Tagawa Gardens

Tap Into Garden Outreach at Tagawa's

2011-11-09T15:05:00.005-07:00

The wonderful folks I work for at Tagawa Gardens aren't the type to toot their own horn. So I've made a command decision, and I'm going to do it for them. Here goes: Tagawa's has the most extensive Garden Outreach program in Colorado, and quite possibly, in the entire country.

And what is "Garden Outreach?" As Tagawa's Garden Outreach Ambassador, I'm glad you asked.

Garden Outreach is Tagawa's way of taking the amazing expertise of our staff, about 700 years total gardening experience among our year-round employees. We combine that with examples of the plants and products we carry and offer the whole package to the community as Outreach.

Schools, church groups, garden clubs, private businesses, service organizations, retirement homes, senior centers... You name it, and my Garden Outreach partner Mary Ann (a.k.a. "Grandma Mimi") and I have done it. We visit many of the places for free. It just depends on the type of organization. Businesses, for example, pay a small fee. With non-profits, there's usually no charge. If you're a 501c3, the trip is on Tagawa's dime. Neat, huh?

What ever do we talk about?

Easy! We demonstrate and talk about pretty much any gardening or nature-related topic you ask for. (I did one time decline an invitation to discuss phytoplancton. Not my strong suit....)

Mimi and I have traveled as far north as Broomfield, as far south as Monument and as far east as the wilds of Elbert County. (I'm crazy about the terrific folks in Elbert County. They couldn't be nicer!)

Garden Outreach programs don't have to be "out." If space is available, we're happy to host interested groups right here at Tagawa's. The work of a garden center will continue around you. There may be a little noise from a load of plants going by, or occasional pages on the P.A., but that's part of the fun! We think of it a genuine garden center ambiance.

Tagawa's Outreach program also has a growing history of helping service organizations raise money through our Garden Outreach Gift Cards. Groups can plan a class or demonstration and sell gift cards at the same time. And it's way easier than organizing a bake sale!

Topics, please....

Okay, I'm going to take a deep breath and list just some of the items from our Garden Outreach "menu." Here goes: Indoor Holiday Plants, Holiday Porch Pots, Holiday Baskets and Decorations, Late-season Container Gardens, Growing Veggies in a Pot, Indoor Herb Gardening, Low-water Gardening, Fairy Gardens (for kids of all ages), Composting in a Worm Bin, Helping the Honey Bees, Coping with Wildlife, and Birds, Bees and Butterflies. The list goes on and on. And we're wide open to "special requests," too. Just ask (as long as it's not about phytoplancton).

Mimi and I also do several classes just for school-aged kids. Good Bugs and "Bad" Bugs, Backyard Birds, Pond Life, Animal Defenders and many more. We can incorporate topics the kids are currently studying at school with "real life" lessons. And for the pre-schoolers, I have a cast of zany puppets that can keep the kids smiling and learning at the same time.

Why do we offer Outreach?

Beth, Tagawa's general manager, is quick to answer: "Tagawa's takes pride in offering the best plants, products and service possible. But we also want to be the best neighbor we can be for our community and our environment. It's a priority!"

Our Outreach Program played a role two years ago in helping Tagawa's become the first Veriflora certified sustainable garden center in the county.

Plan ahead!

We at Tagawa's are proud of the fact that our Garden Outreach Program is proving to be a great success. The enthusiasm we've seen and heard from the groups and organizations we've served comes through loud and clear.

So we take it as good news that groups now need to plan ahead if they want to reserve a particular date on the Outreach schedule. Making the arrangements is easy. The person at the helm of Outreach is Michelle. She can juggle a calendar like no one I've ever known. You can reach her by calling Tagawa's main number: 303-690-4722, extension 107. Ask for Michelle in Outreach or leave her a message. She'll take excellent care of you. She can also fill you in on the Outreach Gift Card can help your group raise money.

Don't be shy!

We'd love to hear from you at Tagawa's. If you're tired of booking the same old topics for your organization, do something different!! Let Tagawa's Garden Outreach program help make your next gathering shine!

Time for Amaryllis and Paperwhites

2011-11-08T14:31:00.004-07:00

Whether you go all out with your holiday decorations, or not so much..... the beauty of amaryllis and paperwhites is hard to beat. They'll add charm to an elaborate holiday display, or a bright touch of elegance to a more low-key setting. And there's a bonus: both amaryllis and paperwhites are easy to grow, and waiting for you now at Tagawa Gardens. This is a perfect time to start them!

Part of the appeal of an amaryllis is watching it grow. Once they start sprouting, the giant bulbs can easily put on an inch of growth in a single day. I used to send a bright red amaryllis to my grandfather every Christmas. He was frail and didn't get around much, but he was always anxious to tell me that if he stared long enough, he was sure he could actually see that stem get taller and taller. It had been a long time since he'd been able to garden, but the amaryllis brought some of the old joy of gardeneing indoors.

Amaryllis come in a wonderful variety of colors: red, salmon, pink, white and stunning bi-color mixes. The giant flowers look like lilies. Each bulb will produce one or two hollow stems. Three to four huge flowers will emerge from the top of each stem. What fun!!

So where do you start? At Tagawa's, of course!

Tagawa's has a wide variety of amaryllis bulbs to choose from. Some are sold loose in bins, so you can pick exactly the bulb you want. Other amaryllis come boxed with a pot and soil included, and make a great gift.

The bigger the bulb, the bigger the flowers it will produce. Makes sense. And the planting takes about two minutes... no more!

Amaryllis like to be a bit crowded, so a pot just a couple of inches larger than the bulb is perfect. The pot has to have good drainage. Soggy soil is a sure way to rot the roots of an amaryllis.

You can set the pot with the drainage into a nice designer pot. The heavier container will give the plant stability as it gets taller, and more inclined to tip. Just remember to take the amaryllis out of the designer pot when you water it and let the excess water drain away before you put it back on display. This can help protect your furniture, too, and avoid the need for a saucer.

Amaryllis do best in good quality potting soil.... something loose and airy.
Fill the pot half way with the soil, set the amaryllis into the pot, then backfill with the remaining soil until only one third of the bulb is still showing. Water the bulb well, then set it in a warm room and don't water it again until the first shoots are a couple of inches tall. Bright light will keep the plant from getting leggy. Give the plant a quarter turn each day to keep it straight.

Next you wait... but not for long!

You should see your amaryllis begin to grow within a couple of weeks after planting. Depending on the size of the bulb, your amaryllis will take about eight weeks from planting to flowering. Larger bulbs take a bit longer. The bud stalks usually emerge first, followed by the leaves.

Water your amaryllis when the top of the soil is dry to the touch.... always remembering never to let it sit in standing water. Once the flowers have begun to bloom, keep the plant in slightly cooler conditions, even if it's just overnight, to help the blossoms last longer.

And there's more, if you choose....

When the flowers finally begin to fade, remove the stalks with a very sharp knife an inch or so above the bulb. Continue to nurture the leaves with bright light and feeding a gentle fertilizer (5-10-5, for example) twice a month. The amaryllis can even go outdoors in the summertime to give the leaves a chance to "bulk up" the bulb for next year's show. You may need to stake the leaves they get floppy.

Once the leaves die back on their own, store the bulb, pot and all, in a cool place for a couple of months. Water it just a bit to keep the soil from completely drying out.

And next fall, start all over again!

Or......

You can also choose to enjoy your amaryllis this season only, and then toss it out. If this is your preference, why not grow an amaryllis in a special glass vase that lets you see through to the lovely tangle of roots.... one more way to enjoy these fascinating plants.

Paperwhites are just as easy!

Tall, elegant paperwhites have been a winter and holiday tradition for years, and for good reason. It's easy and inexpensive to start several paperwhites in a shallow bowl of small rocks, marbles or decorative stones. The reward comes four to eight weeks after planting, with petite white flowers that look like tiny daffodils.

Tagawa's sells pre-rooted paperwhites for no additional charge. Gently transfer the bulbs to your own pot or tray, and watch them take off! The bulbs can sit on top of the pebbles an inch apart, just barely nestled in. Leave the bowls of paperwhites in a bright, cool room until the shoots appear, then move them into direct sunlight to keep them from getting leggy.

You water them with what?

Another trick to keep the leaves and stems slightly more compact: booze!
Specifically, any of the clear distilled spirits like gin, vodka or tequila.
The alcohol serves as a growth regulator that keeps the plants more compact.

Kris, one of Tagawa's amaryllis and paperwhite experts, offers the following instructions: Water the paperwhites normally for seven to ten days. Once the shoots are two- to three inches tall, replace the plain water with a diluted alcohol solution.

With any clear distilled spirit ranging from 40 to 80 proof, use one part of alcohol to seven parts of water. Use this solution for all further watering of the paperwhites. Kris says the result will be plants that are about one-third more compact, with flowers just a large, long-lasting and fragrant as usual.

Why not plant now?

Amaryllis and paperwhites can be grown indoors so easily. The only challenging part is making sure that you buy the bulbs while they're available, like now, leading up to the holiday season.

Whether you grow them for you own home or give them as a lovely holiday gift, amaryllis and paperwhites from Tagawa's are a terrific way to make the season an especially sweet time of year.

Do your lawn a favor. Aerate and fertilize!

