
Just a few days ago Mike was out hiking when he heard a loud sound just ten feet to his left.
He glanced over to see a deer struggling with a mountain lion on top of him! Mike was so stunned he stood there for about 20 seconds and then started walking away quickly. He never made eye contact with the big cat.
Last night Mike found a five foot snake out on our patio. Snakes might be just the thing to get rid of those varmits who keep eating my flowers!
Adventures of the NEW??? Old Farts 