Every year at about this time, the CSU Extension and Gilpin County Master Gardeners host their annual plant sale at the Gilpin Community Center Barn, 230 Norton Drive. Gardening in the short growing season of the mountains can be difficult, fraught with unique challenges best left to those willing to overcome them through proper research and devotion. People willing to make the effort are abundantly rewarded with vivid splashes of color on their property as well as homegrown vegetables and herbs.

It was wise to get there early for the best selection. Table loads of native plants were available that thrive in our high elevation environment. Mountain-hardy perennial wildflowers such as Colorado blue columbine, blanket flower, blue flax, black-eyed Susan, and Rocky Mountain penstemon were good options. I’ve had some luck with penstemon in the past so I purchased three of those along with two lodgepole lupines to occupy a few bare spots in my flower bed. Each customer was allowed to buy five plants or shrubs.

Jessica Kane filled her cardboard box with Rocky Mountain bee plant, blue flax, Indian blanket, and wildflower seed. Susan Sepanik had a taste for chocolate mint plant and the courage to try tomatoes. Alex Corren and Megan Shulmister recently bought a three- quarter acre parcel of land off of Shoshoni Road and plan on building a home there next year. Even before breaking ground on the project, they will be beautifying the site with greenery from the plant sale. Their purchases included: catmint, lovage, an elderberry bush, grass and wildflower seed, and strawberries that are already bearing fruit.