Heirloom Houseplants: What to Propagate for Generations

By Molly Gaines, CSU Extension – Denver Master Gardener since 2019

Begonia in the Cozens family since the late 1800s. Photo: Molly Gaines

On a recent visit to the Cozens Ranch Museum in Fraser, a red and green-leafed begonia in a windowsill, flooded with afternoon sunlight, caught my eye. I walked over for a closer look, and a sign next to the plant shared its special history. It was propagated from an angel wing begonia plant that had been in the Cozens’ family since the late 1800s! 

In the late 1990s, when my husband and I were moving into our first home, my husband’s grandma gave us a cutting from her pothos plant. We’ve had that plant now for 25 years, and we’ve propagated countless other plants from its cuttings for our home and as gifts for friends and family. While arguably more pedestrian than an angel wing begonia, it’s special to us since it came from someone we dearly love.

Generational Plant Ideas

Are you interested in nurturing a special heirloom plant, one that tells a story and can be passed down through your family for generations? If so, below are a few good options. For a detailed list of plants that are easy to propagate, along with propagation methods for various house plants, read this wonderful article from Iowa State Extension. Of course, videos are a terrific way to learn various propagation methods, and you’ll find an abundance of them through a quick YouTube search.

Pothos

Because it is so simple to grow and easy to propagate, pothos is an excellent heirloom plant choice, according to the University of Wisconsin-Madison Extension. It can survive in a variety of environments, making it a good option for young adults who are likely to move from place to place. It does like filtered light, rather than direct, and well-aerated soil. Through the years, I’ve propagated too many to count. And my own kids have beautiful plants from these cuttings that they can someday place in their homes. Our pothos will always make us think about my husband’s special grandmother, Neva.

Pothos cutting waiting to sprout. Photo: Molly Gaines

Spider Plant or Airplane Plant

Like pothos, spider plant is great for beginners and thrives in indirect sunlight with water as needed, according to the individual plant’s dryness. According to CSU Extension, spider plants have the added benefit of cleansing a home of toxic gases. They quickly outgrow their pots, requiring frequent dividing and repotting. These plants live an average of 20 years. 

Christmas Cactus

While you may not be ready to think about Christmas cactus in February, keep this plant in mind next December. It can be a festive heirloom that makes the holiday season feel even more special. Christmas cactus can live to be more than 100 years old! 

According to the University of Minnesota Extension, these plants do require considerable attention for optimal blooms and growth. They are “short-day plants,” which means they produce flower buds as daylight decreases in the winter months. Christmas cactus like cool nighttime temperatures. 

Pothos, the plant that keeps on giving. Photo: Molly Gaines

Jade Plants

Similar to Christmas cactus, jade plants can live for a long time, 50-100 years. These plants are simple to propagate, making them ideal for gifting or passing down to others. Easy to grow, jade prefers full to partial sun, a south-facing window, and at least four hours of direct sunlight daily. That said, I’ve had a fairly healthy jade plant for a decade that is rootbound, only receives indirect sunlight, and sits in a north-facing window. Jade should be planted in a succulent potting mix and watered only when soil is dry, according to Penn State Extension. 

Root-bound jade plant that would be healthier in more direct light. Photo: Molly Gaines

I’ve offered a few ideas here for plants to pass along, but there are many more. As someone who loves plants, I like the thought of some of my special plants finding a home with my grandkids yet-to-be. Just as we pass down special jewelry, dishes and other items, houseplants can serve as special reminders of memories and people we hold close to our hearts. They are a way for us to remember the generations of family who came before us. Do you already have a special plant in your home that you could propagate for future generations?

As always, we’re grateful to you for reading our blog. CSU is available with gardening advice at the CSU Extension Yard and Garden website.

How to Select and Pamper Your Houseplants this Winter

By Lori Williams, CSU Extension – Denver Master Gardener since 2016

Orchid in full bloom at Denver Botanic Gardens. Photo: Lori Williams

Houseplants are so lovely and offer a nice spot of green during the Colorado winter. Almost everyone, and certainly gardeners, can find them an enjoyable extension of outdoor gardening. Be it herbs in a kitchen window, plants brought in from summer’s patio to overwinter, or the many varieties that prefer an all-year indoor existence, research shows several health benefits of houseplants, including:

• Improve employee focus and reduced sick days in the workplace.
• Reduce fatigue and boost indoor air quality.
• Lift spirits – pops of color from seasonal plants such as amaryllis or orchids can help beat the winter blues.

