Cliffrose Blog

Hello gardeners,  If you visit this site, please let us hear from you.  Send us a comment or start a gardening chat.  Thanks! 

Hello,  This has been a great spring for gardeners - rain, generally gentle temperatures and no frost here in Cortez for weeks.  None is predicted for the forseeable future, but if you’ve lived here long, you know it’s still possible to get a cold snap into June.  Our best advice now is to plant everything, but be prepared to cover tender plants if it does get cold.

I was gone for two weeks and my yard has certainly changed during that time.  This is its blue phase - with catmint and May Night salvia blooming prolifically in my beds.  The blue grama grass in my front yard is looking great now that it’s warmer too.  I love blue grama during the summer, but it always goes through an awkward stage in the spring when all the other bluegrass lawns in my neighborhood are starting to look green and lush and ours is still dormant.  But during the summer it’s gorgeous and uses much less water.

If you’re frustrated with hybrid tea roses that die out over winter here, try some of the hardy Canadian varieties.  Granted, they have smaller flowers but they are much tougher - hardier, more drought tolerant and bug resistant.  Some of our favorites include Champlain, that is hardy to about 40 below zero, grows 3 feet tall and wide and has lightly fragrant, everblooming, red flowers.  Another is Henry Kelsey with repeating red flowers with a spicy fragrance.  Henry grows 6-7 feet tall and is a zone 3.  John Cabot is another zone 3, grows about 6 feet tall and has fragrant, fucshia flowers in June and July.  For a tough climber, try William Baffin that can grow 8-10 feet tall.  It has deep pink, recurrent flowers and is another zone 3.  These are all grown on their own roots, so even if they freeze back, they’ll come back true to variety. 

We also have a selection of citrus this year.  We have Baers seedless limes in one gallon pots and Meyer lemons in larger pots as trees or shrubs.  Also check out the angelwing jasmine plants.  They’re not winter hardy, but they have fragrant white flowers almost all the time and make great container plants that can be moved inside in the winter where they’ll continue to bloom.

Happy gardening.  SF

Dear Gardeners,  Can you believe this weather?  80 degrees plus in early May…… 

Does your yard smell good now?  That might sound like a silly question but if you’ve planted scented shrubs, it should.  Right now my yard smells like Carol Macke daphne.  There’s a huge one (maybe 6 feet wide and 3 feet tall) on the northeast corner of my house right by our deck and it is in full bloom and scents the entire back yard.  The wild plums were fragrant a week or two ago, but they’ve given way to the Burkwood viburnum in the front yard now. 

We live in a low spot that tends to be cool, so while I see lilacs blooming around town, mine are still in bud.  Besides the beautiful, big, old-fashioned purple lilacs, I have a dwarf lilac that stays about 4 feet tall and a littleleaf lilac that reblooms lightly in late summer! 

I’m really excited about my tufted evening primrose this year.  I planted them 3 years ago from a couple of little sprouts I pulled out of a road cut on Hwy 145 above Dolores.  Knowing they would spread, I planted them in the corners of my yard where nothing else would grow and now I have big colonies of these low-growing plants with 4″ white flowers.  The flowers open in the late afternoon and close again about noon, hence the name.

My water garden is waking up and looking pretty good this spring.  The feeder goldfish I put in last year made it through the winter and my marsh marigold is blooming prolifically.  That spot of bright yellow set off by a big clump of Rocky Mountain iris nearby really draws your attention out my patio door.

Cliffrose is in full Mother’s Day mode - stop by and pick up a nice gift for your Mom or special lady.  Happy gardening.  SF

Hey gardeners,  What’s up with this pattern of bad weather every weekend around here?  At least we got a lovely, soaking rain this time.  My rain guage only measured one third inch but it came so slowly it all soaked in and the warm weather we’re having now is just making plants pop! 

I know you all want to start planting, but try to restrict yourself to trees, shrubs, perennials and hardy annuals and veggies like pansies and greens.  We have a handout at Cliffrose listing the optimum planting time for lots of different plants - just ask for one next time you’re here. 

I’ve been planting Mother’s Day pots today - planters with lots of mixed flowers in them.  Many of these have a color theme - shades of pink, or yellow and orange for instance.  One I think looks really good has pansies and parsley planted together - they complement each other very well.  Besides these planters we have loads of hanging baskets, fruit trees, and our usual great selection of gifts.  Maybe you could offer to plant a new flower bed for your Mom - let her pick the location, dig in compost, plant a selection of perennial flowers to come back next year and a few annuals to bloom all summer while the perennials fill out and add a little mulch to finish it off.  Or plant a vegetable garden for your Mom - we can help you choose the best varieties for our area and answer any questions you have. 

