Ericameria nauseosa - Rabbitbrush

Photo by Pam Schulz

The Wild Ones Front Range chapter inspires and empowers people and municipalities to transform private and public landscapes into more native plant habitat to support all people and a healthy planet.

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I love being asked to look at people’s yards. I am not a professional landscaper, but I read gardening books like they’re novels, and from many years of gardening I know enough to give some advice. I frequently hear garden myths that I am reluctant to rebut on the spot, but here I am going to - if not dispel some of these - at least highlight a side of these “truths” that may be detrimental to good, sustainable, gardening. I am NOT a scientist. This information is from sources I’ve read, permaculture and other courses I’ve taken, and my experience as a gardener.

Needles from Pine Trees Acidify Your Soil 

No, they don’t. A common misconception is that since pine needles from pine trees are acidic, they will acidify your soil. Fresh pine needles taken directly from a tree are slightly acidic. However, they don’t stay that way. By the time pine needles drop off a tree, they are barely acidic, and after a few days on the ground, are not acidic at all. Scientists have looked under 50-year old pine trees, with fifty years of dropped pine needles, and the soil underneath the tree is not acidic. It turns out that adding pine needles to top-dress your soil is a good thing. They will help enrich your soil. I like them as mulch because they stay in place. 

Always Deadhead Your Perennials

Once a plant’s blooms are past their prime, the plant directs its energy towards producing seed and fruit. Conventional advice is to deadhead – or remove spent blooms - so that the plant can direct its energy, instead, to producing more blooms, foliage, and roots. While it is true that deadheading some perennials will give you a second bloom, that is not always good advice. Leaving your spent blooms on your plants is good for wildlife, and, in my opinion, is very pretty and adds winter interest. If you always deadhead perennials, you are robbing birds and insects of important shelter and food. Also, letting seed fall to the ground encourages self-seeding which may be desirable. That said, cutting some perennials back in the spring as they start “waking up” can make the plant stronger and avoid legginess, but that is not the same as deadheading.

Wood Chip Mulch Takes Nitrogen Away from Your Soil/Plants

Well, yes and no. Wood has a high carbon to nitrogen ratio. So, for wood to decompose, it needs to take nitrogen from somewhere. The early stages of wood decomposition are aided by fungi, which add nitrogen to the wood by taking some from the top inches of soil. This is done above most plant roots, so it will not affect your plants, unless they are seedlings. Wood chips are not recommended for vegetable gardens for this reason. When bacteria enter the process, they pull nitrogen from the surface of the soil; again, this does not affect your plants. In the later stages of decomposition, wood chips actually add nitrogen to the soil.

Plants will eventually hide all of the pea gravel mulch

I will add that wood chip mulch that comes packaged in plastic bags, and/or dyed red or dark brown, should not be used. I am not sure what the dye does, but it can’t be good. Try to get your wood mulch from local tree services, who may give it to you free, or in bulk, so that you are not dealing with plastic bags.

Gravel Mulch is Too Hot (and Adds Heat to Urban Areas)

More on mulch. Yes, the heat-island effect is a real thing. Urban areas are often 5 to 10 degrees hotter than surrounding areas because of all the concrete, asphalt and buildings. Too much impervious surface and lack of green space is not a good thing. But, gravel mulch is not part of the problem. It is pervious, allowing water to percolate in, which is a good thing. In fact, while the top of the gravel mulch may be hot, underneath, the soil and roots of the plant stay cooler than they would in wood chip mulch, and it conserves soil moisture very well – better than you might expect! So, half-inch size crusher (sharp, not rounded pea gravel) gravel laid 2-3” deep is excellent mulch for Co native plants. (2) In my yard, the plants in gravel mulch are doing better than the ones in wood mulch.  

We Need Honeybees

Everyone loves honey, and it seems everyone wants honeybees. When we talk pollinators, it’s the number one thing people want to talk about – the plight of the honeybee. Yet, honeybees are not native to the US, and some research shows that they are outcompeting our native bees (1). Research also shows that our native bees are better pollinators than the non-native honeybee. So, instead of the honeybee hive you want to put in your backyard (unless you are actually marketing honey), let’s encourage the native bees. They tend to be solitary, and live in bare ground. They’re a lot easier actually to keep. Just leave some bare ground and plant the right plants.

We Need Landscape Fabric/Weed Cloth to Keep Down the Weeds

One of my pet peeves of the landscaping trade is the use of plastic or other landscape fabric/weed barrier cloth. It is an unsustainable practice that does not prevent weeds after about a year or two, and deprives the soil of beneficial processes. Let’s break it down. Soil is a living entity. It needs water and billions of tiny critters to be healthy. Putting any type of barrier down (aside from cardboard or newspaper, which breaks down over time) disrupts the natural cycles in the soil. And I know of zero projects where weed barrier has prevented weeds from sprouting. First, some of the harder perennial weeds to rid will eventually grow through the barrier. Second, many weeds will seed right on top of the barrier and their roots will become enmeshed in the fabric, making it much harder to get rid of them. Weed barrier is also a pain to cut into, if you are planting more plants. I’ve spent much of the past seven years digging out black plastic that somebody thought was a good idea in my yard. What I inherited was a weedy mess on top of the black plastic. Yikes. Just don’t use it! Properly applied mulch is a better option. The key to not using weed barrier is using the correct amount of mulch – not too deep and not too shallow. That will be the subject of an entire article, coming soon.