As with all plants, houseplants subscribe to the maxim: Right plant, right place. Many who are convinced they have a brown thumb can work through the following simple steps, find their right plant within their (right) place and achieve success. It’s not magic, complicated, or mysterious. Promise.

TIPS FOR HOUSEPLANT SUCCESS

Proper lighting is most important. Evaluate your space and select plants that will work. Find tips for evaluating light quality here.

Most houseplants like household temps that most people like, basically around 70℉.

Some plants need more humidity than typically found indoors, so grouping those together on pebble lined trays and adding water to below the top of pebbles increases the relative humidity.

Watering is unique to each plant: Overwatering kills as many plants as under watering.  Plant tags and a quick google search can explain your plant’s preference. Grouping plants with similar watering needs together helps water accordingly. An inexpensive houseplant water meter is a handy tool, too.

Monitor consistently for pest and/or disease (and while shopping for them, too).  Look under leaves for yellowing or leaf loss. Discovering new growth can happen here, too!

Fertilize seasonally, usually during active growing months from April through September.

SELECTING HOUSEPLANTS

If you are new to houseplants, find help selecting the best ones for your lighting and skill level. This webinar is absolutely wonderful for explaining the science behind happy houseplants and selecting the right plant for your place.  

Once you’ve got a handle on the light in your space, it’s on to the fun part: Make a wish list of suitable plants and go strolling through your favorite local garden center. Enjoy the immersion in the elevated oxygen of the greenhouse, ask their staff questions, and peruse the gorgeousness you will find. 

Aesthetically, it’s fun to mix up plant structures – tall and reedy, soft and velvety, draping growth habitat, foliage colors. Are you wanting something that blooms? Violets, bromeliads, or cyclamens might be the ticket. Or is self-sufficiency key? Sansevieria, pothos, schefflera or succulents are rewarding lower maintenance options.

Another tip is to inspect plants before you buy by checking under the leaves and at the soil line. Sometimes creepy crawlies sneak their way in to even the most professional greenhouses!  

Boston fern, schefflera, and sansevieria on spa day. Photo: Lori Williams

WINTER TLC

Regardless of the time of year, all houseplants need a little TLC. During winter months, with non-melting snow, dreary skies and almost freezing temps projected for days – houseplant pampering can perk up plants and us – their peeps! Here’s how I do it:

• Gather the basics: Gloves, clippers, potting mix, a small fork or chopstick, fertilizer, watering can, and a bowl of water to keep any clippings hydrated for propagation.
• Collect plants in the shower or tub and gently spray or splash off the mid-winter dust.  It’s a nice humidity boost for them, too.
• Soak soil thoroughly and let the container drain. Clip, pluck or pinch off dead, diseased, or discolored matter. If the foliage is looking a bit limp or weak you can fertilize lightly with half strength of your favorite brand.
• Inspect plants for disease and pests. If any are present, you’ll find remedies here.
• This is a good time to select plant parts for propagating and prune to reshape foliage. Check out good tips here.
• Gently disturb the top 1” of container’s soil and apply a top dressing of potting mix. Depending on your plant’s preferred growing conditions, this can also be a good time to repot root bound varieties.
• Return the plant to its home. Every few weeks, rotate the plant so it receives even light on all sides.
• Dispose of diseased matter rather than composting it to avoid spreading the disease further. Compost temps need to reach at least 150℉ to kill pathogens which is a struggle for home compost bins to reach during winter months.

TLC for Asparagus fern – though fluffy looking, it is surprisingly thorny. Use gloves! Photo: Lori Williams

Houseplants offer a verdant element to our homes and workplaces. They are as varied and interesting as the people who share them!

Colorado Garden Calendar – December 2022

Photo: Jodi Torpey

By Linda McDonnell, CSU Extension – Denver Master Gardener since 2013

Gardening slows down in December but doesn’t stop completely. There’s still time to finish some chores from our November list, so be sure to revisit it. For the next few months, prioritize winter watering during dry spells to ensure healthy plants next year.

December’s also a great time to enjoy indoor plants, appreciate nature’s seasonal beauty, and start thinking about next year’s garden.

Here’s a run-down of tasks and activities for December.