2011-10-08T18:09:00.005-06:00

The timing couldn't be better. Mark-the-Aerator-Man has a date with my lawn this week. And right on cue, Mother Nature has delivered a nice soaking storm. The moisture in the soil will help Mark's machine (and Mark, of course...) pull lots of lovely aeration plugs of out of the lawn.

If your area didn't get this weekend rain and snow, a deep soaking from your sprinklers will work just fine. Either way, the lawn should be well-watered to make the aeration effective.

We want holes in our turf? You bet!

A deep core aeration will help open up the top few inches of this lovely Colorado clay that so many of us like to complain about. That means less compaction and more air for your lawn's root zone. A little "breathing room" can be a very big deal if you're a root.

Increased air circulation helps fight the different types of fungus that can be so hard on our lawns. Greater air flow near the soil surface reduces the higher humidity that the fungal spores need to thrive. The spores are there in our lawns anyway. That's a given. Our goal is to make the spores' job of reproducing as tough as possible, and aeration can help us do just that.

And there's more!

There are lots of benefits from aeration besides increased "breathing room" for your lawn's roots. For example, when you apply your fall fertilizer after you aerate, those helpful little grains of nutrients can reach even farther into the soil when they drop down into the aeration holes. It's as if you're giving them a two- to three-inch head start.

As long as your lawn is still green, it's a great time to ferilize. Tagawa's Garden Experts at Dick's Corner can recommend just the right lawn food. There are several that do especially well here. "Colorado's Own" and "Richlawn Winterizer" are among Tagawa's recommended choices. They're slow-release, which is just what your lawn needs. Apply the fertilizer at the recommended rate, then water it in well. Fall fertilization is a big deal, so don't neglect that piece of the puzzle!

Aeration can also be helpful if you're over-seeding a lawn. Again, the aeration holes can capture some of the grass seed and help "baby" it a bit so it doesn't dry out as quickly. Tagawa's has several kinds of grass seed in bulk so you can buy just what you need for your particular setting.

By the way, there are two schools of thought re: the aeration plugs. Do you leave them where they fall or rake them up? I'm adhere firmly in the "leave 'em" approach myself. The plugs have lots of nutrients that will break down and go back into the soil. Besides, I can always find more pressing gardening chores than raking plugs. But gathering up the plugs and recycling them to another part of your landscape is fine, too.

Spring and fall, that's all!

My first couple of years as a Master Gardener convinced me that aeration is one of the best things we can do for lawns here. I make a point never to aerate in hot weather. That would be too much air circulation and moisture loss during an already-challenging time. But Mark-the-Aerator-Man knows to expect my calls every spring and fall, when the weather is cool.

Despite a host of other challenges.... less than ideal soil, hot dry winds that make gardening "interesting," and more dog traffic than I care to mention, my lawn rarely has problems.

I'm convinced that the secret to having a strong, healthy lawn starts with some T.L.C. in the fall and the spring. Good care in between (including winter watering, which we'll talk about down the road a bit) is important, too. But if you've had problems with your lawn, and don't aerate regularly, you might want to change your routine. There's a very good chance your lawn will thank you.

The Wonders of "Plant Select"

2011-06-22T21:10:00.016-06:00

Any chance you're interested in perennials that are colorful, but still Colorado tough? Trees and shrubs that look right at home with a Rocky Mountains backdrop, but still have enough eye appeal to turn heads? How about ornamental grasses that seem exotic, but perform like veterans in this challenging climate? Details of these gardening temptations and dozens more are the focus of Plant Select.

What is Plant Select?

Plant Select is a remarkable program run jointly by Colorado State University and Denver Botanic Gardens along with in-put from landscape and gardening professionals, like our experts here at Tagawa Gardens.

Plant Select's goal is to find plants that thrive from the High Plains to the intermountain regions. The program is now in its fourteenth year of promoting plants that are under-used, under-appreciated, and in some cases, virtually undiscovered until they enter the Plant Select evaluation process.

Most of the Plant Select winners need only moderate to very little watering, once they're "established." That generally means they need a couple of seasons of growth to develop the robust rootsystem that will help them become drought-tolerant. The Plant Select varieties are largely low-maintenance and fairly pest-free.

For example....

Okay, let's talk specifics. One of the 2011 Plant Select winners that's on the top of my "must have" list is "Grand Mesa" beardtongue. Here is the official Plant Selection description: "Stunning cobalt blue spikes in early spring last for nearly two months. Dense mat of evergreen rosettes turn a lovely orange-red in winter." I mean really. Who wouldn't want a few of these in their garden?

Like all Plant Select winners, Grand Mesa beardtongue had to survive a three- to five-year testing and review trial before it could even be nominated for inclusion. If the plants don't make the mark, they don't make the list.

Another 2011 winner that will find its way home to my garden: "Blonde Ambition" blue gramma grass. Plant Select calls it "An impressive highly ornamental form of Western native grass with tall, upright stems. Showy chartreuse, aging-to- blonde seed heads hold their straight shape and are displayed high above the foliage through the winter." Need I say more?

A Mix of Old and New

Some of the Plant Select winners have been around for a while, but simply haven't received the attention they deserve. One of this year's winners is Partridge Feather. It's soft and silvery, but tough as nails. My 110-pound black lab, ("Jake," just for the record) used it for years as a bed during his afternoon nap. Jake is gone now, but the Partridge Feather has never missed a beat. It's still big and thriving, and sends up tiny yellow flowers which you can keep or snip off, depending on your preference.

Let's not overlook Plant Select's great list of trees and shrubs. One of my favorites (now growing happily in my back yard) is "Hot Wings" Tatarian maple. What a stunner! It has brilliant red samaras. We called this sort of winged seed "helicopters" as kids. The Plant Select description says "Hot Wings' scarlet red samaras contrasting with the rich green foliage gives it a "Christmas in July" appearance. Slow-growing, but worth the wait.

Need design help?

You're in luck! Plant Select offers beautiful pictures of a variety of free, downloadable landscape plans and ideas. The illustrations help you see what plants play well with eachother, and show exactly how to contrast colors and textures for a lush, natural-looking garden.

Where to next?

Your next stop should be at the Plant Select website, http://www.plantselect.org/
Pictures of all of the winners, their latin names, their mature size and growing conditions and several landscape plans are laid out in a very user-friendly way.

Or just come see us at Tagawa's. We have dozens of the Plant Select winners, with plenty of advice and encouragement to help you get up and running on your own impressive Plant Select garden.

What's a "Pack Trial?" Glad you asked!

2011-04-03T15:59:00.006-06:00

If you've never heard the term "pack trial," no problem. The veteran plant experts and Tagawa Gardens know all about them, and they use that knowledge every spring to help make your Colorado garden the best it can be. Pack trials are special displays of thousands of new and improved plants... mostly annuals, but some perennials. The pack trials that are of the greatest interest to Tagawa's are held every spring in California. And what a show it is! This event is officially called the Spring Trials by the gardening association that organizes it. This year's trials have just wrapped up. Kris and Jere, Tagawa's Annuals and Production Managers, are now back in Colorado... their heads spinning with the names and images of "must have" plants for Tagawa's customers. More than forty plant breeders and growers hosted fellow members of the green industry this year. Jere and Kris picked the crem de la crem to visit during their week-long stay to see which new plants and planting ideas showed the most promise for Colorado gardens. Here are some things to look for, either this growing season or next. Both of our experts were impressed with a new tomato called "Tomaccio." Kris says it's a sweet raisin tomato with an intense sugary flavor. It can be picked fresh or left to dry on the vine. Wow! Even if the plants aren't available for this summer's garden, Kris hopes to have some samples of the fruit for "show and tell" during Tagawa's "Tomatopalooza" in late summer. I can't wait! Also impressive: a new pink poinsettia. "Big deal" you say? Well listen to this. The grower offering this poinsettia is hoping to see these pretty pink plants used at baby showers, wedding showers and in mixed containers. Stay tuned! Both Jere and Kris give a "hats off" to Proven Winners, an on-going favorite of Tagawa customers. Proven Winners is working on some new colors for their Callibrachoa Superbells, including a plant called "Cherry Star." The flowers are a dark cherry-pink with yellow stars at their center. And more Callie Superbells with names like "Sweet Tart" and "Tequila Sunrise" are in the works. A product you'll definitely be seeing at Tagawa's this spring is called "Wooly Pockets." It's vertical or up-right gardening as you've never seen it before. Wooly Pockets won the "Best of Show" award at last year's Independent Garden Center convention. Tagawa's staff will be happy to show you Wooly Pockets, then it's up to you to let your imagination run wild! Tagawa Gardens works closely with Ball Horticulture, one of the most innovative plant breeders in the country. Ball is always a favorite stop for our crew on their Spring Trials visit. Kris and Jere were both grabbing for their cameras when they saw Ball's garden bed of Osteospermum "3-D." Kris says these African Daisies do, indeed, look three-dimensional! They come in lilac, white and blue, and have large centers with double petals that don't close at night or on cloudy days. These will definitely be a "must have" for African daisy fans. Also this season or next, watch for a new Echinacea or coneflower called "Double Scoop Raspberry." They should be a perennial in Zone 5, which covers much of the front range. The list of great new plants on display at the Spring Trials goes on and on.. a bush-type portulaca or moss rose called "Happy Hour," a new gazania that is a perfect Bronco orange, a large begonia called "The Big Whopper," and a new petunia called "Pink Lemonade." Some of these plants may be available this season. For others, we'll have to wait 'til next year. But rest assured: Jere and Kris and many more plant experts at Tagawa's are always "out there," doing their homework, to make sure our customers can choose from the best and brightest ideas in the world sof gardening.

