Welcome.

I graduated from Warren Mott High (CS Mott at the time).

My recommendations for heirloom tomatoes, aside from the varieties listed on other forums, is to mulch heavily and protect from the wind. Two years ago, we had ~50kt winds for over two hours overnight and awoke to a denuded garden. Your challenges will be these, and providing nutrients to protect from blossom end rot. Otherwise, welcome to the beauty of Colo.

Dan

Hi Scholl,

Welcome to Colorado  and RMG! I just found something that might help you with your garden center search! Plant Select, a Colorado organization led by Denver Botanic Gardens and CSU promotes different plants each year that do well in the Rocky Mountain region, and I just discovered that they have a list of the garden centers that sell the Plant Select plants. Any of the garden centers that sell (and most of them also grow) the Plant Select plants is probably a pretty good garden center, and would certainly be worth checking out.

I see thereÂs one listed in Loveland, and there are four more in Ft. Collins, so you should be able to find a place you like out of those. HereÂs a link to the site! I think the list will come up alphabetically by city, but if it comes up by name, just switch it to the city listing. You can go to their individual sites to find out more about them by clicking on the links.

If you get down to Boulder, IÂve never been there, but IÂve heard good things about Harlequin GardensÂalso on the list.

And if you come all the way down to Denver, I HIGHLY recommend Timberline Gardens on the far west side of Arvada, just north of I70. Kelly has the largest variety of perennials in the Metro area, and in addition to Plant Select, is also the only garden center in Denver that carries many of the plants High Country Gardens sells in their catalog.

And PaulinoÂs is good too (just off I25 at the 58th Avenue exit, exit 215) and grows and sells Plant Select, but doesnÂt carry High Country Gardens stuff. PaulinoÂs has probably the second best selection of perennials in the Denver area.

I hope that helps some, and come ask us your questions as you come up with them. ThereÂs always somebody around here with some good adviceÂand even moral support, when thatÂs the only thing thatÂs gonna help! ;-)

Glad you found us here at RMG,
Skybird

P.S. Bonnie, if you see this! I just noticed thereÂs a garden center in El Jebel! I had no idea! Did/do you already know about it? Since they grow and sell Plant Select, itÂs probably a fairly decent place. IÂm really curious, so if you go there, tell me about it!!!

Hi Sky! Yeah, I've seen it, but it's 45 minutes away, and close enough to Aspen for the prices to be inflated. I'm pretty pleased with Alpine Garden Center here. The owner will usually order things for me if she doesn't have it in stock. She just went to Denver to pick up seed germinating mix (Fafard) for her own use, and picked up an extra bag for me. Sure can't get that kind of service at any of the big box stores!

Thanks for thinking of me though : )

Bonnie

Aspen prices in El Jebel??? Egad! The El Jebel I remember was a wide spot in the road with a few buildings and a good view of Mt. Sopris! Guess things have changed! The last time I was in Aspen a few years ago I was so disappointed that IÂll never go back again! It was wall-to-wall cars and trucks (summer) and there were stop lites all over the placeÂand PUBLIC BUSES out to Carbondale or somewhere! I donÂt understand why anybody wants to go there anymore! I prefer the Aspen of the 60's and 70's with just a couple stop signs in the whole town, and hippies in the park (with their dogs roaming free) playing flutes and guitars! It was definitely a kinder and gentler time!

Anyway, IÂm glad you have a "personal service" garden center out there! I didnÂt remember your mentioning it before. Is it actually in Silt or down the road in Rifle? Sounds like youÂre getting service you canÂt beat anywhere! And there I was feeling sorry for you!!! ;-)

Skybird

Well, it has a Silt address, but it's in the county, on the south side of I-70. It's way off the highway though, among farms and gas wells. Not a place you would run across accidently. Her focus is mainly annuals, and perennials, not a big selection of herbs and veggies, which is fine with me, since most of those I grow from seeds anyway. A lot of the perennials that I put in the first year we moved here came from there. Oh, and the Agastache 'Apache Sunset' was one of the things she special ordered for me.

Bonnie

I'm up in Casper, WY, but once in a while I get to make the trek down to go to the nurseries. I second Skybird's rec for Timberline (if you aren't familiar with High Country Gardens yet, do google them; they specialize in plants for this area); and a little closer to home, Ft. Collins Nursery and Gulley Greenhouse in Ft. Collins. I hear sometimes on a fine spring weekend, they have to get the police to control the traffic outside Gulley it gets so heavy.

Welcome to the West.

I'd strongly recommend having your soil tested by the CSU lab before getting started. It costs around $20 and takes a couple of weeks. Well worth it, as the analysis will tell you exactly what you need to do to get your soil ready.

In my backyard in Boulder, we have clay loam and sandy clay loam, ph 7.8; high in potassium and calcium, low in nitrogen, moderate phosphorus. Pretty typical for around here. I double-dug the garden, worked in acidified cotton bolls and some high-N, high P organic fertilizer (mostly bone and blood meal, with kelp; I'll make my own mix next time - much cheaper). The tomatoes LOVED it. I ended up having to add some liquid P and K late in the summer, but in all the tomatoes did very well, except for not setting much fruit in July when the weather was too hot.

Black Cherry and Bloody Butcher both did great. There's also a couple of recent threads on tomato varieties people are planting around here. This year I'm putting in those two plus Cuor di Bue, Cherokee Purple, Opalka and perhaps one or two others. If you stop by the spring swap, there should be plenty of tomatoes that you can't easily get at local nurseries.

ps Harlequin here in Boulder is very good, especially for roses and organic fertilizers.

Ian

ps - don't put your tomatoes out too early. We get very late frosts here, and the cold nights means that not much growth happens in the first couple of weeks of the planting season.

Here is a link that might be useful: CSU Soil Lab

Welcome Scholl,
I just had to chime in when I saw you were from Michigan. And Dan, I see you too are from Michigan. Well hello fellow Michiganders. I moved to Colorado from Rochester.
I wanted to reccommend the plants from The Flower Bin in Longmont.
XOXO,
JillyBilly
Go Green! Go White!
oh and Go Redwings!

Red Wings are starting to look very powerful, watched them the other night. I wouldn't bet against them repeating...

I second what Ian B said. And wrt tomatoes too early - Wall O' Water. Invest in them. And before you begin, I recommend that you come down to Denver Botanic Garden, and before you walk around, pick up the Plant Select brochures inside then walk. We have quite a few PS varieties in the yard and are quite pleased with them.

Dan

Welcome to RMG, scholl. We've got plenty of tomato threads around here to see what we're all growing.

Welcome too to JillyBilly.

I'm gonna go sob in my Av towel now. :)