Trees, Shrubs, and Perennials

• Winter watering is essential to long-term plant health – make it a point to water during four-week dry stretches. To ensure proper absorption, water early in the day when temperatures are above forty degrees. This post offers excellent advice on when, why, and how much to water – and photos of the impact of too little moisture.
• To help with moisture retention, replenish mulch in areas that have gotten thin.
• Shake snow from bent tree limbs and branches to avoid breakage and lightly prune any broken limbs to avoid further damage.

Compost

• Continue adding green and brown materials to your compost bin. Since decomposition is slower in cold temperatures, break your materials into smaller pieces to speed up the process. The University of New Hampshire offers more winter composting tips here.

Thanksgiving cactus approaching its fourth decade & going strong. Photo: Linda McDonnell

Houseplants

• Winter is the dormant season for non-blooming indoor plants. Reduce watering, stop fertilizing, and keep them away from drafts for the next few months.
• Increase humidity around your plants. Ignore popular advice to mist with a spray bottle – to make an impact you’d need to mist for hours on end! Instead, group plants together on a pebble-lined tray and add water to just below the top of the pebbles.
• Check regularly for pests such as mealy bugs and spider mites. If present, treat and quarantine the infected plant. Find remedies here.
• ‘Tis the season for holiday plants and live Christmas trees. Here are some helpful links to keep them at their best: Keeping the Ho Ho Ho in Holiday Plants, Tips for Caring for Your Christmas Tree, A Year in the Life of an Amaryllis, and Christmas Cactus Care.

Celebrate, Inspire, and Explore

• The winter solstice arrives on December 21^st. In the Northern Hemisphere, it marks the day when the sun is at its lowest height at noon as well as the shortest day of the year. Starting the next day, we’ll gain about two minutes of daylight daily till June 21^st. Yippee!
• Share your enthusiasm for gardening with a child – find a few activities here or wander the library aisles to find an inspiring book on plants or nature.
• Check out 2023 seed introductions from your favorite growers. It’s time to start scheming and dreaming about next year’s garden.

As always, CSU is available to help with gardening advice at the CSU Extension Yard and Garden website. We hope you’ll visit often.

We’ll be back in two weeks with our last post of the year. Until then, enjoy all the season brings.

Outside to Inside – Hardening Off Houseplants

By Lori Williams, CSU Extension-Denver Master Gardener since 2016

Bringing houseplants in from gardens is all about timing. Reverse planning from outside to inside starts with your area’s average first frost date. Denver’s average FFD is roughly September 15^th! Colorado summers can have a long wind down or be very abrupt, either way the goal is to avoid shocking houseplants or worse, letting them suffer damage or freeze due to temps they can’t withstand. It’s best if plants have time to “harden off”, meaning they adapt from warm days to the interior temp of your home, with less cold night exposure.

A wonderful friend and esteemed gardener I know diligently lines up houseplants for thorough garden hose spray downs for 2-3 weeks, horticultural oil applied the next week, all with time allowed for sitting and drying or airing out. Then and only then are plants welcomed back inside the house. 

I respect the time management, scheduling expertise, and TLC regimen and strive for such skills and discipline! However, down to my toes I know I am amazingly less organized and reactionary in my garden.  Last night’s a great example: windows wide open I woke to grab a quilt at 3am, the fresh air was so (deliciously) chilly! This morning my first thought: get the houseplants ready to come inside before it’s too cold at night. Waa laa – the planning committee just hit town!

I use the following steps, completed in a production line, that can usually be completed in a couple of hours. This year, with 17 houseplants outside, in a range of sizes, I got them processed in about 2 hours, including time when plants were soaking or draining. Big plants can need 2 people to move, but overall, it’s a manageable job solo.

Here’s how to get your plants looking sharp and bug-free:

1. Watch weather forecasts for predicted temps and storms then pick a day when you have time and go for it.
2. Group plants in shaded warm area, shooing away Daddy Longlegs as you go. Pick a spot where you can get them saturated and they can also drain.  If they haven’t seen direct sun all summer, now is not the time to let them boldly sit in it as leaves easily scorch. 