Tagawa's "Enchanted Gardens"

2011-03-30T16:12:00.008-06:00

Those of us who work at Tagawa Gardens routinely think of this as a magical place. But there's even more magic here than you might suspect! One section of our huge garden center holds the stuff of tiny fairies and gnomes and woodland spirits that can capture the imagination of kids... and kids-at-heart. I'm talking about Fairy Gardens.... miniature landscapes that require little more than a few plants, a few props and a sense of fun. Tagawa's has the plants and props. You bring your sense of fun and adventure, and you'll be amazed at what you can make. The tiny worlds we know as Fairy Gardens have been around for a while in up-scale settings and professionally-managed landscapes, but they've never been more accessible to home gardeners (and their children) than they are now. In fact, a Fairy Garden birthday party is a great way to celebrate your child's special day in a unique way. (Contact Tagawa's Outreach Department for details.) Tagawa's sells Fairy Garden kits that are ready to assemble, or you can pick and choose your own container and decorate it with accessories from our extensive display. Like any container garden, your Fairy Garden will need to have adequate drainage so the soil doesn't retain too much water. Shallow containers a few inches deep work best to keep the plants' root systems a little confined. That helps keep the plants from growing so big they're hard to manage. Make sure to use a top-quality soil. Tagawa's experienced staff can recommend brands of container soils that we know and trust. A variety of plants that fit the proportions of your container will make all the difference in creating a tiny garden that truly looks like a landscape in miniature. Choose plants with different leaf color and texture. A twelve-inch-square garden might have three plants.... one to give height and serve as your "tree," and maybe two or three more shorter plants to help fill things in and give your fairy hideout its personality: woodland garden, country garden, seaside garden.... whatever you like. Just make sure the plants you choose have similar requirements for light and water. In other words, don't put a cactus next to a fern. They won't play well together. Fairy Garden plants might be small houseplants or herbs.... low-growing groundcovers,,,, even moss. Our staff will be happy to help you with your selection. Remember that most Fairy Gardens will appreciate some bright light, though probably not strong afternoon sun, to be their best. Before you take your plants out of their tiny pots, arrange them this way and that until you find just the design that suits you. Remember not to put in too many plants. You'll want to save plenty of room for accessories that create just the right setting to please even the fussiest gnomes and fairies. Tagawa's has a delightful selection of charming fairy-sized tables and chairs, arbors, gazebos and gateways, fences, birdhouses and beehives. I promise: you'll have a hard time choosing! And by all means, don't forget the fairies and gnomes. Big... small.... simple... elaborate. Perch them on a little bench or next to a small "pond." Fairy-sized pets are welcome too. Tagawa's has tiny dogs and cats, frogs and turtles.... dragons and unicorns... a whole zoo of Fairy Garden critters. You can also add finishing touches from Mother Nature: tiny pinecones that look like trees, or rocks that appear to be boulders. Sticks and dried foliage from your "real" garden can look right at home in a fairy landscape,too. Your Fairy Garden plants will need watering whenever the top inch or so of soil dries out. Any watering can with a soft, gentle spray will work nicely. Avoid fertilizing your fairy plants. You want them to stay small and in proportion. Frequent trimming of the foliage will help keep them in check, too. As a finishing touch, how about a little "fairy dust," (also known as glitter...). Come see Tagawa's big Fairy Garden, complete with a castle and walkways tiny plants of every shape and size. And browse through our Fairy Garden display. Listen carefully, and you might hear some tiny voices, asking for a garden of their own in your home.

Make Your Own Porch Pots. It's Easy!

2010-12-07T18:44:00.007-07:00

If you're looking for something a little different to spice up your holiday decorating, "porch pots" could be the answer. They're fun and easy and Tagawa Gardens is here to give you all of the help and supplies you need.

What's a "porch pot," anyway?
A porch pot is a bit like a big flower arrangement. But instead of using flowers and ferns, you use fresh-cut evergreen stems and branches. The star of the porch pot cast of characters is usually a few "spruce tops." These are two- to four-foot tall sections of white spruce specially-grown for this type of decorative use. Harvesting the spruce tops doesn't harm the tree. The entire crop is sustainable, or you can be sure Tagawa's wouldn't recommend it.

The spruce tops look like slender little Christmas trees. Pop a few of them into the ceramic containers, whiskey barrels or whatever you have... containers that already spent the growing season on your deck or patio. Get this far, and you're well on your way to making your first porch pot. (And you're not looking at an empty container all winter!)

Porch pots can also be planted in fiberpots, and dropped down into your existing containers. Windowboxes can make beautiful porch pots, too.

What other materials do I need?
You won't need a thing we don't have at Tagawa's. By late-November, the bins in our Christmas tree area fill up with fresh, fragrant greenery from throughout the country. Incense cedar with its beautful draping branches, just right for cascading over the edge of your pot. Berried juniper, loaded with dozens of grey-blue clusters of tiny berries. Princess pine and shore pine and so much more.

Picking a variety of needle lengths and textures will add interest to your porch pot, and give it a professional touch. Tagawa's sells the greenery by the pound, so you can buy as much or as little as you like.

Ready. Set. GO!
Give all of your greenery a fresh angled cut with a sharp pair of pruners as you plant. Select a spruce top (or other striking piece of greenery, if you prefer), for the center of your pot. Water the soil first, so it's slightly compressed, and holds the branches in the position you want.

If this is your first porch pot, one very easy design calls for your tallest piece of greenery to be in the center, much as the tallest plants in summertime mixed containers often take center stage.

One by one, fill in the pot with a variety of greenery, creating a kind of roundish "bush" effect. If you don't like something, move it. Rearrange it. Mix and match. You're the boss!

Depending on your personal taste, you might want to add some dried materials.... maybe some of that ornamental grass that's still looking so good in your yard. Branches of red twig dogwood or curly willow look great too.

Or you can go glitzy with some artificial greenery and accessories. Aspen leaves with a coating of crystalline "frost." Stems with dark red berries for a warm touch of holiday color.

Add pine cones... dried flowers... or tiny ornaments that reflect your family's favorite sport or activity. Maybe a wiggly yard ornament like a snowman or elf would make a nice accent. The only rule is to have fun! As the New Year approaches, you can swap out some of the accents and decorations, and go with more of a winter theme reflecting ice and snow and fireworks.

Are porch pots hard to keep?
Porch pots last longer if they're not in areas that get lots of sun or strong wind. But even in more difficult locations, with a little T.L.C., porch pots can look fresh for several weeks.

Spraying with an anti-dessicant like "Wilf Pruf" will help the needles hold moisture and add life to your arrangment. You can spray the greenery (both sides) either before you plant, or once your stems and branches are in place. Just try to keep the preservative spray off the any accents that could lose some of their shine and luster.

Obviously, the greenery doesn't have roots, but the freshly-cut stems can take up water on a mild day when the soil isn't frozen. I have good luck watering my porch pots with a bucketful of warm water once a week, if possible.

So what are you waiting for?
Porch pots are fun and easy and anyone can make them!

Come see us at Tagawa's. We have lots of samples of porch pots on display, and plenty of friendly advice to get you started.

Be bold! Impress your family and friends with design skills you didn't even know you have.

And Happy Holidays from all of us at Tagawa's!

The Magic of Fairy Gardens

2010-11-14T14:46:00.012-07:00

Picture a very tiny landscape, complete with small, dainty plants..... miniature tables and chairs.... pebbles creating a cobbled pathway and softball-sized rocks looking for all the world like boulders and mountains. Can you see it? If you can, you've just imagined the beginning of what could be your own fairy garden.

Fairy gardens are capturing the fancy of gardeners of all ages. At Tagawa Gardens, we often see grandmothers sitting down with their grandchildren-- girls and boys-- to create their own fairy worlds. The only requirement: a sense of whimsy, and a belief in fairies, of course. If you're willing to try to think like a fairy or gnome, you can make a world that's just right for a tiny woodland, seaside or mountaintop home.

Fairy gardens start with a tray or box, complete with drainage, and big enough to hold the potting soil that will give the garden its foundation. Tagawa's has pre-assembled kits that are just right for the fairy garden you might have in mind.

Tagawa's will gladly suggest plants that will be right at home in this miniature landscape. Not any plant will do. Small-leafed houseplants can be a great fit, and will keep the "greenery" in just the right proportion to its surroundings. Many herbs are well-suited for fairy gardens, too. Trim a lavender plant just so, and you'd swear it was a tiny tree... the perfect spot for a fairy picnic. Tagawa's carries small herbs year 'round, for fairy gardens and windowsills.

It's hard to say which is more fun: selecting the plants or the accessories. Tagawa's carries a wonderful selection of tiny metal gates and gazebos..... picket fences and cafe tables.... birdhouses and beehives. Everything you need to give the special touches that fairies and gnomes appreciate.

And then, of course, there are the figurines themselves. Colorful little fairies just right for tiny hands to set into the garden, and move from one corner of the landscape to another, whenever the mood strikes. Tagawa's also has larger, more elegant fairies.... sitting on a beautiful glass bubble or swinging from a crescent moon. The choice is your's.

