What are good shrubs and flowers to plant in colorado springs, co?

we just moved in to a house, renting, and we are going to do some 're landscaping' . we plan on being here for 2 yrs, give or take, and i want my house to look nice. the people before us just left the place go, and the bushes are over grown, trees are growing everywhere, and there is grass in the 'gravel' stones. any help would be appreciated.

What are good shrubs and flowers to plant in colorado springs, co?
The Colorado State University has an excellent website that has all kinds of information specifically for your area. You can also visit your local (not big box store) garden centers for advice. Just be sure to buy from them if they are helpful.





Visit our website for more gardening ideas at-


http://www.gardening-at-the-crossroads.c...





Good Luck and Happy Gardening from Cathy and Neal!
Reply:2 years isn't a lot of time for fixing up a yard. Here's what I would do - get a book from the library on pruning, and trim those overgrown shrubs. Don't prune the trees yourself unless you are sure what you are doing - and a lot of hired people want to "top" them, which is dreadful. (they just cut the ends of the branches back and the tree grows weird). When I move into a place, there are usually branches too low to the ground that need trimming up, and you can take out any crossed branches, choose the better one to keep.





Annual flowers are a quick way to brighten up a yard. Like marigolds, petunias, that type of thing. Pansies are a good earlier flower (can handle frost, but they slow down in hot weather) Container gardening is easy, if there is no flower bed there already. Usually for winter interest, you would want a few evergreens or some dogwood, but they will take more than 2 years to grow, and you are just renters. What you can do is grow a couple pots of petunias (or impatiens if shady) in the front yard and then in winter get some evergreen sprigs to put in there for some color. Hanging baskets are really nice, too!





Some people have a problem with using chemicals, but I do not (I do minimize it though) so I would use Roundup or a similar chemical to kill the grass in the stones, and maybe push the stones over and put landscape fabric under there, if it is not too big a project. There may be soil in with the stones too, you don't want that. The trees, if you can pull them do so, otherwise, kill them with the roundup, then once they are dead, prune them to the base. You don't want suckers coming up.





The library is a great source of gardening books, and there will many local ones for your area.





Hope some of this helped!
Reply:Pat, that's Colorado Springs, not Palm Springs. ;D Bougainvillea would be a good container plant, though . I'm not familiar with that sort of situation, so can't help you specifically. Look for books/articles by Lauren Springer , and also from the Denver Botanic Garden, or by anyone from there . Also, look around your area, for ideas, then go to a LOCAL, INDEPENDENT garden center and ask for advice . (Did I mention, no IdiotMarts? ;D) .





As for the "overgrown " stuff , you could try making bonsai-like, or topiary , or even small tree-like creations from them, and planting smaller things in front of them . It can save a lot of $ , if it works . Good Luck .
Reply:Bougainvilleas if it's hot-the showy flowers will bring much joy!

dvr