Why do my plants take soooooo long to grow?
Mead, Colorado area landscapes {Monthly Series}
Welcome to Colorado. We live in a high desert. Or, if you prefer, a Bsk or Cold Arid Steppe climate as classified in the Köppen-Geiger Climate Classification system. What does all that mean? It means we have hot dry summers, cold dry winters, and because it is a steppe, we have wind. A steppe is just an ecoregion characterized by open grassland and no forests, except near riparian or river areas. What does all this have to do with why my plants take soooo loooong to grow? Well, to be honest, they don’t really like it here. We, as humans, have created microclimates within our neighborhoods that allow plants to respond better to the natural macro climate around us. That macroclimate is harsh. Sure, there are lots of native plants that will do just fine on the moisture we get naturally, and can handle the wind and snow, but those are not the types of plants we tend to plant, or have historically planted in our suburban and urban landscapes. That is changing, slowly, but there are just some plants we like to see in our landscapes that are not native to Colorado.
The fact that the trees and shrubs we like to plant are not native leads to a very slow growth process. Let’s look at the evolution of a plant from grower to landscape and then to maturity. Often, local nurseries import plants. For Colorado nurseries, most plants come from California, Oregon, or Washington wholesalers. Those trees and shrubs are grown in a light weight soil mixture to ease shipping costs. Those plants are acclimated to the regions where they begin life. Once in Colorado, they may sit in nursery and begin to acclimate to Colorado, but it takes time. Six months later, a customer or landscaper buys that plant from a wholesaler in Colorado and plants that tree or shrub into a suburban landscape. At that point, winter comes, the plant goes dormant, and begins a process of hardening off to our more arid and cold winter. Spring comes, there is some dieback, it sprouts new growth, but mostly focuses on getting roots established. It gets irrigated by drip irrigation (hopefully!) and then gets some spring moisture, some heavy wet snowfall that breaks a few branches, and then we skip forward immediately to 90 degrees, hot, and dry. How would you feel? Well, that tree or shrub now just wants to make it through the heat of summer and get to some cooling September or October weather. So, what happens? We make it to September and at the end of the month the temperature suddenly plunges from 80 to 10 degrees. How would you feel? Get my point? That plant is having a miserable time. It wants to go home to Oregon. But it can’t. So it hangs on for another round of winter. Same thing happens, but this time it has a few more roots going, has a better handle on what to expect, and it hunkers down. Spring comes and it tries again and this time it manages to push out 6 more inches of growth. All goes well. But then in July, it gets hit with 1” hail! Ugh. Branches are damaged, leaves are shredded, and it tries to push some new growth and heal some of the damage before another winter sets in. Lather, rinse, repeat…..and this goes on for a few more years until it finally becomes established and looks a bit more like the picture on the tag that the homeowner was shown when it was planted! But all this took 5 years!!
Bottom line is to just be patient. And when you think you have been patient enough….be patient some more. Good landscapers will replace plant material that dies….even plants that die due to no one’s fault for a short period after planting….usually one growing season. But plants in Colorado take a long time to become established, and some just don’t make it for the above reasons 3 or 4 or 5 years after planting. Some plants grow faster than others, but those are usually the ones that die back, are susceptible to breakage in wind or snow due to weak wood, or will get diseased more easily. So a word to the wise is “Don’t buy lots of plants that grow fast!”, or you will be yanking out the dead ones and replacing them sooner than you think. A few are OK, but mix in more hearty, less flashy plants with the ones that grow fast so you have a mixture.
Perennials do much better. Chose more native ones and the success rate is usually even better, but sometimes people overwater the more native plants that are meant to live in that dry, arid, cold, steppe climate. Last word is to keep trying. Have a budget for replacing plant material, and don’t give up. Eventually, you will have a thriving landscape. Plants will die each year, but if you have a plan, and enough other plants going, a few missing teeth can easily be taken care of as needed. Landscapes are diverse, they ebb and flow, and they evolve. Move with them and you will experience the joy of the landscape in your own way. Be easy.
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