Don't forget the dragons!! Dragons in every color and every pose.... adding a sense of adventure to any fairy setting. Are the dragons friend or foe? Only the fairies can say.

While Tagawa's has all the fairy accessories you could want, we also encourage our fairy gardeners to gather trinkets from nature to give their garden a personal touch.... sticks and small bits of wood, pine cones, dried flowers... even acorns. You're limited only by your imagination.

Once your fairy garden is ready, it will need good light, proper watering, and a trim now and then to keep the plants in check.

Come see us at Tagawa's. Check out our big fairy garden, complete with a castle, fairies and their pets... and maybe a dragon or two lurking in the background. And get some gift ideas for yourself, or for the "inner fairy" of someone near and dear.

Fairy gardens are a great way to introduce kids to gardening, and have adults come along for the ride!

Putting the Garden to Bed

2010-10-20T17:28:00.018-06:00

A lot of people who love to garden in Colorado especially like the fact that we have fairly well-defined seasons... a beginning, a middle and an end, of sorts, to the busiest, hands-on growing of things we care about.

But just because the most active part of the season is shutting down, that doesn't mean we as gardeners and homeowners have the next several months off. There are a lot of things we can be doing now to help the plants in our landscape come into spring strong and healthy. And there are even a few mid-winter gardening chores that are well worth our time and effort. Let's take a look.

It's clean-up time!!

While the soil is still loose and fairly warm, grab your cart or wheelbarrow and yank out all that dead plant debris. Dead leaves and stalks from flowers and vegetables are a great place for bugs and diseases to hang out over the winter, ready to jump back into the game next season.

If you put bedding plants in and amongst your perennials, those dead plants should come out too. Trim down the the top growth on your perennials to within a few inches of the soil line. Four or five inches of old stems left in place over the winter can actually help hold an extra bit of snow, or keep mulch in place, protecting the crowns of the plants in the process. The stems can be cut back to the ground at the first sign of new growth in the spring.

It's a great time to till!

Fall is the perfect time to amend our garden soil by tilling or digging in leaves or aged manure.... whatever disease-free organic material you have handy. Working the amendments in now gives the soil time to break that material down over the winter. Your beds will be ready to rock 'n roll next spring. And if we have significant rain or snow in April and May, you won't have to wait (impatiently?) for the soil to dry out before you can start your garden. As long as your work doesn't compact the soil, (which you never, ever want to do), you'll be good to go.

Turning the soil after a few nights of freezing weather is also a great way to fight back against the bugs that want to over-winter in our gardens. Disrupting the bugs' winter sleep can be a very good thing.

Say "hi" to "La Nina."

The weather folks say we're setting up for a winter-long "La Nina" pattern. As much as you may hate shoveling snow, La Nina is not a gardener's friend. The sytem tends to mean drier conditions for much of the Front Range. Bottom line: don't skimp on some supplemental moisture now, while the ground is still open and able to soak up some extra water.

"Winter watering" you say?

You may have shut down your automatic sprinklers for the season, but don't put the garden hose too far away. In addition to giving your trees, shrubs and perennials a nice deep drink now, be ready to do some winter watering. Every month when we haven't had a good wet storm pass through, drag out the hose and the sprinkler of your choice. Water on a warm winter morning when the ground isn't likely to freeze before the water can soak in.

Be especially careful with plants on the south and west side of your yard. Dry windy weather, even when it's cold, can be very damaging..... damage that may not become obvious until next spring. Why risk it?

Don't neglect your lawn. If it's still green, and you haven't fertilized within the past six weeks, it's not too late. A deep core aeration first will be an added bonus. But no de-thatching! Not now. Not ever! De-thatching damages the crowns of the grass plants, and can create far more problems than it solves. Core aeration is the way to go.

T.L.C. for trees

Nothing in our landscape is more valuble, or more time-consuming and expensive to replace, than healthy trees. So why not invest in a little T.L.C. to protect them?

Young trees... especially newly-planted trees... can be hard-hit by
the challenges that winter brings. Five minutes of your time and a roll of tree wrap can make a huge difference.

Tagawa's carries tree wrap. Our expert staff will be happy to show you how easy it is to use. The wrap should go on around Thanksgiving, and stay in place until about Easter. Wrapping your trees can prevent sunscald, where the tender bark on the south and southwest sides of the trees freezes and splits. Sunscald can stunt, and over time even the precious trees that give our yards so much character. Don't let it happen!

Easy-does-it with the pruners.

Avoid too much heavy pruning this time of year. Broken, dead or dying branches, or plants that are in the way of clearing snow from walks and driveways, can certainly be pruned as needed. But major pruning to shape a tree or shrub should wait until late winter or early spring, if possible.

The general rule of thumb on roses is to remove long, lanky stems that might be in the way or be broken by the wind over the winter months. But otherwise, protect the base of the plants by mounding them with mulch, or using rose collars, once we've had a few nights of temperatures down into the low 20's. (Tagawa's has rose collars, too, of course....) Hold off until spring to cut back your roses. The green growth that survived the cold will tell you just how much to prune away.

Invest now for benefits next spring.

Attention to these few "to do's" during the coming months
is nothing less than a full-fledged investment in the health and well-being of your landscape next spring and summer. A little time and effort now = fewer headaches down the road.

Grow Your Own Garlic!

2010-09-30T16:41:00.006-06:00

So many people I know who love garlic never think of growing it themselves. What's up with that, when growing your own garlic is so easy?

Fortunately, now is the perfect time to plant garlic. Early-fall planting gives the cloves the four to six weeks of warm soil they need to get a head start on next year's harvest. And early October is Garlic Festival time at Tagawa's, so you'll have plenty of varieties to choose from, while supplies last. Not to mention lots of expert advice to get you goin'.

There are two main types of garlic you can choose from. "Softneck" garlic includes the strain available in most grocery stores, and plenty more! The cloves can be white or purplish white, and range in flavor from mild to very bold. Softnecks are used to make garlic braids, and have a storage life of up to six months.

"Hardneck" garlic doesn't store as long as softneck, but comes in a beautiful variety of whites, reds and purples, with wonderful names like Chesnok Red and Metechi. The hardnecks seem to do especially well in Colorado.

Your garlic bed should be located in full sun, in a well-drained location. Garlic plants need to stay moist, but never soggy. Garlic loves soil that's rich in organic matter, so dig in plenty of compost or well-aged manure before you plant.

Separate the garlic bulb into individual cloves just before you plant. Press each clove down into the loose soil about two to three inches, pointy side up. (Okay, so I planted all of my cloves upside-down one year. Silly me. All of the shoots found "up" just fine. Still, I wouldn't recommend it.)

The cloves should be spaced about four inches apart. Firm the soil gently over the clove and then water them in well.

Plan on mulching your garlic bed heavily. I've used straw, pine needles, shredded leaves.... and a combination of those things, because that's what I had on hand. As long as the mulch stays on the airy side, and doesn't pack down or smother the bed, you should be fine. That four- to six-inch layer of organic material will help keep the soil's temperature and moisture content more even, and hold weeds to a minimum. Garlic doesn't like to compete with other plants, especially weeds.

Don't be surprised if your garlic cloves send up perky little green shoots during the first month or two. Those tender-looking leaves have a remarkable ability to ignore the snow and cold, and will be just fine.

If we have a dry winter, as the weather folks are predicting, you may need to give your garlic bed some water once or twice a month when the soil isn't frozen. Come next March or thereabouts, the shoots will kick into high gear. Keep up the watering, so the plants never dry out. Again, the soil should be moist, but never soggy. As your plants begin actively growing, feed them with some high nitrogern fertilizer to give them a welcome boost. The staff at Tagawa's can recommend fetilizers that will help produce big, plump garlic bulbs.

If you're growing the hardneck varieties, the plants will send up a flower stalk. called a "scape." Removing the scape when it's about a foot tall will send more energy into the bulb. But I must admit, sometimes I let the scapes go. They twist and curl and make me smile. It's not the purist's way, but a smile is worth something. It's your choice to keep the scapes or take them off. No decision needed with softneck varieties, since they don't produce scapes.

Back off the watering and feeding around the end of May. The garlic is usually ready to harvest in late June into July. When you see the lower one-third of the leaves dry up, it's time! If you're slow to harvest, the bulbs will often shatter into individual cloves when you dig them up.

Lift the bulbs gently so you don't damage them. It doesn't work to pull on the leaves. The stalk will just break, and then you'll have to go searching for the bulb. Remove the clumps of soil around the garlic, and let the bulbs air dry in a breezy place away from direct sunlight. After a few weeks of "curing," you can cut away the roots and most of the stalk.

The garlic will store best in a mesh bag in a cool, well-ventilated area. Never keep the garlic in the refrigerator. You'll trick it into thinking it's been through a winter, and it will sprout.

Come see us at Tagawa's and let us inspire you to plant a garlic bed of your own. If you look at garlic as one of the basic food groups (dark chocolate being another....), you'll be very glad you did.

Winding Down the Harvest

2010-09-26T13:53:00.004-06:00

Whether we like it or not, it's time for a vegetable gardening reality check. In spite of our summer-like daytime temperatures here in late September (easily 10 degrees above normal), the days are getting shorter, the nights are getting cooler, and our plants know it. So let's take some steps to start winding down the harvest, and help our plants do their best in the home stretch.

