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Spruce Up Your Garden in 2012

A new year is a good time to think about new plants. And KUNC gardener Tom Throgmorton has a few suggestions for sprucing up Front Range gardens and backyards...

Plant Select has announced their 2012 introduced and recommended plants.

Fire Spinner Ice Plant is an evergreen groundcover.  In the spring it’s covered with orange flowers tinged with purple.  The summer flowers are orange/red.  Fire Spinner will grow at elevations up to 6,000 feet.  It likes sun and tolerates moderate to dry conditions.  It prefers a sandy soil. 

Cape-Forget-Me-Not grows about a foot tall.  It likes sun and moderate moisture.  The blue summer flowers attract butterflies.  In most parts of the region it won’t be perennial.  Grow it as a re-seeding annual and it will surprise you where it pops up the next season.

Filigree Daisy is a Marguerite type daisy.  It grows as a lacy mat with yellow flowers in May and June.  It likes sun and grows in dry conditions.  It’s a multi-season groundcover for a dry border or rock garden.

The first evergreen tree recommended by Plant Select is Weeping White Spruce.  It’s a great tree for tight spaces.  This spruce grows 25 to 30 feet tall.  Because of the weeping habit it grows only about six feet wide.  White Spruce takes the sun and heat of the Plains.  But they will also grow at elevations of 10,000 feet.  It likes moderate moisture.

Ruby Voodoo Rose is a compact shrub rose.  It grows about five feet tall and wide.  Keep it smaller with regular pruning.  Ruby Voodoo has magenta flowers all season long.  The flowers are fragrant so plant it close to a patio or window.  Ruby Voodoo grows best in sun with moderate moisture.  It will grow from the Plains to elevations of 8,000 feet. 

Dalmatian Daisy also grows up to elevations of 8,000 feet.  It prefers sun and will tolerate dry conditions.  The plant is compact with silver, fern-like foliage.  The white daisy flowers grow eighteen inches tall.  This is another plant for the dry border or rock garden. 

It’s a new year.  Design some new plants into your landscape.

 

tom@throgmortonplantmanagement.com

 

Tom has been offering garden advice on KUNC for almost two decades. During that time he has been the wholesale sales manager at Ft. Collins Nursery, Inc. Since January of 2005 he has been the owner and operator of Throgmorton Plant Management, LLC., a landscape installation and maintenance company as well as a horticultural consulting firm. He lives in northern Ft. Collins with his wife and two kids.
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