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  Houseplants ready for their turn at soaking /debugging. Photo by Lori Williams

3. Quick-clean plants of dried leaves and debris.  With a hose spray plants and pots from every angle to knock off dirt, dust, cobwebs, debris, buggy-spidey-like things that hang on foliage. Up-spray undersides of leaves.  Delicate plants? Adjust hose pressure or use a spray bottle.
4. Run enough water in a kiddy pool, garbage can, or bathtub to submerge containers; a tarp, drop cloth and towels can also be useful.  Add a small amount of soap to water (detergents or degreasers can damage or kill sensitive plants), I like Dr Bronner’s castile soap.  You can use diluted insecticidal soap for this step, too.
   

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  Ficus tree enjoying the end of season clean up. Photo by Lori Williams

5. Fully submerge each container (for tall pots set in water, splash water in pot until water sits on top of soil). Soak 10-15 minutes until no more bubbles come up from soil.  Now the soil’s completely hydrated and in turn should drown little buggy organisms (instant in-pot composting, right?). Gently wash all non-submerged leaves, stems and branches with soapy water while the pot soaks by splashing water over the plant. It’s also an easy time to wipe down container’s sides, rim and bottom so it’s house-clean.

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  Shade cloth cones in handy if, say, midstream on soaking time, the sun comes out & the shade recesses while you’re blogging. Photo by Lori Williams

6. After thoroughly soaked, remove container and let it drain. Gently spray plant & container with hose until soap-free.  Pleas no direct sun during this step, either, as water sitting on leaves magnifies the sun’s impact. While plants are still outside, rough up top 1-2” of soil and add fresh potting soil. My favorite tool for this is a cocktail fork.  It’s tiny enough to not damage roots, sturdy enough to get the job done. Plants that are root-bound can be up-potted at this time.

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  After the last spray down these plants are almost ready to go back inside for fall & winter. Photo by Lori Williams

After completing the steps, protect your plants and effort. Mud rooms, covered porches, and garages are made for this. From there plants can be moved out during warm daytime temps and back in overnight for a couple days – truly ‘hardening’ them ‘off’.  

Additional resources:

Sunburned House Plants

Bringing House Plants Inside

Putting the Garden to Bed: End-of-Season Advice

Gardening Predictions for 2021

There may have been one bright spot among the gloom of 2020: The pandemic turned out to be great for horticulture. Experts estimate the industry gained 16-20 million new gardeners during the pandemic.

They’re predicting 85% of those gardeners will continue this year.

If that prediction holds true, experienced gardeners will be competing with new gardeners for seeds, plants, potting soil, mulch, tools, accessories and anything else that helps with planting and growing.

Last year seed catalogs, online retailers and garden shops couldn’t keep up with the overwhelming spring demand. More than a few had to shut down their online systems so they could catch up with orders.

Even though companies say they’re better prepared this year, gardeners should plan ahead and order their favorite varieties yesterday.

Backyard, front yard, patio and balcony food growing will continue to engage new and newer gardeners. Those who had some success last season will be anxious to expand their gardens; those who wished they would’ve started last season will get growing this year. They’ll be on the lookout for heirlooms and all kinds of organic options.

Some plants will sell out sooner than others because of special marketing and promotional programs. That’s especially true for the National Garden Bureau’s Plants of the Year for 2021.

Every year the national organization selects and promotes its Crops of the Year plants. The selections are popular, easy-to-grow, widely adaptable, genetically diverse, and versatile, according to the NGB.

The 2021 Plants of the Year include:

Annual: Sunflowers
Perennial: Monardas
Bulb crop: Hyacinths
Edible: Garden beans
Shrub: Hardy hibiscus

Plant Select has three new introductions for this year that include Drew’s Folly Hardy Snapdragon (Antirrhinum sempervirens), Hokubetsi (Helichrysum trilineatum) and Blanca Peak Rocky Mountain Beardtongue. The Plant Select website features a list of retailers that offer Plant Select plants so you can call ahead to check on availability.

Smaller garden varieties are part of All-America Selections winning plants this year. Goldilocks squash and Pot-a-peno peppers are meant for small-space gardens. The AAS’s Gold Medal winner is Profusion Red Yellow bicolor zinnia that’s sure to be in demand.

The Perennial Plant Association selected Calamintha nepta (calamint) as its Perennial Plant of the Year for 2021. A nice rock garden and border plant, tiny white flowers bloom on a bushy low mounding plant that attracts pollinators to the garden.

Houseplants will continue to be in demand to fill home offices and windowsills that have turned into miniature greenhouses. New offerings include plants that drape over pot edges and tiny plants for tiny places.

