Plan & Design
- Consider Water Wise Plants
- Microclimates
- Color, Height, Seasonal Bloom
Start a garden journal by jotting down layout ideas, plant material, etc. Consider what type of garden you would like.
Familiarize yourself with the microclimates for YOUR landscape (hot, dry, shady, sunny, windy).
Photograph the area you’re planning to design. Then research, analyze, question, and brainstorm ideas for the area. Draw a rough sketch of the ideas. If possible, draw all the plants and other items to scale on a separate plan. Elements to consider in your plan: sun or shade, line, texture, color, scale and proportion, simplicity, repetition, balance, logic.
Learn how to make a design and layout. Begin the design process with the tallest elements or ‘anchor plants,’ trees, tall shrubs and down to medium to small shrubs and perennials to groundcovers.
Choose plants that will thrive in low water application conditions. Creek Side Gardens offers a big selection of low water perennials, shrubs and trees that may be perfect for your Colorado Smart Garden design. Including, Plant Select brand plants, a collaboration between Colorado State University and the Denver Botanic Gardens
Water Saving Principles
- Turf Area
- Hydrozone Areas
- Irrigate Efficiently
Colorado is a semi-arid state, averaging 10”-16” of precipitation per year! Waterwise landscaping, also known as xeriscaping, is planning and designing your landscape for low water usage, rethinking the use of turf grass and it’s huge water requirements, improving porosity of soil for more efficient water applications, selecting plant material by paying attention to their water requirements, reducing water waste with correct irrigation installations, applying appropriate mulches, and regular maintenance of the landscape.
Xeriscaping is not “desert-scaping.” It is not an exercise in removing turf, minimizing or deleting irrigation, adding only “native,” or “drought-tolerant,” plant material, suffocating the soil with weed fabric and mulching with rock.
Decide what type of turf area is required and what it will be used for? Understand the differences of various types of turf area for wear tolerance, appearance, water requirement, exposure, fertilization and turf grass species. Quality of any turf is directly dependent on the amount of summer rainfall and supplemental irrigation it receives. Consider creating an area which is just the right size for bare feet, small picnic, or laying back in the cool, green grass to gaze at the clouds.
Irrigation Plans
Apply water according to plant needs, rather than water applications based on a schedule.*‘Hydrozone’ – creating landscaped groupings or areas in which plants are matched so they use water at more or less the same rate (best use for irrigation efficiency & plant health).
Newly transplanted plants – even low-water and xeric plants require regular waterings through the first growing season to help them get established. Once established, these plants prefer to be watered more deeply and less frequently. Colorado State University Extension and Denver Water are good resources that will illustrate water usage and formulas for calculating gallons of water required in your landscape.
A helpful rule of thumb, when your sprinkler system or a rain storm produces 1/2” water, soils will only be wet 3”-4” deep, leaving the roots dry beneath. If you get ½” of rain over several days in a row, the soil moisture will be pushed deeper.
Understand your irrigation system and it’s designed output in gallons/time. Whether it is drip, hose end, or sprinkler head, each one of these application methods is calculated to put out a certain volume of water over a prescribed period of time. Often gallons per hour.
Improve Your Colorado Garden Soil
- Organic Matter & Humus
- Soil Moisture
- Improve the Soil with Compost
Well managed western soils have 25% air, 25% water (pore spaces), 1-5% organic matter (dead & living), and 49% mineral solids, comprise the (solid particles).
A typical compacted, unamended landscape soil (which is common in Colorado), has 10% air, 20% water, 1% organic matter and 69% mineral solids. Not the best growing foundation for plants.
Test your soil as soon as soil sample can be dug. Stop by Creek Side at the beginning of March to pick up a soil test kit. CSU Spur and CSU Ft. Collins are two locations to take your soil for testing. They will analyze your samples and offer expert recommendations to get your soil ready for the growing season. Bring your soil test results into Creek Side and we will help you interpret the results.
Moisture drains more slowly in smaller pore spaced clay soils and overwatering can drown the plant roots. Heavy clay soils are common in our area. On the opposite end, sandy soils with large pore spaces are fast draining, lose nutrients and dry out quickly.
Adding soil amendments such as organic compost allow for better absorption of water and improved water holding capacity of the soil. Organic matter also provides beneficial nutrients to plants and air for deep root growth. Check out our line of soil amendments like Nature’s Yield Organic Compost.
Mulch
- Consider Using Mulch
- Why Mulch
- What Kind of Mulch
- How to Apply Mulch
Mulches are an important consideration in your Colorado Smart Garden design plan because the do so many good things including:
- Reduction of water evaporation from the soil
- Reduction in weed growth
- Reduce soil erosion
- Regulates soil temperature
Mulch products may include but are not limited to: Organic: compost (not just for incorporating into soil!), shredded bark or hardwood, grass clippings, pole peelings, or Inorganic: river rock, pea gravel, aggregates, breeze or squeegee.
Consider different mulches for areas of the landscape such as using a mulch that decomposes quickly in grown flower and vegetable beds so the plants can benefit from the nutrients. In less-intensively planted tree and shrub beds utilize a slower decomposing, larger particle sized mulch and for walkways and paths choose a longer lived product like rock, gravel or hardscape.
Be careful not to smother plants under too much mulch. Recommended application for Organic mulch is to a depth of 3”-4” and Inorganic mulch is up to 2” in depth.
Do apply mulch before weeds become problematic. Covering them with mulch before eradicating them will only allow them to grow right through the mulch.
Landscape Maintenance
- Weed Control
- Pest Control
- Fertilizer
- Trimming/Deadheading/Pruning
Just like nature, there are four seasons of care ~ Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall ~ in the Colorado landscape and garden.
Weeding-the best time is when they are small and can be removed easily. This alleviates having to use chemical treatments or manual labor to remove when the weeds have grown larger.
The need for understanding fertilization of plants or amending the soil can be assessed with a simple soil test so the proper amounts can be applied at the appropriate times.
Pest control. It is better to be proactive and learn which pests cycle in an out of the seasons in Colorado and be prepared to meet them head on, before considerable damage or loss has occurred in the landscape.
Schedule time to manage the different type of plant material in the landscape. Regular, seasonal trimming, deadheading and pruning benefits the overall health of the plants.
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Creek Side Gardens is here to help you make your garden and landscape the best ever. Stop by anytime and discuss your questions with our Green Team staff of gardening experts. Contact us with your questions at [email protected] and check out our weekly ‘Planting Trends’ at www.PlantsByCreekSide.com
Another great reference is the Colorado State University Extension website which publishes many free “ Fact Sheets” which list plants and plant care. Search www.extension.colostate.edu