Holes made from the leaf cutter bee

Leaves Need to be Bagged and Hauled Away

I think by now we all know to leave the leaves. Leaves are great mulch, provide shelter for overwintering insects, and it just seems a shame to put them in the trash.

Weeds Need to be Trashed

Unless they have flowered, I put my weeds right back into the landscape, as mulch (in wood mulch, not pea gravel). Many weeds are good nutrient accumulators, and will not harm your landscape. Dandelions, for example, are a calcium accumulator, so the leaves of the dandelion plant make good mulch. If you are practicing sustainable landscaping and making as little trash as possible, by all means put the non-flowering weeds into your landscape or your compost pile. That said, I do not put any part of bindweed back into my landscape or compost. I just don’t trust it. It’s one smart weed.

Xeriscape Means Rocks and Can’t be Pretty

You would think by now that we’ve gotten rid of this one, but no. I still hear it. Xeriscape does not mean just rocks (that’s zero-scaping!). It can be gorgeous, as evidenced by so many colorful native, xeric gardens. In a near future newsletter, we will be putting together a list of native gardens to see so that we can prove this is true! 

I Need to Get Rid of the Aphids/Bugs

I think the myth here is that our landscapes need to be super neat. Nature is not super neat. Even aphids have a role in the ecosystem - e.g., the more aphids, the more ladybugs. If you leave the insect you do not like, or at least some of the insects you do not like, you will eventually get the insect that eats the insect you do not like. Except, unfortunately, for Japanese beetles. If you don’t like Japanese beetles, get rid of your lawn. A nice, clean lawn is where they lay their eggs.

I know there are many, many more myths. Would someone else like to follow up with Garden Myths part 2? Or is there something confusing to you about gardening with natives you would like clarified? As always, we welcome other viewpoints. Contact us at [email protected]. 

Article notes and other resources

(1) There are many articles on this, but one good one is The Problem With Honeybees, by Alison McAfee, Scientific American, November 4, 2020 (maybe we can link to it?)

CSU mulching overview: https://extension.colostate.edu/docs/pubs/garden/07214.pdf

Landscape fabric – a cautionary tale: https://gardenprofessors.com/landscape-fabric-a-cautionary-tale/ 

Interested in learning how to collect and clean native seeds from your garden? Join the Wild Ones Front Range Chapter and our Seed Swap partners for a Pop-Up Seed Collection and Cleaning event!

Collected seeds support the upcoming Native Seed Swaps, Front Range Seed Libraries, native plant demonstration gardens, research into native seed germination best practices and the efforts of native plant propagation group members.

Events are scheduled as seeds ripen. Please keep an eye on the Volunteer Opportunities page for additional dates and locations.

Please reach out and RSVP via email to volunteer at a collection or seed swap event or to arrange a donation of native seeds from your garden.

Seed Collections on the calendar thus far. Space is limited, so please RSVP to the emails below.

Trenton Xeriscape (Centennial)

• Thursday 9/2, 4:30-6:00 pm
• Target species: Fallugia paradoxa; Ratibida columnifera; Monarda fistulosa; Cercocarpus ledifolius

Northern Water Campus (Berthoud)

• Saturday 9/4, 4:00-6:30 pm
• Target species: whatever is ripe!

Wild Ones Member Betty Jo Page's Garden (Wheat Ridge) 

• Sunday 9/5, 3:00-5:00 pm
• Target species: Penstemon strictus; Monarda fistulosa)

Wild Ones Garden Tour Host John Murgel's Garden (Centennial)

• Thursday 9/9, 4:30-6:00 pm
• Target species: Mirabilis multiflora; Penstemon palmeri; Berlandiera lyrata

• Denver: [email protected]
• Colorado Springs: [email protected]
• Fort Collins: [email protected]

For tips on collecting and cleaning native seeds, please check out the article by Jan Midgley from the September, 2020 Front Range Report.

Please see our chapter event page for more details on upcoming events.

We are in dire need of a website volunteer - someone to update our website with events, our monthly newsletter, and information as our board of directors provides. No experience necessary - we will train you! We use the Wordpress platform, which is easy to learn. If interested, use the link below.

Ekar Farm,ready to be transformed by our awesome volunteers! If interested in this project, please email Deb at [email protected].

Ekar Farm, A Wild Ones Front Range Native Plant Demonstration Garden

6825 E. Alameda Ave., Denver

We recently added another demo garden (this is our third). Ekar Farms aims to cultivate healthy communities by growing sustainably produced fruits and vegetables. They set aside an area to grow native plants as an educational opportunity, and have asked Wild Ones to help design and plant this area. It is currently full of weeds, but we are slowly clearing it, and will be ready to plant in the fall. We will have signs explaining the benefits of the plants.

Wild Ones Front Range Chapter is run by volunteers. If you are interested in being more active with our chapter, please contact us via email. 

Wild Ones, Front Range Chapter 2021 Board of Directors

If you want to know more about what is going on with Wild Ones Front Range Chapter, and would like to join us for a Board of Directors meeting (online), we meet every third Wednesday of the month at 6pm. Upcoming meeting dates are August 18, 2021 and September 15, 2021. Please email us of your interest and we will send you the zoom link to join. Thank you!

Report Editor: Colleen Lyon