Pantone’s colors of the year will show up in plants, flower colors, pottery and other garden accessories. Look for combinations of Illuminating Yellow and Ultimate Gray at big box stores, garden centers, the plant sections at grocery stores and wherever else gardening supplies are sold.

New gardeners will continue searching for resources, help and advice. CSU Extension master gardeners will need to be extra-creative when it comes to cultivating community from a distance, encouraging new gardeners to reach out for reliable information and finding ways to reduce the fear of failure for beginning gardeners.

If you have any gardening predictions for 2021, look into your crystal ball and add your forecast here.

By Jodi Torpey
CSU Extension master gardener since 2005
Image provided by Pixabay

Poinsettia Challenge – Steps for Reblooming

It’s January and the holidays are behind us, but if you can’t bring yourself to toss your poinsettia plant, why not try to coax it into reblooming next December? It takes basic indoor plant care skills, perseverance and some properly timed steps to insure flowering.  Here are season-by-season instructions for success.

Winter: Protect the plant from cold and drafts, with daytime temperatures of 67-70 degrees, nighttime temperatures of 60-62 degrees. To maintain healthy foliage, fertilize monthly following balanced houseplant fertilizer directions, water when the soil is dry below the surface but not soggy.  Avoid “wet feet” by draining excess water from the plant saucer.

Watch for mealy bugs (cottony puffs), which can be easily removed with a cotton swab dipped in rubbing alcohol.

Spring: By late March or early April the plant will look tired – it’ll most likely have dried, yellowed or fallen leaves. You’ll be tempted to put the plant out of its misery at this point!Instead, remove the bracts and part of the stem, ideally leaving 3-4 leaves on each stem. This pruning can be done anytime through mid-July.

Late spring/early summer: Repot the plant in a pot that is one size larger (approximately 1-2” inch larger in diameter). Use a quality, well-drained potting mixture, fortified with 1 tablespoon super phosphate (0-46-0) per gallon of soil mix. Slow-release fertilizer applied to the soil surface is also beneficial if the soil mix does not already include fertilizer.

Summer: When outdoor temperatures are consistently above 60 degrees, the plant can live outdoors in a shaded area such as a porch.

It will be putting on a lot of growth during this time and should be pruned about every six weeks to promote side branching and good form. Stop pruning in late August.

Late Summer: If the plant has been outdoors, you’ll want to bring it in around Labor Day or when nighttime temperatures drop below 55 degrees. Place it in a sunny or bright location with temperatures of 65-75 degrees. Continue monthly fertilizing.

Fall: Poinsettias require 8-10 weeks of shortened days to stimulate flowering. Starting the first week of October, put the plant in complete darkness for about 15 hours a day -ideally 5pm-8am.

It can be covered with a big box, put in a closet or sequestered in a room with no light at all.  Longer, completely dark nights and bright, shorter days are the key to successful reblooming. This step is non-negotiable.

Around Thanksgiving, colored bracts should appear. This is the sign to stop the dark treatment, continue fertilizing to promote blooms and keep in a warm, bright spot in your home and enjoy your holiday plant!

I have a big, beautiful poinsettia, have set my calendar reminders and am ready to give this a try.  How bout you?

Additional reading:

https://extension.colostate.edu/topic-areas/yard-garden/poinsettias-7-412/

https://extension.unh.edu/resource/poinsettias-care-and-reflowering-fact-sheet

Photo: Pixabay.com

Drawings: Colorado State University

Written by Linda McDonnell, a Denver County Master Gardener

A Denverite Visits New Orleans in July, Leaves in Awe That Anything Grows in Colorado, Like, Ever.

Image by McKenna Hynes

I recently returned from a little summer vaca in the South. New Orleans in July (a questionably timed vacation, albeit) is showy and fragrant; the ferns suckle lovingly to any crack and crevice providing green brush-strokes and blots everywhere, palms fill beds and pots alike, all of my houseplants are thriving in the wide open, the sun is scorching, and as our pilot reminded us as we prepared to de-plane, its humid enough to confuse a frog. I was constantly amazed at how effortlessly everything seemed to grow.