Take a realistic look at your veggie plants. Focus on which individual vegetables stand a chance of growing big enough, quickly enough, to amount to something usable before our first frost. Lop off the small fry, unless they can be used as "baby" veggies. (More on that in a moment.) This way, the vegetables that have time to mature will get all of the plant's energy, rather than wasting water, nutrients and sunshine on individual veggies that will almost certainly be too little, too late.

Take squash, for example. The "summer" squashes.... zucchini, crookneck, patty pan.... the types of squash with a tender skin... can often be used as "babies." High-end restaurants charge extra for these, so there's no need to waste them, as long as the variety you're growing tastes good while it's small.

But with winter squash like acorn and hubbard, the tough-skinned types, the juvenile fruit aren't very flavorful or sweet. I cut them off and toss them into the compost pile....or in my case, let Vinny, the yellow Lab, proudly carry them around all afternoon like some kind of prize, then toss them into the compost pile. With winter squash, the mature, full-sized fruit can take a light frost. Some folks say a few colds nights actually improve their flavor. But you don't want to leave them out if a hard freeze is expected.

Same with potatoes. Leave them in the ground 'til a frost has killed back their leaves, then harvest. Or if baby potatoes fill the bill, go ahead and gently dig them out now. Rub off the soil and let them air dry a bit, so they last longer in storage.

What about other veggies that are fully or mostly underground, like beets, turnips and carrots? As long as they're not crowding eachother, and they're being watered properly, no need to worry. They'll be fine well into our colder temperatures.

Picking tomatoes is a judgment call. As we covered in my last blog, full-sized tomatoes will generally continue to ripen at room temperature. If it's green tomatoes you want for pickling, it's easy enough to leave the larger ones and can the smaller fruit. Either way, I wouldn't leave all of them on the plant. Remember that you may see their rate of ripening slow down significantly as our overnight temps drop below ~ 50 degrees. Maybe pick some, leave others, and see what works best for you.

Other sun-loving plants like eggplant and peppers can be harvested once they reach an acceptable size, although they may be far less "meaty" than the mature fruit. Once again, favoring the larger fruit and sacrificing the smaller ones may be your best bet. Ditto for cucumbers. Pick the small ones, and use them if they taste good. Melons don't seem to sweeten up
at all 'til they're close to their mature size, so the smaller ones may not be usable.

A lot of the leafy vegetables.... spinach, kale, Swiss chard... can easily handle some light frost. And most lettuce varieties can take a bit of cold. You might even get away with planting some of these from seed now. They all grow better in cooler, rather than hotter, daytime temperatures.

The cold-loving veggies like cabbages, brussel sprouts and broccoli.... as their name implies, they're fine with cold nights... even a not-so-hard freeze.

So in general, make your harvest the best it can be by doing some selective picking. Continue to water thoroughly, but don't over-water. Deep and infrequent watering is best for all but the most shallow-rooted crops.

As much as I hate letting go of the last of the tomato crop, I actually welcome the change of seasons. Everything... and most everyone... can do with a little break.

When should we pick tomatoes?

2010-09-05T14:37:00.005-06:00

September is one of the best times to be in Colorado. And one of the most confusing, if you're growing your own vegetables. Since tomatoes are far and away the single most popular veggie that we grow, let's take a look at when we should be picking them, and when should we leave them alone, to continue ripening on the vine.

It all comes down to our often fickle Colorado weather. According to the National Weather Service, the Denver area's average first frost-freeze is October 8th..... but an overnight freeze has been known to come as early as September 8th or as late as November 15th. All this means that as gardeners, we need to be light on our feet, keep our eyes on the forecast, and think strategically. We need to have a plan on how to get as many tomatoes as possible to ripen before Mother Nature shuts down our tomato season.

So for starters, when should we be picking our tomatoes? Some folks are convinced that only a 100% vine-ripened tomato, ready to eat the moment you pick it, qualifies for an A+ rating. I'm not one of those folks.
Birds and rabbits, (who knew rabbits ate tomatoes?), seem especially drawn to a shiney red tomato. So in a effort to out-smart the wildlife, I'm likely to pick a tomato when it is on its way to fully coloring up, but not necessarily there yet. I'll let it finish ripening at room temperature on the kitchen counter. I honestly don't notice any loss of flavor.

By the way, never refrigerate a lovely home-grown tomato unless you want to make it taste like a store-bought tomato. Refrigeration is just one reason grocery store tomatoes taste so flat.

If you don't have wildlife pilfering your tomato patch, ripening on the vine is fine. A fresh-picked tomato warm from the sun is truly one of life's little pleasures. But you should also keep in mind that the clock is ticking on what's left of our growing season.

By picking your tomatoes when they are well into "blushing," but not fully ripened, you're letting the plant concentrate more energy on the remaining tomatoes. With a little luck, you'll get more home-grown goodness in the long run.

Also keep in mind that as our overnight low temperatures begin to drop, 55 degrees and less, the ripening process is going to slow down. Removing tiny tomatoes that don't have a chance of reaching their mature size will help focus the plant's energy on the fruit that has more promise.

In my next blog, I'll offer some tips and tricks on harvesting some of the other veggies that may be growing in your garden. Hopefully, we're at least a few weeks away from making the "big sweep" of our vegetable gardens, picking everything that would be damaged by freezing temperatures. But this is Colorado, after all. I always picture Mother Nature grinning at gardeners here, just to see if we're paying attention.

Container Gardens and Instant Gratification

2010-05-24T08:54:00.006-06:00

Nothing but nothing dresses up a porch, patio or deck better than a big pot of flowers, spilling out in a beautiful jumble of color. A push towards smaller homes and simpler lifestyles has helped make container gardening the rage. Planting flowers in all sorts of pots and containers (almost anything with a drainage hole) is alll about instant gratification, and we at Tagawa's say "hooray" for that! We're here to help.

It's easier than you might think to plant your own containers and have pots
that look like they were done by a pro. All it takes is a few very basic design tips that will help guide you as you choose from the thousands of annuals that fill the benches at Tagawa's to over-flowing during the spring and summer months.

The design concept of "thrillers, fillers and spillers" is fun and easy to follow, and can help you envision your finished container even before you check out at Tagawa's. Here's how it works.

The "thriller" piece of the design puzzle refers to something dramatic for the center of your container garden.... a bold and up-right eye-catching plant to help "anchor" the whole arrangment. Thrillers are often the tallest plant in the pot, but a big, intensely-colored annual can work well, too.

Ornamental grasses make terrific thrillers. Tagawa's brings in dozens of different kinds of grasses every year that thrive in containers. Remember that the grasses may not be at their full-grown height when you plant them, but should grow quickly into their leading role.

"Fillers" come next. They're the plants you choose to surround the thriller... plants that will help give your container garden so much of its form and personality. Tried and true plants like geraniums can make great fillers. Or you may want to try something new, like "Diamond Frost" euphorbia. These airy plants have a non-stop show of tiny white flowers that fill the pot with small points of light. It's not the effect of each individual flower that gives Diamond Frost its well-earned reputation as a "must have." It's the appeal of so many tiny white flowers creating a kind of cloud effect that has won people over. For a pink-tinted effect, go with Diamond Frost's cousin, "Breathless Blush," and wait for the "oohs" and "ahs" that will follow.

The fillers can be two or three of the same plant, or a variety of plants. Just be sure you're selecting plants that will all "play well" together.... plants that share common needs for sun or shade. If you put plants with drastically different needs into the same pot, somebody's not going to be happy.

"Spillers," as you might have guessed, are the wonderful plants that we put against the ouside edge of the pot, so they can spill and tumble out. I'm inclined to think the spillers are often the most important players in a potted garden. They give a fluid sense of elegance... a healthy over-flow
that can make a container garden look lush and full. To me, plants without spillers look incomplete..... a bit as if an important guest missed the party.

The list of plants that make good spillers goes on and on. Cascading petunias are a classic form of a spiller. But there are hundreds of other choices that can make your pots look bold, impressive and professionally-done. Consider the "callies," the challibrachoas. They look like minature petunias, but come in wonderful shades of pink and purple.... red and salmon..... orange and yellow. The callies have a lot of devoted fans, and deserve every one of them.

If you're goal is a "mixed" planting.... a container with several different types of plants... besure to use a variety of foliage and flower shapes and textures. The results will have a lot more eye appeal. Don't forget to include plants with bi-colored or variegated leaves that are grown specifically for their foliage, and may not even have flowers during our short growing season. These variegated accents are another one of those "professional" touches that can make a big difference in the finished look of your container

And don't dismiss the beauty and simplicity of a big pot of a single type of plant.... maybe a few of the wonderful sun coleus varieties and nothing else. Coleus as a mass planting make a big statement.

A large tub of "Bubblegum" petunias can have a lot of punch, too. They're as pink as their name implies, and aside from regular watering, require little maintenance. Last summer, our neighborhood deer herd gave my Bubblegums a crew cut. A few days later, I couldn't tell they'd been munched. My kind o' plant!

The more plants you use in your container garden, the more frequently it's going to need to be watered over the summer. A nice, round number might be perhaps five to seven large plants (about a four-inch pot) in a 16" to 18" container, along with a few small fillers and spillers if you have the room.

Water your containers when the top few inches of soil dries out. Be sure to water thoroughly every time, until you see water begin to drain out at the bottom of the pot. Never leave a container garden (or any plant, other than bog plants) in standing water. The containers should always drain freely.

