Easter Cactus by Sally Blanchard

Move over those Easter lilies and forced bulbs and welcome the regal Easter Cactus!

Unlike its Thanksgiving and Christmas cousins, the spring blooming Easter Cactus sadly receives very little praise or publicity. All three are Brazilian native epiphytes and actually live in trees, similar to orchids. 

Garden Successes and Failures by Sally Blanchard

Scarlet Runner Beans
Baker Creek Seeds

We asked our Master Gardeners to share what successes and failures they’ve experienced in their gardens this year....

What do our Master Gardeners grow? Part I ~your Blog Team

We polled our Master Gardeners, and this is what they said....

Plants I’ll Always Plant:  Gwen's Buffalo Currant (Ribes aureum), Serviceberry (Amelanchier utahensis), Ninebark (Physocarpus monogynus), Blue Flax (Linum lewisii), Rocky Mountain Bee Plant (Cleome serrulata)

Plants I’m itching to try:  Dwarf Leadplant (Amorpha nana), Dotted Blazing Star (Liatris punctata), Dwarf Rabbitbrush (Ericameria viscidiflorus)

Forget About It????  NO! - I WON'T forget to leave a dead tree or 2 for the woodpeckers, who make holes for nesting habitat for over 30 species of birds.  And I WON'T be keeping my garden tidy.  Insects and birds need a messy habitat full of seeds, plant stems, leaf matter and hiding places!

~Colorado Master Gardener Molly  

Oriental Poppy (Papaver orientale) by Sally Blanchard

Photo: Sally Blanchard

If you were dragging your hoses to water your thirsty yard and garden in January, perhaps you spied many perennials poking through their mulch blankets including these Oriental Poppies, Papaver orientale brilliant. With their glowing orange blossoms and fuzzy, fern like foliage, oriental poppies are the ‘bling’ in the late spring and early summer garden. They are deer and rabbit resistant and attract bees and butterflies. They grow to approximately thirty inches and spread slowly. 

Oriental poppies are very frost hardy and thrive in Zones 3-7. After many failed attempts at starting from seed, I gave up and purchased a small potted plant at the local nursery.  Choose a location with six hours of full sun. Choose wisely; poppies can be fickle about being transplanted. They like sandy soil but have flourished in my unamended clay like soil. They do not like wet feet so be careful not to overwater. The plant will turn brown and go dormant in the heat of summer. I just cut back the brown foliage and tuck in a few sun loving marigolds near the poppy plant. In the fall, the foliage re-emerges as a relatively low ground cover.

Pruning Considerations: Shade Trees in the Landscape by Sally Blanchard

Photo by Donna Duffy

It is tough to be a shade tree here in the Front Range! With periods of drought to record precipitation, blistering heat to deep freezes, extreme winds to infestations of lethal insects, our trees need our help! Surely you’ve watered those trees during this period of warm weather and little or no snow or rain, and now it is time to look closely and see if your trees are in need of pruning. Early spring is the perfect time to accomplish this task.