Tag: home and garden
-
Year-round gardening: Add color around your Colorado home with holiday cactus
Once gardens become dormant, Coloradans could long for flowers to brighten their homes during the holiday season. Holiday cactus (Schlumbergera sp.) is a great choice. These natives of Brazil grow in the crotches of trees but are not parasitic. Because they’re understory rain forest plants, they will get enough light near a sunny window. Holiday…
-
At Home: Quietly accessible furniture aids aging in place with safety and style
Knees get cranky, backs get stiff, balance isn’t what it used to be. Age isn’t easy on us. But the right furniture can make it easier. And, finally, one major furniture retailer is leaning into that with a line of “quietly accessible” furniture that looks like it belongs in a home, not a rehab center.…
-
At Home: Wedding drives M.O.B. to become ‘unhinged’ over door hardware
There comes a time when good homeowners need to replace their outdoor hardware. The week before your daughter’s wedding is not the time. As if I didn’t have enough to do planning a wedding celebration for family and friends coming from all over, I suddenly had an irrepressible need to replace the handles and hinges…
-
Year-round gardening: Autumn is an ideal time to examine deciduous trees in your yard
Once leaves have dropped in autumn, there is a great opportunity to examine the deciduous trees in your garden and determine if some pruning is needed. November through March is an ideal time to get that work done. Evergreen tree pruning should be deferred until early spring. The reasons for pruning include: • Managing damage…
-
Year-round gardening: Is it time to clean up your Colorado garden? Well, it depends.
The need for seasonal garden cleanup can be a controversial subject. How much to do in autumn, and how much to leave for spring, is a question best answered by, “It depends.” Questions to ask yourself include: • What are you growing? • What insect and animal pests do you want to manage? • What…
-
Year-round gardening: Check trees this fall for mountain pine beetle
Check trees this fall for mountain pine beetle As you might be aware, El Paso County and much of Colorado is seeing an uptick in mountain pine beetle (MPB) activity. MPB is a native insect that usually attacks weaker trees as part of a natural cycle of forest renewal. However, MPB can switch from endemic…
-
Year-round gardening: Some important tasks await Coloradans as gardening season winds down
“Now, let me see … There’s the large carpet in the main hall. Clean it! And the windows, upstairs and down. Wash them! Oh yes. And the tapestries and the draperies. Do them again! And don’t forget the garden. And scrub the terrace, sweep the halls and the stairs, clean the chimneys, and of course…
-
Year-round gardening: Steps to overwintering geraniums in Colorado
“And all at once, summer collapsed into fall.” — Oscar Wilde Indeed, the long languid days of summer are giving way to softer light and a crispness in the air. We savor these last days of summer as our gardens transition into warm autumnal colors and we enjoy the harvest bounty. Gardeners might want to…
-
At Home: And the 2025 color of the year is … uncertain
COTY season is here — that time of year when paint companies, after months of tea-leaf and tarot-card reading, announce their respective color of the year. Those divining the new hues consider the social mood, political climate, economy, world events, travel trends, and the color of the inside of their eyelids, before extracting from their…
-
Colorado Springs gardener grows, sells hundreds of dahlias at nonprofit museum
In a former hayfield on the outskirts of town, Dianne Reitan diligently cares for her babies. These babies aren’t of the giggling and drooling variety. These babies are organic dahlias, some upwards of 6 feet tall, which point their crimson, yellow, orange and pink fractal faces toward the sun while soaking up the well water…