Garden Share Bristol

I'm a bit behind the curve in writing about garden trends for 2013.  Probably because I'm not a trendy kinda person.  I'm more about quality classics; things worth investing in that I can enjoy for the long haul. So I just have two words for you today regarding "trends" because I think this idea is a culmination of current gardening passions, low-stress lifestyles, and low-water realities: edible natives.

Forget about boiled aspen bark and cattail roots. I'm talking about easily accessible berries, nuts, and foliage that you can toss in with your breakfast cereal or dinner salad, cook up into a sweet pie or jam, or decoct into a refreshing beverage. These are plants that are available at better nurseries / garden centers along Colorado's Front Range and are already being used in gardens and landscapes of all sizes.  My list focuses on woody plants — those that form the structure of the garden and are your greatest investment.

Nuts
Gambel oak, Quercus gambelii (nuts ground into a flour or meal)
Pinyon pine, Pinus edulis

Berries, best sweetened and cooked
Boulder raspberry, Rubus deliciosus
Golden currant, Ribes aureum

Chokecherry, Prunus virginiana

Sand cherry, Prunus bessei

'Pawnee Buttes' dwarf form of Prunus besseyi

Buffaloberry, Shepherdia argentea

Berries, sweetened for a lemonade-like beverage
Three-leaf sumac, Rhus triloba

Smooth sumac, Rhus glabra

Berries, fresh or dried
Serviceberry, Amelanchier utahensis is the native variety, A. canadensis is available commercially

Are there more choices? You bet. Native grape (Vitus riparia) hawthorns, thimbleberry and elderberry, not to mention all the perennials and herbs (often considered weeds) like horehound (Marrubium vulgare), mint, and chicory. These plants aren't as readily available for purchase, but might be fun to plan a foraging trip around.

Designing a landscape with edible natives means understanding the growing conditions necessary to keep the plants healthy, and combining them in ways to best show off their growth habits, foliage textures and  colors.
Have you been growing edible native plants in your yard?  I'd love to hear about it!

little bluestem, Schizachyrium scoparum

dwarf rabbitbrush, Chrysothamnus nauseosus nauseosus

One of my favorite shrubs is in full bloom right now.  It says "fall is here!" to me like no other plant.  I profiled rabbitbrush, also known as chamisa, here a few years ago.  I'm heading out soon for a road trip through Wyoming and Montana, and I hope to see plenty of this cheery fellow along the way.

Last Saturday was cool and cloudy, a perfect day to visit Tribble Stone.  Located at the base of the foothills between Boulder and Lyons, Tribble is a great resource for Colorado flagstone (sandstone). They carry both the rose and buff colors, and do custom cutting right on the site.

cut stone in the foreground, "random"  (as in shapes) in the back

Here's a flagstone slab right out of the quarry.  It's about 10" thick and will be split into 3 or 4 pieces by chiseling along the edge and exploiting a natural fault line.

Jim, for scale! Note the natural cracks/faults in the slabs

Or it might go straight to the cutter.  This is a pneumatic chop blade. Awesome!  This is how dimensional stone is cut; 2'x2', 3' x 2' 18" x 18" or whatever you need, it's made to order.

8" thick slab ready to be cut.  Any guesses why this equipment is buried?

Left over bits and bobs? Not great for structural building, but beautiful as a textural element when applied as a veneer to buildings, columns, fireplaces, 

Odd sizes await the creative builder.

or...pots!

Their chokecherries were in fine form, too!

native chokecherry, Prunus virginiana

Note: This article was not endorsed or compensated in any way by Tribble Stone.