One last word to help make your containers a success. A lot of plants that are marked "full sun" on the label will struggle in full afternoon sun in Colorado, if they're also getting a lot of reflected heat off of a fence or wall. I think of Colorado sun as "sun-and-a-half." Reflected heat can be a challenge even when a plant is well-watered. If the plants' roots are baking, all the water in the world may not help.

Please bring your gardening wish-list to Tagawa's, and let us help guide you toward the best container gardens your decks and patios have ever had!

Good Bugs in the Greenhouse

2010-02-08T14:15:00.012-07:00

I was mid-way through a shower the other morning when I realized I wasn't alone. (Not to worry. This is a family-friendly blog. Please read on.)

My showering companion that day was one of the best friends a gardener can have. It was elegant.... a beautiful pale green, with veined wings and tiny bulging eyes that don't miss a trick. If you guessed "green lacewing," you're right.

Green lacewings are a welcome and common sight in environmentally-friendly Colorado gardens in warm weather. But where did this guest come from in the middle of winter? It took me a few minutes, then I figured it out. Kris, Tagawa's co-director of annuals, had issued a personal invitation. Here's how.

Kris is an organic gardener at home, and is always interested in finding new ways to grow and garden organically at Tagawa's, too. Last October, she began what I like to call "Tagawa's Great Lacewing Experiment." And so far, that experiment is a resounding success! The adult green lacewing sharing my shower the other morning was testimony to that success. It had apparently hitched a ride home with me on one of Tagawa's poinsettias.

Last fall, Kris turned loose about 5,000 live lacewing larva, the voracious bug-eating stage of the insect that emerges when the lacewing eggs hatch. Not long afterward, Kris brought in small cards about the size of a bookmark that were coated with lacewing eggs embedded in lacewing food. In the warmth and humidity of the Tagawa greenhouse, the eggs hatched out quickly. These new larvae didn't have to go far for their first meal since Kris had strategically placed the cards throughout the houseplant department where insect pests can be a challenge this time of year.

Once the larvae morph into adults, Kris supplements their diet with a special mixture of honey, bee pollen and brewer's yeast brushed onto cards suspended throughout the houseplant department. Lacewing larvae will eat 200 insect pests a week, which is why gardners love them. But the adult lacewings aren't eating machines like the larvae, so they thrive on the extra food that Kris gives them. It was one of these well-fed adults that came home with me.

But why does Tagawa's need insect control in the greenhouse? That's easy. Any "healthy" greenhouse, like any "healthy" landscape, will have its fair share of insects. The goal is not to have zero insects. The goal is to keep insects in check... or more specifically, to help Mother Nature keep them in check, to a point where damage is insignificant. And that's exactly what Kris' lacewings are doing.

She says the results were "immediate." Within days of introducing the lacewings, Kris says the number of mealy bugs, aphids, thrips and spidermites on the houseplants plumeted. Kris estimates that the level of "bad" bugs dropped by eighty percent without an ounce of chemical insecticide being used. In fact, with the green lacewings on duty, using potent insecticides in the greenhouse is prohibited. Some soaps and botanical oils can be used without harming the "good bugs."

This speaks to one of the big problems gardners create when they "spray for bugs." Strong chemical insecticides kill the damaging bugs and the beneficials. And since the "bad" bugs tend to reproduce more quickly and more prolifically than the "good" bugs, it's the bad bugs that get the upper hand. The gardeners, and Mother Nature's balance, have a hard time catching up.

Is Kris likely to increase her cast of beneficial characters as spring approaches? Indeed she is. She's looking at a wonderful little critter called a "mealy bug destroyer." Guess what they eat.

Inviting beneficial insects into the greenhouse is in keeping with Tagawa's commitment to sustainability, and to a leadership role in the green industry. Tagawa's was the first Veriflora Certified Sustainable garden center in the country. Sustainability and earth-friendly gardening practices are a priority for Tagawa's. We invite you to wander through our houseplant department and see if you can spot one of Kris' lacewing "launching pads" suspended over the plants. They're pretty interesting.

And what about the little green guest I found sharing my shower? I tucked it into a small plastic tub, gave it a tissue for something to hang onto during the ride, and released it in the middle of Tagawa's houseplant department. It took the elegant little bug all of half-a-second to take off and fly up into the greenery. Here's hoping its offspring will be chowing down on the pesky bugs any day now.

Sharing the Spirit of the Season

2009-11-23T18:30:00.009-07:00

One of the best things about the holiday season is taking time for caring and sharing and letting other people know how much they mean to us. This is at the heart what's become a holiday tradition for all of us at Tagawa's: the Trees for Troops program.

Trees for Troops supplies fresh-cut Christmas trees to members of the military and their families. For every $20 donation, Tagawa's and other members of Garden Centers of America donate the remaining cost of a full-sized Christmas tree. FedEx will deliver the trees for free--by land and by air--to more than fifty American military bases in the United States and overseas.

The National Christmas Tree Foundation, and its charitable wing, the Christmas Spirit Foundation, started the Trees for Troops program just four years ago. Since then, Trees for Troops has provided real Christmas trees to more than 50,000 men and women in uniform..... or in many cases, the families they've left behind while they were deployed. The Trees for Troops goal this year is to provide 15,000 beautiful, fragrant trees free-of-charge to brighten the holidays for people who give so much all year long.

Tagawa Gardens is the only garden center in Colorado participating in the Trees for Troops program, but we would also encourage your support for the only other Trees for Troops outlet in Colorado. It's at the Cherry Creek Calvary Temple Church at University and Alameda. We're happy to join them in Trees for Troops and our mutual goal of honoring members of the American military. Together, Tagawa's and Cherry Creek Calvary Temple can help Coloradoans extend a simple but heart-felt "thank you" to the men and women who help keep our country safe.

Donations for Trees for Troops will be collected through December 6th. The trees will be packed up and sent on their way December 7th... in plenty of time for Christmas.

Making a donation to Trees for Troops is one of many reasons to come to Tagawa's this time of year. A huge variety of more than 1,000 fresh Christmas trees has begun to fill our indoor tree lot. The fragrance alone is amazing!

We also have fresh wreaths and garlands to give your home an old-fashioned holiday touch. And we'd urge you to try creating your own "Porch Pot," using specially-harvested "spruce tops," and greenery such as Princess Pine and Incense Cedar. This mid-western tradition has made its way to Colorado. Tagawa's is proud to have Rob Proctor from 9News offering several classes in porch pots and other holiday decorations. Check our website http://www.tagawagardens.com/ for the schedule and details.

And we can't forget the poinsettias! An entire section of Tagawa's is filling up with the reds... the rich winter whites and soft pinks of this wonderful holiday plant. We'll be bringing in more than 4,000 poinsettias for you to choose from.... tall, small and in-between.

Don't miss sharing part of your "Spirit of the Season" with your friends at Tagawa's. Say "thanks" to someone serving in uniform. And know that we wish you and your family the best the holidays have to offer.

Help! My trees are turning brown!!

2009-09-20T19:42:00.009-06:00

I really should know better by now. As a Master Gardener, I was trained long ago that conifers (such as pine, spruce and fir...) drop some of their needles on a regular basis. The trees generally don't shed needles every year, as deciduous or leafy trees do. Depending on the species of tree, most conifers usually lose their interior needles every two to five years.

But YIKES! Even knowing all of that, I still did a double-take and caught my breath when I saw one of my thirty-foot Ponderosa pines seem to change overnight. The crew in Tagawa's Nursery Department is hearing the same thing: "Help! My trees are turning brown!"

Tagawa's staff is quick to let these tree-loving folks know that they probably don't need help, and neither do their trees. This type of needle-shed is normal, and most likely there's no reason to use any insecticides or other chemicals. Let's take a closer look.

Like deciduous trees that drop their leaves every fall, healthy conifers put on new growth each year. The tree grows up and out, with clusters of new needles at the tips of the branches. But the trees won't keep these new needles forever.

Take my Ponderosa pine, for example. The needles that have just turned brown are the oldest needles..... three years old, to be exact. That's how often Ponderosas shed. The dying needles are on the inside of the tree, closest to the trunk. These old needles are now shaded out by the newer growth, and quite simply, the tree doesn't need them anymore. So with alarming suddenness, they fade to the color of straw and dry up. The first time we have a strong windstorm, they'll blow off, and the tree will look lush and healthy again.

But the change really does seem to happen overnight, or close to it. And it can be understandably alarming.

So how do you know if your conifer trees are going through a normal fall shed, or have a genuine problem? Here are some things to look for:

*** Normal needle shed will always be on the inside of the tree. It will
discolor those interior needles fairly evenly throughout the tree as
a whole... not just in one part of the tree.

*** Unless the tree has been stressed by drought or other conditions that
could have damaged the roots, normal needle shed will usually occur
in late summer or early fall. Serious stress issues could prompt a tree
to shed its needles earlier. It's the tree's way of calling "uncle" for the
season.

*** If the tree is healthy, the new growth on the tips of the branches should be
supple, green and full, not brittle or discolored.

Trees that have been attacked by the dreaded mountain pine beetle have a different look. These doomed pines (pines only) will often show "pitch tubes" on the trunk.... white or pinkish popcorn-looking areas where the tree has tried to flush out the invading beetle.

