Why Create a Colorado-friendly Garden?

Most gardeners want a garden that looks attractive.  But your ‘perfect garden’ – the one you see in your dreams – probably looks very different from mine.  What’s important to one gardener may not be so for the next.  That’s why every garden is a unique creation.

A successful garden should fit your needs, desires, aesthetics, house style and neighborhood.  But it should also thrive, given your climate, soil characteristics and other factors.  And that requires planning.   We’re going to walk you through the garden planning stages in our series: Creating a Colorado-friendly Garden.

Pretty Montrose, CO garden with shade trees

Planning is important whether you’re creating a garden from scratch, re-doing a dysfunctional part of the garden, or simply replacing plants that have outlived their useful lives.  Planning is important if your garden is large or small; in fact, a tiny patio garden often requires the most careful formulation.  Throughout the planning process, we discover new things about our gardens – and about ourselves.   Planning does require time and effort, but the planning stage is key to creating the garden of your dreams.  For more see:

Before we dive into the planning process, we’d like to suggest that a garden that’s ‘Colorado-friendly’ (or friendly for whatever region you live in) has much to recommend it. But for many, including those who’ve gardened for years, adopting a ‘region-friendly’ approach requires a little friendly persuasion.

[photo soon]

Your local garden center/nursery likely provides many attractive plants from throughout the world.  It also supplies an abundance of advice and products to help you grow the plants you’ve chosen.  That’s what the nursery/garden trade is all about: selling plants and, even more importantly, selling other garden products.  All those products – the soil amendments, fertilizers, pesticides, etc. – are what keep us coming back, year after year. 

Plants native to climates different from your own require regular upkeep.  Each year you essentially attempt to re-create the native conditions in which the plant grows.  And that takes time, money and effort.    If you really love a plant (for example, a tropical plant), you’re willing to put in the effort.  But does your entire garden need to be filled with such exotics?   The choice is yours, but alternative strategies do exist.

Designing a ‘Colorado-friendly Garden’ requires a new approach. In fact, it requires an actual paradigm shift in the way we view gardens and their design. Instead of first choosing plants we like, then amending our garden to fit their needs, the ‘region-friendly’ garden begins with the local site conditions.  Once the local site conditions (we like to think of them as the garden’s assets) are discovered, we can then choose plants appropriate for those conditions. Instead of trying to ‘tame’ Mother Nature, the region-friendly garden is designed to work with her.   And that’s turning the whole way we garden on its head!

So, what exactly do we mean by ‘Colorado-friendly gardening’?   A Colorado-friendly garden is one that’s fitted to the area of Colorado in which it grows.  The plants and hardscape (the non-plant parts of the garden) are chosen to be suitable for the physical characteristics of the garden.  We’re used to choosing plants suitable for our cold winters and hot summers. But a Colorado-friendly garden also works with the other physical factors unique to our site: the soil type, soil pH, soil nutrient levels, wind, amount of sunlight, etc. 

Successful gardens often prioritize water use

A Colorado-friendly garden also works with the natural soil moisture conditions. In many parts of Western Colorado, the amount of yearly precipitation is limited. While our gardens do need supplemental water to look good, we don’t live in Pennsylvania or Washington state.  An authentic, Colorado-friendly garden should look different from one in a region with 40-60+ inches of precipitation a year.

Some Coloradans are fortunate to water with local irrigation water. In some cases, we have more water than we really need! Others pay for city water by the gallon, or use precious well-water.  Whether water is abundant or scarce, we all need to consider prioritizing our garden water use.  Recent regional trends suggest more variability in our climate.  That means wet years (like this year) and drought years (like the last few).  Water is a precious commodity; we need learn to use it wisely.

Russian Olive (silvery foliage) is highly invasive.

A Colorado-friendly garden is a good neighbor.  It limits (or eliminates) plants that are likely to be invasive.  This is particularly true if the garden is close to agricultural or wild lands.  But even in the city, plant choice is important (if you want to be a good neighbor).  

The Colorado-friendly gardener also uses fertilizers and chemicals judiciously.  Herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers have their place in the home garden.  But they can also impact our neighbors’ health, and that of regional soils and water.  The Colorado-friendly garden utilizes these products only when really needed.  It treats them as the powerful ‘medicines’ they are: essential when needed, but potentially harmful to people and the environment.

Small home orchards are common in Western Colorado

But a Colorado-friendly garden is more than one that’s simply suited to the local climate and soil. It’s also rooted in the history and natural history of our state and county. If we garden in a region that is/was agricultural, it may include crop plants or trees important to the region.  If certain plants are commonly used in local gardens, it may include them.  In the Montrose area, many gardens include lilacs.  Their blooms give Montrose a unique spring flavor; if you garden in Montrose, you likely want to include a lilac or two.

White lilac: Mother Nature's Montrose Garden

The Colorado-friendly garden also reflects the unique colors, shapes and scents of the plants native to the area.  It uses locally-sourced rock, gravel, wood and other materials for its backbone.  It uses plants that grow in the region; ones that look and feel right for the setting.  Such plants are also suitable to the amount of water available now and in the years to come. 

Rabbitbush is a native commonly used in gardens

A Colorado-friendly garden provides food for the gardener and for all the creatures that visit/live in it. It encourages creatures to set up housekeeping, providing hours of enjoyment for the human inhabitants.  With time, it becomes a true functioning ecosystem, attracting birds, butterflies, pollinators and other beneficial insects. A Colorado-friendly garden has lots of activity; it’s a place we want to get out in and enjoy.

Creating an attractive, Colorado-friendly garden requires planning, time and thoughtful decisions.  But the end result is something unique: a garden that is beautiful, fitted to the local region and abundant with life.  We hope you’ll want to begin the journey with us, starting with our series Creating a Colorado-friendly Garden (begins August, 2019).

We welcome your comments (below).  You can also send your questions to: monaturesmontrosegarden@gmail.com