DENVER — The Denver Botanic Gardens will hold its Fall Plant and Bulb Sale this Friday and Saturday by timed reservation, even after a shipping error kept most of the important bulbs from arriving.
“Fall’s cooler temperatures are a fantastic time to get back into the garden after the heat of summer and get ready for all the things to come up in the spring,” Mike Bone, Associate Director of Horticulture at the gardens, said. Bone said a major bulb delivery bound for the sale from the Netherlands was returned to its shipper and will not make it to Denver in time.
Organizers said the shortage of bulbs won’t leave Denver gardeners empty-handed. The sale will still offer thousands of plants, including herbaceous perennials, woody shrubs, hardy succulents, and an expanded selection of unusual lilacs through a partnership with the American Lilac Society. Bone also said all garlic shipments have arrived and will be available, and garlic remains one of the most popular bulbs to plant in the fall.
Fall is an ideal time for planting certain plants because cooler soil temperatures don’t inhibit root growth even as top growth dies back, according to Bone.
“That root growth is happening and they're establishing underneath the soil all throughout the fall and into the winter, so that in spring they're ready to go,” he said. “We've also got some cool season annuals, things like pansies and poppies, that add a splash of fall color and keep providing food and resources for pollinators late into the season.”
Bone offered some practical tips for home gardeners: consider a fall application of fertilizer for garden beds and lawns, clean up warm-season annual crops to make room for winter plantings, and try winter-hardy vegetables such as collard greens. He also recommended green manures, which are dug into the soil to decompose and return nutrients like nitrogen.
“You can do things like clovers or radishes as short season, green manure crops,” he said. “As you till those under, those nitrogen fixing nodules release nitrogen back into the soil and become available to the plants that you’re growing in future seasons.”
For bulb planting, he suggested an auger attachment on a drill to bore consistent holes. You can find that bulb auger attachment at a typical garden store.
The garden’s horticulturists and volunteers will be on hand during the sale to help visitors choose plants suited to Colorado’s conditions and gardeners’ specific areas of concern.
“We’d love to help people be successful in their gardens,” Bone said. “When they’re successful, they want to continue, and it becomes infectious. Then, their neighbors get excited… Pretty soon, we have this amazing flower-filled city.”
The Fall Plant & Bulb Sale runs at the Denver Botanic Gardens this Friday and Saturday, September 26 and 27, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Timed reservations are required for entry and can be obtained for free online.