Mountain pine beetles fly in late summer. Obvious signs that they've attacked a tree generally won't show up until the next year. I notice the dying trees most often in July, when the summer heat really kicks in and the tree's stored energy finally isn't enough. (It's genuinely amazing how long a sick or damaged tree can look "normal," just running on stored energy. )

A pine beetle attack will often give the entire tree an orangish or reddish cast as it fades and dies. There are ways to protect your most valued pines against this destructive insect. Talk to the folks in Tagawa's Nursery Department or Dick's Corner for details.

But don't mistake a normal late-summer needle shed on your conifers for an invasion of anything harmful. And by all means, don't automatically reach for the insecticide with the mistaken notion that you "just need to spray something." Odds are, you don't.

And remember that with all of our spring rain this year, conifers have put on a lot of new growth. That growth that will most likely have us doing a double-take and catching our breath when it's time for this year's needles to shed a few seasons down the road.

The Trouble with Tomatoes

2009-09-07T18:11:00.003-06:00

I knew my tomato crop wasn't doing too well. Out of my twenty-five plants (ya, I know.... about twenty too many....), some crashed by late July. Others kept on trying, but even more of them had given up the ghost by mid-August. But it wasn't until I taught a class for the Douglas County Master Gardeners that I realized how much everyone else seemed to be having problems, too.

I asked the group of fifty or so Master Gardeners how many of them were having a good tomato year. Not one hand went up. NOT ONE!! Now that's a bad tomato season. Let's take a look at what went wrong.

Problem #1: June. Yup, June. Pretty much the entire month of June worked against those of us with home-grown tomato obsessions. June was too wet and too cool for too long. My tomato plants, which were all in the ground before Memorial Day, pouted the entire month of June. Really. They just sat there. They didn't die, but they didn't grow.

Walls-o-Water would have helped protect the plants from the cool June temperatures, but I was lazy and didn't use them. Pre-warming the soil with Walls-o-Water before I planted would have helped, too. Tomatoes (and peppers and eggplant and potatoes....), don't like "cold feet." Warming the soil for several days with the Walls-o-Water is especially helpful in heavy, clay soil that tend to be slow to absorb the sun's warmth in spring.

Kris, Tagawa's Annuals Co-director, is a big fan of Walls-o-Water, and uses them in her foothills garden every spring. She tells me that as of late summer, she still has the Walls-o-Water on her plants. The plastic teepees have collapsed a bit, but her tomato plants are fine. Mine? Not so much.

The most common tomato concern customers are bringing to Tagawa's diagnostic staff at Dick's Corner is something we see every summer. "Blossom end rot" shows up every year, but it's going gangbusters this summer. It's related to our wet June weather, but didn't have to get out of hand the way it has.

Blossom end rot is characterized by a round, brown or beige leathery circle on the blossom end of the tomato.... the bottom of the fruit, opposite the stem. It's caused by a calcium deficiency just as the fruit is forming. Reaching for the fertilizer really isn't the answer. In fact, too much nitrogen can actually contribute to the problem. The best way to avoid blossom end rot is to keep the plant's roots more evenly moist.

We went from a cool, soggy June to a hot, dry July. Good drainage (well-amended soil and raised beds) would have helped with the soggy part of that equation. By the time July rolled around and the soil actually warmed up, mulching the base of the plants with something like straw would have retained more moisture. All of those techniques could have helped to avoid having the plants go from too wet to too dry. My tomatoes grow in raised beds, and I mulch with straw once the weather is reliably warm. And I try not to let the plants dry out. I didn't have a single case of blossom end rot. My tomatoes did have other issues, which I'll explain in a moment.

Blossom end rot isn't contagious. It won't spread from one plant to another. But much of the fruit that was forming at about the same time during the growing season could be effected. Watch for the first signs of blossom end rot while the tomatoes are small. Remove any fruit that shows the tell-tale symptoms, and let the plant's energy go instead toward making healtheir tomatoes.

Make sure you know how moist the soil around your tomato plants (and all plants, for that matter) really is. Poke your finger down a couple of inches, or use a water meter. Either way, when the top two to three inches of soil has dried out, water thoroughly, but don't over-water. Apply enough water to soak down to the bottom of the plant's rootball. And take it easy with the nitrogen, the first number on the fertilizer package. Nitrogen will promote lots of leafy growth. All that foliage could "steal" some of the calcium that the fruit needs more.

So what went wrong with my own plants, if they managed to escape the blossom end rot that's plaguing so many others? Why did the lower leaves turn yellow so quickly? Why did entire sections of certain plants just call it a day? Quite honestly, I think I set them up for failure. I planted earlier than I normally do, (and felt pretty proud of myself at the time....) I didn't pre-warm the soil. I didn't use Walls-o-Water or any other protection to help buffer the plants from cool temperatures that are always possible in June. And despite my best efforts over the years, including gardening in raised beds, clay soil is still clay soil. In short: I didn't anticipate potential problems from Mother Nature. Silly me.

Okay. Lesson learned. My 2010 tomato crop is already taking shape in my mind. Next year will be different!

Lovin' the Ladybugs

2009-07-13T08:45:00.006-06:00

Gardeners all along the front range are talking about this summer's friendly invasion of ladybugs. I started noticing them on my "volunteer" crop of sunflowers about a month ago. Their numbers have been climbing eversince, and I love to see it!

Whitney Cranshaw, one of the top bug gurus at Colorado State University, says we have our wet spring to thank. All the rain triggered a lot of lush, green growth on our plants. There's nothing aphids love more than tender, succulent leaves and buds. And there's nothing ladybugs love more than aphids. It's all part of the balance that Mother Nature tries to provide when we humans don't get in the way with lots of chemicals, that take out both good bugs and bad.

Quite rightly, children are taught to love and protect ladybugs, also known as "lady beetles." They delight in finding the bright round ladybugs on plants, and recite short poems urging them to "fly away home" to their own children. Maybe it has something to do with the polka dots. Many of the more than seventy varieties of lady beetles in Colorado come with two or more distinct black polka dots on their shiney red body. Polka dots just seem a friendly sort of decoration.

But while we jump to the defense of adult lady beetles, a lot of gardeners would take one look at a ladybug pupa or larva and reach for the insecticide. The early stages of ladybugs look nothing like the charming adults.

Ladybug larva, especially, often look like the voracious predators that they are: very tiny lizard-like creatures with bowed legs and little spiney projections up and down their back. Think of the larva of any insect as its "teenaged" stage. You just can't fill 'em up, which in this case is good. In addition to chowing down on aphids, the different types of lady beetles in Colorado (both larva and adults) thrive on eating mealey bugs, insect eggs, spider mites and scale.

It's well worth getting to know a gardening ally like this in all of its stages and "outfits." Link to the CSU fact sheet on lady beetles and get to know the appearance and habits of these wonderful little insects. http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/insect/05594.html Get the kids involved, too. They're never too young to learn the notion of balance in the natural world.

As long as the aphid population along the Front Range stays high, the number of ladybugs dining on them is likely to do the same. But when the food source starts to decline, the ladybugs will fly off in search of a new banquet. In the meantime, we should take delight and satisfaction in knowing that there's an army of aphid-eating insects right in our own back yard, and do everything we can to make them feel welcome. Hopefully, they'll take the hint, and come back next year.

Planting for "The Girls"

2009-07-06T11:02:00.003-06:00

You should know from the start that I'm not the least bit objective about honey bees. I think they're simply amazing little creatures. A lot of us who are beekeepers refer to honey bees as "the girls," since all of the bees we see visiting flowers and buzzing about are females.

You may have heard that "the girls" are having a tough time of it these days. A puzzling and deadly syndrome called "colony collapse" has been taking a huge toll on honey bee colonies in Colorado and just about everywhere that bees are kept. Entire hives that seem to be healthy and thriving one day disappear the next. The bees just vanish. Scientists are working hard to find out what prompts the bees to leave home. While the researchers work to solve the mystery, there is something we can do as gardeners to help. We can plant with "the girls" in mind.

Tagawa's is ready to help throughout the gardening season with just the right plants that will give the honey bees the pollen and nectar sources they need. Bee-friendly plants make up a long list. There are choices that should suit any gardener's preferences, not to mention "the girls" tastes, too!

If you want to think big, make a long-term investment in your landscape, and treat "the girls" to some first-rate sources of pollen and nectar, think "fruit." Apple trees, crabapples, plums, cherries, grapes, strawberries and berry bushes of all kinds are high on the honey bees' hit parade. The staff in Tagawa's Nursery Department can help you make just the right choice.

Flowering vines and shrubs that contribute to a buzzing bee garden include honeysuckle, trumpet vines, Virginia creeper, lilacs, rabbit brush and Apache plume and silverlace vine. I've promised "the girls" I'll be planting some pussy willows just for them. Pussy willows bloom early in the spring and are an absolute magnet for the honey bees as they welcome the return of warmer weather.

I already have more than a dozen Russian sage bushes getting ready to bloom. Their mid-summer display of soft purple-blue spikes is worth waiting for, and the honey bees just can't seem to get enough of the plants' nectar. I can actually taste a hint of sage in the honey produced from the millions of flights the bees make to the Russian sage each summer.

"The girls" are enthusiastic about many other plants in the sage and Various forms of thyme are a special favorite. During a visit to a friend's garden recently, her thyme was in full bloom with its minute pink flowers. The little plants had so many bees crawling about, they looked like they were moving. Great stuff!

