Saving some time, trouble and water with a pre-planned garden
There’s always that one yard in your neighborhood, isn’t there? The one with the colorful flowers with butterflies flitting and bees buzzing.
That must be a lot of work, you think. Plus, how could you possibly know how to care for those plants?
Moving from wistful to proud is a lot easier than you think. The solution is called a pre-planned garden, or under the program started by the Conservation Center in Boulder, it’s named Garden in a Box. The Boulder non-profit is partnering with 21 water utilities this year to offer discounts on these xeric (waterwise) gardens, of mostly native plants that require less watering.
Their motive: to save precious water. Your motive: to save water and have a beautiful landscape.
Natalie Antonucci, water program manager at the Conservation Center, says xeric plants use about 60 percent less water than a Kentucky bluegrass lawn. Last year, the
program sold 3,240 gardens and this year is likely to sell 3,700 to 3,800, she says.
“Denver is the largest water utility, and they do about a third of the gardens we sell,” she adds.
Other Front Range cities also offer a $25 discount on the gardens, including Broomfield, Westminster, Northglenn, Golden, Centennial, Castle Rock, Fort Collins, Loveland and almost all the towns in Boulder County.
Here’s how the garden program works. Customers order the gardens online, starting March 6 at conservationcenter.org/gardens. The program includes five xeric gardens, with the number of plants ranging from 15 to 29 and the price from $104 to $149. The program includes gardens for shady areas and full sun areas, as well as one designed specifically to attract pollinators. A “Spaghetti Garden” of 30 organic vegetables is also available as is a collection of filler plants called “Xeric’s Greatest Hits.” Each garden was designed by a landscaper and comes with a planting map and detailed instructions on how to care for each plant.
The gardens usually sell out, with about one-third being sold the first couple of days, Antonucci says. After purchasing the garden, customers will be notified when the gardens have arrived (late May and early June) and can be picked up at about 16 locations (four of them in Denver).
One thing that makes preplanned gardens such as Garden in a Box popular is that the planning work is done for the consumer.
“I hear from customers over and over again, especially those new to Colorado, how easy it is, how they don’t have to do any research on plants, don’t have to try to arrange them or (figure out) what will do well in this climate,” Antonucci says. “People are consistently impressed with how easy it is and how beautiful the gardens are.”
The Conservation Center’s gardens are not the only preplanned gardens available. Longtime lovers of western plants know the High Country Gardens catalog offers pre-planned garden collections, as well as individual plants. The company was started in Santa Fe by David Salman, one of the best-known western gardeners for finding and propagating native plants. At High Country Gardens, pre-planned gardens have long been available.
“One of the very first gardens we introduced was the Jumbo Waterwise Garden,” Salman says. He says the garden, designed by Julia Berman of Santa Fe “has stood the test of time.”
Salman says pre-planned gardens have many advantages for beginners, since the designer has knowledge of the plants’ light requirements, vulnerability to frost, size at maturity and bloom time, as well as an understanding of the principles of design.
“In pre-planned gardens, all these different variables are taken into consideration and distilled down into an easy-to-follow planting diagram to get the plants properly spaced and positioned,” he says. “There’s a lot of knowledge that went into the design … that isn’t necessarily obvious when you’re looking at the garden in the catalog or online.”
One of Salman’s favorites is the Habitat Hero garden, which is designed to attract songbirds, hummingbirds and pollinators. The garden is a collaboration between High Country Gardens, the Audubon Rockies’ Habitat Hero project and Plant Select, a non-profit joint project of Colorado State University, Denver Botanic Gardens and professional horticulturalists.
Jason Bidgood of Stapleton bought the Habitat Hero garden when he bought his home seven years ago.
“I’m slowly adding to the garden, so having a pre-planned garden is nice. I can kind of pick off a little block I want to work on,” he says. “That’s ripped up a lot of grass in my yard and converted it to garden.”
Bidgood has taken classes at Denver Botanic Gardens for about five years, but still benefited from the pre-planned Habitat Hero.
“There were plants in there I wouldn’t have picked myself,” he says. “I didn’t know about them. It’s a way for the do-it-yourselfer to get professional input.”