While in New Orleans, I was frequently amused by how the rest of the country (mis)understands Colorado living conditions. For the most part, folks think we spend most of the year dreaming of gardens as we stare out our frosty windows waiting for the snow to melt, visiting floral places abroad, and wearing multiple layers of socks at all times. Soooo… basically gardening at 10,000+ feet? While these perceptions are laughable, I started thinking that even though we don’t live in perpetual wintry wonder, the challenges we face to make anything grow aren’t necessarily less surmountable than our fam in the lofty-actual-mountains.

We were welcomed back to Denver with a remarkable storm featuring lightning, torrential rains, booming thunder… and hail. Of course, the very next day was smokin’ hot with nary a whisper of the siege.  Maintaining a vibrant garden in the Front Range is an extreme sport with our baffling daily fluctuations; the entire notion of keeping anything alive here seems impossible at times, but we’ve gotten pretty good at strategizing. Here are a few resources I’ve tracked down this year to help us all maintain beauty, build our skills, and be stewards to our land and community.

Image by McKenna Hynes

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Resource Central is a nonprofit organization based in Boulder that helps communities conserve resources and build sustainability efforts simply and cost-effectively. Their water-saving initiatives include native plant sales with simple designs for home gardens and often include low water perennials. They also have a tool library in Boulder where you can borrow for a couple of bucks per day so you don’t just buy the tamper, hedge trimmer, turf roller, or post hole diggers you need so infrequently. 

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The cities of Boulder, Lafayette, and Louisville partnered with Resource Central to give customers a Garden In A Box for turf-removal. Their Grass to Garden initiative is available to all communities with tips and resources to convert high water-consuming turf to low water garden areas. For the North Metro area, they have resources for assistance removing and disposing of turf, landscape architect recommendations, and more.

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Denver Water coined one of our most successful water-wise strategies with xeriscaping. And to keep sharing the good water word, Denver Water also partnered with local landscape architects to provide us mere civilians with some FREE! FREE! FREE! creativity. For those of us who are new (it’s me) who struggle with vision (all me), and are easily overwhelmed by the thought of starting fresh with a blank canvas (still, totally, all me), they’ve curated a bunch of plans for a variety of situations. They have plans for sloped xeriscaping, budget-friendly xeriscaping, narrow bed xeriscaping, year-round beauty designs, and many more. July is also Smart Irrigation Month! Head to Denver Water for tips on maintaining irrigation systems, watering rules, and efficiency strategies.

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And for the grand finale top-notch gardening game-changer, check out Plant Select for all your future dreaming. Plant Select is a nonprofit partnership between Colorado State University, Denver Botanic Gardens, and professional horticulturists to identify smart plant choices for the Rocky Mountian Region. Their mobile-friendly site has a tool to help you find plants that will suit the conditions you’re facing. I tend to challenge the tool to see how obscure or specific I can get, and it always provides me with something unique and gorgeous. Plant Select: taking “right plant right place” to an accessible and fun platform. Say So Long! to the multiple Google tabs researching the same plant with contradicting information on each site; Goodbye! Big Box Store swindlers promising “You REALLY can’t kill this one!” and go get yourself some good, wholesome, ACCURATE information quickly and easily from Plant Select. They also feature some garden designs and ideas.

Image source

By McKenna Hynes

Apprentice Colorado Master Gardener since January 2019

Apprenticeship and the Know-Nothings

An emotional dichotomy of actual knowledge vs. expectation.

Image by monica_vatalaro via McKenna Hynes

Hello friends. My name is McKenna, and I’m a plant murderer. There. I said it. Got it out of the way. It’s the sentiment that creeps on me whenever I find myself in the company of OG MG’s. I often feel fraudulent, or like I won’t ever have enough information, or that I’m simply wrong. Vulnerability can be quite uncomfortable, can’t it? So, in this maiden post, before I can publicly embrace my love for gardening, and how I’m still pretty bad at it–I’ve just got to get this one out of the way. Mastery is a misnomer, I’m here to learn and connect, and grow–ideas, feelings, and hopefully some plants.

I am a 2019 Apprentice Colorado Master Gardener and have been patiently awaiting the new growing season (I think we’ve finally made it, right?) by stewing in my own self-doubt and wild ideas. What about moss instead of lawn? Why do my houseplants always struggle–let’s be real, 50/50 shot of survival–after I transplant? I’ve wanted to be a Master Gardener for ten years, and when I finally acquired a flexible schedule, I dove right in and devoured the curriculum. When classes were over, I took pause and thought I don’t feel any smarter. Or better. In fact, I feel like I know less now because now I know the breadth of how impossibly huge the knowledge base for this light, relaxing, and joyful “hobby” can be. Merely dabbling in entomology, ornithology, edaphology, biology, and botany. No worries. No things to be worried about here. Just taking on some of the most vast and complicated sciences for fun on the weekends sometimes. Gulp. Cue the continued fraudulent feels.