Several kinds of lavender, and just about everything in the mint family, will keep the honey bees happy, too. Just remember that mint is routinely an aggressive plant, and will take over if you let it. The staff at Tagawa's can offer suggestions on how to keep the mints in check.

Agastache and penstemons should be a part of every Colorado garden, and will definitely be a treat for "the girls" in your neighborhood.

The list of bee-friendly plants goes on and on: bee balm (no surprise there), daisies, foxglove, goldenrod, daffodils, tulips, cosmos, sunflowers, asters, gallardia, and poppies. The old-fashioned strains, with pollen and nectar the way Mother Nature made them, seem to be the biggest draw. I do occasionally see the bees visiting my big, flashy (but heavily hybridized) petunias, but the flowers don't seem to be on their "A" list.

Having a bee-friendly yard also includes minimal or no use of potent insecticides. Tagawa's takes pride in being the only certified sustainable garden center in the country. Our staff will gladly advise you on how to keep your landscape healthy.... and be good to "the girls" at the same time.

A Passion for Growing Vegetables

2009-04-05T14:18:00.004-06:00

We're seeing it at Tagawa Gardens, just as the National Gardening Association is seeing it nationwide: people are increasingly passionate about growing their own vegetables. It's more than a "craze." It's a phenomenon. At Tagawa's more than 800 people over just two weekends attended our free classes on edible gardening.

The recession is definitely a factor, but it's not the driving force. According to a recent study by the National Gardening Association, 54 percent of gardeners surveyed said saving money on food bills is their main reason for growing vegetables. But even more of those surveyed, 58 percent, said they simply want better-tasting food. A non-scientific survey among people attending a beginning vegetable gardening that I taught recently showed the same results.

In all, forty-three million households nationwide indicate they'll be growing some of their own vegetables, fruits, berries and herbs this year. Forty-three million!! We assume that number includes the First Family. The White House will have its first vegetable garden since the Victory Garden days of the Roosevelt administration.

And what's the "top crop?" Tomatoes, of course. Eighty-six percent of these veggie gardeners say tomatoes are their #1 priority. As you might expect, Tagawa's is well aware of the importance of a red, ripe tomato to our gardening customers. Our tomato varieties are increasing by the week. By early May, we'll have more than eighty different types of tomatoes for sale..... something to fit every taste and gardening preference.

Other crops as they rank in the national survey: cucumbers, sweet peppers, beans, carrots, summer squash, onions, hot peppers, lettuce and peas. All of these crops can thrive in a Colorado vegetable garden. Tagawa's carries plants or seeds.... and in many cases both... to help each of these crops get up and growing.

And don't forget the fruit! We're coming up on the perfect time of year to invest in your own edible landscape. How about an apple tree? Growing up, I took apples for granted. My little Swedish grandmother had her own orchard in Boulder. What I wouldn't give for some of those apples now! She also had a huge patch of raspberries and blackberries. I can still smell the jam cooking....

You can start planning and planting for your own memories of sweet lucious fruit with a walk through Tagawa's nursery department. Fruit trees and berry bushes are just waiting to take root in your back yard.... just as the whole notion of "growing your own" seems to be taking root in the hearts of the passionate gardeners we're seeing at Tagawa's.

Blueberries in Colorado?

2009-03-13T19:08:00.002-06:00

People who want to grow blueberries in Colorado really want to grow blueberries in Colorado. Just ask Nancy, the supervisor of Tagawa's Tree and Shrub Department and a certified arborist.

Colorado gardens are generally not seen as a blueberry-friendly place. Our soil here is simply too alkaline to accommodate these acid-loving plants. But there may be a way around that.

Nancy tells me that she and her nursery staff are especially excited about some information out of Colorado State University. CSU's been experimenting with growing blueberries in large pots that have been sunken into the ground up to the pot's rim. The results are looking good!

The soil used in the pots is one of several specially-formulated mixes that keeps the blueberry plants' roots isolated from the native (less-than hospitable) soil. With the CSU guidelines in mind, Tagawa's nursery staff is gearing up to help Colorado gardeners follow their passion for growing blueberries.

Tagawa's will be carrying five different varieties of blueberries this spring. We'll have handouts with the soil "recipe" that seems to work best for the "blueberries in a pot." We'll also have other growing tips to help blueberry fans succeed.... tips like wrapping the plants in burlap to help protect them over the winter.

Bumper crops from these pot-grown plants probably aren't in the cards. But based on the initial results out of CSU, a decent harvest of home-grown Colorado blueberries may not be such a long shot.

And there's more! The nursery crew at Tagawa's will be offering other potted-fruit possibilities this year. Even early in the season, the plants look great growing back in our greenhouses.

Picture semi-dwarf fruit trees in large, fat pots.... pots big enough to accommodate a healthy root system. And around the pots: other small edibles and flowers. Jack of our nursery staff is growing a four-in-one apple tree (four varieties grafted onto one trunk,) and around the base, he's planted radishes, red cabbage, royal purple bush beans, ruby lettuce and rainbow Swiss chard. Another large pot is home to a semi-dwarf four-in-one pear tree with basil, poppies, petunias and chives.

Nancy says any small trees or shrubs grown in containers should be approached as an adventure, not a long-term sure thing. Growing shrubs and small trees in pots rather than directly in the ground will almost certainly mean a shorter-lived plant.

But the results can still be beautiful, with sweet fragrant blossoms early in the season, and bragging rights as spring turns into summer.

The Wonder of Seeds

2009-02-08T15:49:00.003-07:00

Gardening is an act of faith, especially as spring approaches and we start to think about the remarkable potential packed inside a seed. No other aspect of home gardening can start out on such a small scale and lead to such big results in just a matter of weeks.

Even in the middle of a mild-mannered winter such as this one along Colorado's front range, my inner-gardener can't walk by the seed racks at Tagawa's without stopping to admire the promise that all those seed packets hold. "Big Beef" tomatoes, so red and ripe you can almost feel the summer sun. "Scarlet Emperor" beans, the Scarlet Runner beans of my youth. They were the one bit of gardening my father did faithfully..... tucking the beautiful black and purple beans along the side of our breezeway for some welcome summer shade. And the countless flowers and vegetables offered by Botanical Interests out of Broomfield. The illustrations on the seed packets themselves are works of art, literally.

Vegetable gardening is making a huge comeback. Perhaps the increasing popularity of growing your own food comes from a need to be more in charge of what we eat, and where and how it's grown. Or maybe it's even more basic... wanting to carve out a place away from cell phones and traffic jams, where the pace is set by the seeds and the soil and the sun.

The folks here at Tagawa's are eager to help you indulge a back-to-the-garden movement of your own. March brings lots of free classes on how to start flowers and vegetables from seed.... and how to help nurture those plants as the growing season unfolds. We have the supplies and advice to put your gardening passion to work.

If that passion could use a little nurturing of its own, and it's been a while since you thought about the wonder of seeds, try this: Pick up a packet of seeds. Almost any kind of bean seeds will work especially well. Take a few of those seeds, roll them up in a wet paper towel, tuck them away in an unsealed plastic bag and leave them in a warm spot to incubate for a few days.

If they're kept moist, but not too wet, you can watch the seeds swell and split and send out fledgling roots, ready to go to work, just as they would in warm soil in spring. The difference is the seeds ususally perform this wonder way from our prying eyes.

With a renewed appreciation of the wonder of seeds, all that's left to do will be to plant the rest of those beans in the ground once the soil warms up. You might be surprised how much simple pleasure comes from nurturing plants and harvesting a crop that was no more than a few seeds as winter was drawing to an end.

Kids and Plants

2008-10-20T11:30:00.005-06:00

Kids and plants are a magical combination. It's one of the favorite "lessons" that I've taken away from my first months as Garden Outreach Ambassador at Tagawa's.

It's not a new lesson, really. It's just that it keeps reinforcing itself. Over the past five months here at Tagawa's, I've had the fun (and adventure!) of working with kids of all ages, sitting them down in front of trays of plants, having them pick the plant of their choice, and then walking them through the steps of "potting up" a flower or houseplant that's going to be their's to take home and care for.

Mentally, the kids might be a thousand miles away when we start. But their focus seems to shift in a heartbeat when I tell them, "This is going to be your plant. It's up to you to be gentle with it.... to move it to a bigger pot with new potting soil... to tuck it in just so.... and then to take it home and give it the care it needs. "

"Grandma MiMi" is Tagawa's grandmother-in-residence and a wonder with both kids and plants. She and I have worked with hundreds of kids over the past several months. Neither one of us ever tires of watching the kids' eyes light up when they actually coax a plant out of its old pot and look at the way the roots weave and twist through the soil. It's obvious that a lot of these kids... maybe most of them... have never seen or smelled healthy plant roots and the rich, earthy world below the soil line.

We encourage them to "tickle" the roots.... to open them up with gentle tugs so the rootball can start expanding into its newer, bigger "home." Maybe the sweetest thing of all for Grandma Mimi and me as teachers is how quiet most of the kids get. As they tickle open the cool soil, they take a kind of ownership. This is their plant. They chose it because they liked the way the leaves or flowers looked. And now they've seen up close the part that's always hidden away, working "below ground" to make the above-ground parts look good.

Introducing kids to plants is such a simple thing, really. No high-tech equipment needed. No long words or fancy names. But with a little luck, that brief, magical moment when the kids go quiet will stay in their memory long after they've taken their plants home to show them off. It certainly stays in mine.