What Thrives Here
A not-so-secret society
We walked into the pub and followed signs to the back room. People crowded the room, intensely discussing, pointing, reading signs, taking pictures of the signs, writing on little envelopes, and reaching for jars with handwritten labels.
What brought all these people together was a widely diverse bounty; a bounty of seeds.
This was the Denver Native Seed Swap and Giveaway hosted by Wild Ones Front Range, an organization devoted to not only educate about the native plants of Colorado (and across the US), but they hold these seed and plant swaps to give Colorado’s native plants another jump in the evolution of seed dispersal — handing them out for free to all who are interested.
(The seed swap was co-sponsored by People & Pollinator Action Network (PPAN), Denver Audubon, and The Table Public House.)
A ‘Native’ Plant can be defined as: “a plant that has evolved in a given place over a period of time sufficient to develop complex and essential relationships with the physical environment and other organisms in a given ecological community.”
- Doug Tallamy and Rick Darke, The Living Landscape, July 2014
In other words, it’s a product of thousands of years of interacting with its soil and climate, insects, critters, and other plants. A million microscopic changes had to happen to bring it to where it thrives today, and it will continue to adapt into the future. A native plant plays a role within the whole in the taking in of what it needs from its environment, and a giving back out of what it has to those that can use its provision. Whether that be other plants, root systems, insects feeding on nectar and pollinating, or larger animals feeding and grazing on its fruits and leaves. It has also formed ways of self-preservation from thorns, to complex roots, to chemicals, to strive to create the next generation. Native plants tend to have deeper roots and need significantly less water than other introduced plants.
In researching plants that will thrive in our crumbling granite soil at 8700 feet elevation with our mixture of elk meadow, wetlands, and Ponderosa Pine forest, we went to the seed swap with a list of a few specific plants to look for, and then we found some lovely surprises. We made off like bandits.
In the years of exploring our property and local hiking trails, we would note plants we hadn’t seen on our property and learn more about them. We wanted plants with lovely flowers, berries for birds and other critters, and ones that were able to thrive at our elevation and endure our winter, and times of drought.
Here’s just a few that we found:
True Mountain Mahogany, shrub (Cercocarpus montanus) - A hard wood shrub that its seeds develop curly-q feathery tails that shine silver in the sun. They flutter off in the wind, and, via their Fibonacci spiral tails, will land on the ground. With the help of varied moisture, those feathery tails will stretch and contract to corkscrew that seed into the soil, giving it a boost in its start on life. Elk and deer eat this shrub, but it can handle it. It earned its nickname, Hardtack, due to its resilience to browsing wildlife.
Service Berry, shrub (Amelanchier alnifolia) - We had this at our last house in the Vail Valley, and it was beautiful in its flowers, fall colors, and all the animals, including all the neighborhood dogs loved the berries. It’s a hardy shrub, that’s aptly named. Note - we actually didn’t get seeds for Service Berry, but had purchased shrubs from a Native Plant nursery. I didn’t want to skip this important native plant, though.
Blue Grama, grass (Bouteloua gracilis) - The state grass of Colorado. A meadow and prairie grass with deep and wide roots, up to 18 inches down and 6 feet wide. Its expansive root system allows it to survive drought, extreme cold, and being grazed on by elk, deer, sheep and cattle. Deep roots also anchor the soil, preventing the type of devastation seen in the Dust Bowl Era.
Prairie Smoke, wild flower (Geum triflorum) - Another hardy meadow and prairie plant that produces seed heads with long, hairy strands giving it many nicknames such as Old Man’s Whiskers, or Lion’s Mane. Prairie smoke’s pink flowers are a favorite of the bees and critical to Bumblebee populations. There is a mutual relationship between the Queen Bumblebees first brood of Spring, and the Bumbles being one of the stronger insects that can access the nectar in the flower, they are the main pollinators of this plant. Indigenous peoples had many uses for this it also, from medicinal to teas, and even mixing with tobacco for smoking.
Dotted Blazing Star, wild flower (Liatris punctata) - Another deep-rooted, highly foraged plant for meadows to forests. Its taproot, extending up to 5 feet, is both drought and fire tolerant. Abundant purple flowers, busy with pollinators, this is a plant used by the US Forest Service to re-vegetate prairies and even reclaim mining spoiled areas.
There are so many. Visits to the websites and the social media for the Front Range Wild Ones and also the Colorado Native Plant Society, are great resources for finding your own treasures that will thrive on your property - whether you live in the Colorado Foothills, or anywhere in the US.
Now, a trip to any nursery in the Spring is a lot of eye candy of plants that you would love to see around your home. Many are not native and, therefore, not the best to have in the ground as they might not survive well, be chowed on by the deer and other foragers, and need extensive care and water to make it through the summer. However, if you love these plants, how about placing them in hanging or deck pots to keep them out of range of foragers and in easier access to your attending to them? It’s a great way to still enjoy them, and keep them safe.
Some plants, though, you want to steer clear of. The opposite of a Native Plant would be an Invasive or Noxious Plant:
A noxious weed is an alien plant that has been designated by rule of law as being noxious. … designated as such because they are invasive and cause environmental and/or economic damage to such a degree that control measures are needed.
- Native Plant Master Field Training Manual, Colorado State University Extension
One of the most noted is the Myrtle Spurge (Euphorbia myrsinites), native to South Eastern Europe and Western Asia, but illegal to plant in Colorado, due to its destructive nature here. It is a highly toxic, caustic, ‘escaped ornamental’ that has invaded areas, causing harm to wildlife such as skin irritation, blindness, and burning fur and skin on the legs. As it takes over grazing areas, it reduces food sources and habitats. Truly, this plant does not belong here.
Learning about what you are planting, and where, will be critical to the health of the plant and the surrounding landscape.
With native plants will come a great host of pollinators, butterflies and bumblebees, birds to feast on the berries, and hummingbirds after the nectar. With the pollinators, will come the crucial caterpillars, a topic for a future post. May your winter research on native plants lead to your property exploding with thriving plants and flowers when summer returns!
Many thanks to the folks at Front Range Wild Ones for their advice, fact checking, and hosting the Seed Swap!
Thanks also to my family editors -
My daughter, Nan, who is currently earning her Native Plant Master certification, for checking my plants and facts, and for access to her big pile of botany books.
My son, Dalton, Creative Writing minor at CU Boulder, and my grammar editor.
📷 All photos are credit: The Abert Essays unless otherwise noted.
📱 Join me on my Facebook page, Substack Notes, and my new BlueSky page. I post smaller ‘Encounters’ posts there as I see flowers, animals, weather patterns, and anything else that catches my eye.
Sources:
- https://frontrange.wildones.org/
- Flora of Colorado, Jennifer Ackerfield, second edition, Brit Press, 2022
- Botany in a Day, The patterns method of plant identification, Thomas J Elpel, edition 6.2, Hops Press, 2021
- Native Plant Master, Field Training Manual, Colorado State University Extension
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouteloua_gracilis
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelanchier_alnifolia
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cercocarpus_montanus
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liatris_punctata
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geum_triflorum
- https://coloradoplants.jeffco.us/plantAbout
- https://cnhp.colostate.edu/projects/ecological-systems-of-colorado/