Image via McKenna Hynes

I acquired my first hours as an apprentice CMG at the Colorado Cactus and Succulent Society’s annual plant show in April. I knew no one and wasn’t a member, but somehow got word of the show and volunteered anyway. The show is magnificent; put it on your calendar for 2020. There was a cactus that was over 20 ft tall, cacti over 25 years in the making, blooms in every shade of wow, and some of the finest ceramicists slinging their genius with complimentary repotting. Ten minutes before the doors opened for the mob to pillage the room, I hear a man in a brightly colored, southwestern-ish shirt and a funky Australian-looking cowboy hat start shouting that he needed a volunteer. I don’t recall his name, but he was one of the vendors who raised and planted gorgeous succulent baskets. He needed assistance in applying the price tags to several flats of plants. While quickly pricing the items, he abruptly asked me if I was a biologist. I nearly guffawed at the thought and said no, but I am an Apprentice Master Gardener. He had no idea what that was and asked what I like about plants. I blurted that I liked knowing about them and learning how to care for them, and I experiment somewhat unsuccessfully. He stopped, made deliberate eye contact with me, and stated with the seriousness of Stalin, that “plants have been thriving for millions of years without us. If there’s something wrong with your plants, it’s your fault.” I was a bit dumbfounded… then embarrassed… then conceded. He’s totally right. What a relief! Somehow, I still find this comforting, and use it to further propel my desire for more discourse. It’s that just keep swimming idea.  

I work full-time so, out of necessity, I needed to find alternative ways to get some hours. I connected with this blog and decided to put my insecurities and self-doubt aside to start posting. I’m going to write about my own path to the garden, Colorado, water-wise gardening, creativity in design and functionality, mindfulness and plant identification, and lawn removal! I flooded my own inbox with ideas and links and resources and then stared into the chaos without blinking for several minutes wondering how a person gets started.

And then, I procrastinated. I sat down to write and couldn’t. Ah yes, again, hello incertitude. All of a sudden, the struggle to get anything down was perpetually defeated by my own insecurity that I have no expertise, I don’t know anything, I have nothing to offer, and I can’t write. And I’m probably a terrible human being. Hold. Up. Take pause, woman! This isn’t real, and it certainly isn’t true. A quick rabbit hole visit to explore Imposter Syndrome, and I’m back in the saddle. Blog post or not, here it comes….

The title [Apprentice] Master Gardener holds a lot of expectation, maybe for ourselves, but also for our community. A shift at a farmers market will show you that folks see our sign and make a beeline to talk plants–or honeybees without stingers in Costa Rica; or relatives who work for the Extension Office in another state; or to ask the world’s most complicated diagnostic question, to which you have no idea where to even begin except to breathe and look about furtively for another CMG for backup. But we are also volunteers, and many of us are quite new to the field; armed with eagerness, child-like wonder, and a passion to share what we’ve learned. I’m always amazed when a fellow CMG comrade can pull the most perfect answer out of their hat that is informative, accurate, and easily digestible. So grateful to be in this with folks like you.

Hello, my name is McKenna. I’ve killed a lot of plants. I’ve also learned a lot about them. I’ve shared bold ideas, and resources, and connected with new friends with the information I’m learning. Did you know there is a magical woman in Denver who has a hydroponic garden on top of a building downtown where she is growing oodles of greens to be used in her restaurant? (As far as I’m concerned, she is a mythical creature that I’m trying to track down. PM me with serious leads only, please.) I’ll be posting on this blog here and there to supplement my own education, to investigate some of my wild ideas, and to encourage others to talk to one another and connect and share. That initial writer’s block was plain and simple fear. But I’m finding just noticing it and calling it what it is, helps me realize my goal as a(n) [A]CMG is not at all to be an expert or to provide expertise. I’m here to explore and share what I’ve found. Happy Monday, folks. Let’s do some learning.

By McKenna Hynes

Apprentice Colorado Master Gardener since January 2019