One plant that looks really great in my yard right now are snowdrop anemones.  They have large white flowers, spread to make a large clump and grow well in sun or shade.  They bloom heavily now, then have a few flowers again in late summer.  The prettiest (is that a word?) shrub in my yard now is Oregon grape holly.  It’s got clusters of little yellow flowers and a combination of last year’s evergreen leaves that are dark green or still reddish and this year’s bright green new leaves.  It loves the east side of my house.

I’ve pruned many of my old shrub roses to the ground this spring.  They’re all about 10  years old and have been neglected enough that many have a lot of dead branches.  Instead of fighting the thorns to prune out this dead wood, I’ve just cut them to the ground and they’re all coming back beautifully.  They’ll be shorter and healthier and I bet they’ll bloom better than they have for years.

Get out and enjoy this beautiful weather and happy gardening!  SF

I’ve been enjoying the moisture we’ve received this spring, but with our crazy winds lately, the moisture level in the soil has been going down fast.  So drag out all your hoses or pressurize your sprinkler system - it’s time to water.

We had frost the last two nights here but it’s supposed to be warmer now for the next week or 10 days so it’s a great time to get hardy plants set out without too much hardening off.  Shade smaller plants with a bit of shade cloth or frost blanket-type material until they start spreading out their roots.  New plants often die during their first week or two when you forget to water them.  The soil around the original root ball can be quite wet, but as the plant uses moisture from its root ball, it dries out quickly.

Vegetable gardening is hot again this year for lots of reasons - you save money, get the freshest produce, know exactly what was (or wasn’t) sprayed on your food, plus you get exercise and it’s a great hobby.  Think in terms of edible landscaping.  There’s no need to keep your vegetables strictly in a rectangular space hidden behind the garage.  Many veggies are beautiful enough to share space with your ornamentals.  Most vegetable varieties do just fine in containers and can live happily on your porch or in a sunny patch of yard.

We have a great selection of heirloom tomato varieties this year.  These varieties are at least 50 years old and have a reputation for being better tasting than the newer ones that are often bred for other characteristics.  Heirlooms also don’t have any issues with genetic modification.

Get your whole family involved in vegetable gardening, it’s a great family activity.  We have new kid’s tools and gloves in to help your little ones get even more excited about playing in the dirt.  My kids were always more willing to eat veggies they’d been helping grow than those from the store I tried to feed them.

Lady bugs are in if you have an aphid problem already.  And if you are seeing baby grasshoppers already, use Nolo Bait as soon as possible, since it is much more effective on small hoppers than mature ones.  Nolo Bait consists of a biological agent that is only toxic to grasshoppers and crickets carried on wheat bran.  It takes a while for its full effect to be seen, so use it early.

Happy gardening!  SF

Welcome to our new blog!  We’re excited to share what’s going on here with you all more frequently.  We’ll try to update this once a week to let you know when new plants come in and what you could be doing now.  Please send us your questions as well.

We are excited about the great moisture we got over the weekend - it pushed our snowpack up to 106% again - or maybe more with the last storm.

The nice days we get make us all want to get out and start planting and there are some things that are better planted now.  Pansies and violas love this cool weather and there’s nothing that says spring louder than a pot of pansies by your door.  Tomatoes can be set out under wall-o-waters now and peas can be seeded now.  Trees and shrubs do well planted now - it’s easier to transport them with no leaves and they adapt to your microclimate and leaf out when they should in your area. 

I’ve been planting perennials in the greenhouse and we’re going to have a great new crop ready soon.  Lois and Ann have been moving perennials that are hardened off out to the display area.  Today I’m planting butterfly bushes - three different colors per pot - they’ll be ready for sale in 4-6 weeks.   

Inside we have a new line of fountains and statuary manufactured in northern Canada that should weather our winters well.  We have new water features that come in a 5 gallon bucket that contains everything you need to install a beautiful spring-like focal point in your yard in just an afternoon.

There are some adorable little rock critters with low price points and lots of new, colorful rugs that are weatherproof as well as great indoors.  Come visit us soon and check out this space next week for more.  SF