(Editor’s note: This is part of The Know’s series, Staff Favorites. Each week, we offer our opinions on the best that Colorado has to offer for dining, shopping, entertainment, outdoor activities and more. We’ll also let you in on some hidden gems).
My pansies are pitiful, the lavender is languishing and the salvia is suffering.
And that lovely vine? Vanquished.
But it’s only July, so there’s plenty of time left in Colorado’s growing season to purchase more plants to kill.
Unless, of course, you go to a reputable garden center like Echter’s, where staff can give you advice on what is hardy enough to survive your ministrations.
And then read the care instructions.
On Mother’s Day, my partner and I braved a huge crowd at the Arvada nursery, picking up a couple of flats of annuals for pots; some crazy-gorgeous coleus (the varieties were out of this world); a trumpet vine (I paid a little extra for the 2-year warranty on that one); a couple of ornamental grasses; and a stunning helleborus that quickly fried under the intense sun I left it under instead of reading the care instructions (“shade,” it said; ugh). I’m so sorry, sweet helleborus.
Echter’s, a family-owned business in Arvada founded in 1959 by brothers Bob and Jim Echter, boasts that it carries more than 2,500 varieties of flowers each year, sold over its 70,000 square feet of display area, as well as vegetables, trees, shrubs and houseplants. It’s currently owned by Dave Echter (Bob’s son) and his wife, Anne, and is managed by their son, Jeff.
Of course, as a small operation, Echter’s can’t charge the low prices that big-box stores can. Can you find less costly chrysanthemum or more affordable alyssum? Sure. But this place has plants in varieties that I’ve never seen in decades of gardening in Colorado. It’s enough to restore hope to any despondent gardener. (That amazing yellow begonia hanging basket I passed up on Mother’s Day still haunts me.)
Look at it this way: You will end up saving money by getting advice from the knowledgeable staff at Echter’s, so your plants will last longer and you won’t need to replace them so often.
Gracyn (Gracy) Staples, head grower of the nursery and perennials at Echter’s, sympathized when I lamented about how much I’ve failed over the years.
“It’s a long learning curve,” she said before offering expert advice on what Coloradans can do mid-summer to perk up their gardens.
At this point, it’s OK to purchase new annuals for pots and planters, she said, but it’s too late to put them in the ground. (Those pansies that are in the compost pile? “They really are quick to die off, so don’t feel too bad,” she assured me.)
Staples showed me around the grounds, pointing out some of the plants that would do well in our climate through the fall: cranesbill (a shade perennial); plumbago (perfect near pine trees since it needs acidity and can withstand Colorado’s afternoon heat); coreopsis (a sun-loving perennial in gorgeous colors); penstemon (a variety of native plant that attracts pollinators and is drought-tolerant, with showy blooms); coleus and lobelia (Staples’ go-tos for shade); bittens (bright and hardy); and the brilliant puffs of dahlias. (In Colorado, they are annuals that need sunny locations and well-drained soil, but tubers can be dug up and stored indoors over the winter to survive.)
Echter’s also has a wide variety of easy-to-grow calibrachoa, another appropriate mid-summer replacement. It’s a sun-loving plant that I buy in a huge basket each spring and that lasts all summer, despite my best efforts to harm it. Next to them were dozens of baskets of impatiens (shade-loving annuals) in riotous colors.
I pulled up a photo on my phone of a vibrant ground cover that had caught my eye on the 11th tee box at Wellshire Golf Course. “Ice plants are phenomenal,” Staples said. “You can plant them in full sun and they are drought-tolerant — and there are lots of different colors.” (I bought those same colors, fuchsia and orange, for my garden.)
Is it too late to get more veggie plants to replace some that may have just not tried hard enough and given up through lack of effort through absolutely no fault of yours? “Stay away from leafy greens right now,” Staples said, “but we have larger plants (like tomatoes) that already are producing veggies that would work.”
What about outdoor plants that you can grow indoors over the winter, to bloom again in the spring? “Geraniums,” Staples recommended, “or citrus trees. But be sure to feed them the correct fertilizer.”
Really, I’ve made hundreds of mistakes over the years, putting plants in places they don’t belong, planting too soon in too much sun, not fertilizing, not amending the soil, overwatering and, oh, the tragedy of a mower haircut. My ground is hostile to hostas. Hydrangeas — which I have long lusted after since I’m from New England, where they are prolific — don’t stand a chance; poppies poop out; bulbs seldom bring up their lovely blooms; clematis refuse to climb; and our state flower, Columbine, quit on me every time (even though a neighbor two houses down has dozens of them).
And I won’t even go into what I’ve managed to slaughter in my vegetable and herb garden. (A recent Facebook meme was directed at people like me, gardeners who spend $300 on plants in an attempt to save $1.47 at the grocery store.) Honestly, I apologize to plants for any hardship they may suffer at my hands every time I walk out of a garden center.
Still, I remain ever hopeful that my love affair with plants and flowers will burgeon again in the spring, and that the garden gods will look favorably upon those perennials that I planted so lovingly this season.
Yes, I made sure to ask Staples for advice, and hopefully put the plants I purchased on this recent trip in the right places, and in the right soil.
And then I prayed over them after planting. (It can’t hurt, right?)
Echter’s Nursery & Garden Center, 5150 Garrison St., Arvada. Open 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday (but hours change according to the season, so check the website before heading over); 303-424-7979; echters.com. (Echter’s is having a summer sale through July 10. So buy a new rose bush to baby, or an ornamental grass to groom, or a fruit tree to fawn over.)