How To Design A Beautiful Landscape With Colorado's Native Plants

Colorado native plants are popular with Fort Collins homeowners because they’re naturally adapted to Northern Colorado’s climate. The trick to a colorful, low-maintenance landscape is to mix species for seasonal interest and colorful foliage, and to ensure you consider mature plant size, sunlight needs, and water needs. With proper plant design, native Colorado plants are easy to grow and provide beautiful landscaping, color, and support for pollinators and local wildlife.

Why Colorado's Native Plants Thrive In Fort Collins Landscapes

When you grow native plants in the appropriate places, they are better adapted to the local climate, so they’ll often require less water, fertilization, and maintenance than non-native species. Additionally, native plants are popular because they support local ecosystems, including pollinators, birds, and other wildlife. While these plants are adapted to Northern Colorado, it’s still essential to design your planting layout according to their specific sunlight, water, and soil needs.

Good native plants for Northern Colorado include:

• Blanket flower

• Rocky Mountain penstemon

• Prairie smoke

• Sticky geranium

• Sulfur flower

• Spiderwort

• Blue star

• Serviceberry

• Silvery lead plant

• Kinnikinnik

It’s important to remember that native does not necessarily mean maintenance-free; you’ll still need to account for sun exposure, drainage, mature plant size, soil type, and moisture requirements. If you group plants with different growing needs, native or not, they’ll require more maintenance.

Which Colorado Native Plants Provide Color Throughout the Seasons?

Which Colorado Native Plants Bloom in Early Spring?

• Prairie smoke blooms with cream and deep pink flowers early in the spring, then produces unique, pink feathery seed heads for continued visual interest during the season.

• Sticky geranium produces pastel pink to reddish-purple blooms and offers seasonal interest with its red foliage in the fall.

• Golden banner has yellow flower spikes and needs ample space to grow.

• Blue star is prized for its namesake star-shaped flowers and produces showy golden foliage in the fall.

• Windflowers offer pinkish-red blossoms and do well in sun and part shade, making them a flexible addition to any northern Colorado landscape.

Which Native Shrubs Add Spring Flowers and Structure?

• Serviceberry is a beautiful shrub that offers seasonal interest, including white flowers in the spring, blue-black fruit later in the season, and orange-to-red fall foliage. Plus, it’s adored by wildlife as a food source. Consider the Utah serviceberry, which has beautiful edible blue berries in the summer.

• Manzanita blooms in spring with pink flowers and features evergreen foliage and deep red stems for all-season interest.

• Kinnikinnik, a low-growing evergreen shrub, adds year-round visual interest as a ground cover.

Which Colorado Native Plants Provide Summer Color?

• Blanket flower blooms with red and yellow flowers.

• Aspen daisy has lavender-blue flowers with bright yellow centers.

• Rocky Mountain penstemon offers beautiful blue-purple blossoms.

• Spiderwort has grass-like foliage and purple-blue flowers.

• Silvery leadplant produces gray-green foliage and bright purple flower spikes.

• Nodding onion attracts butterflies with its pink flowers.

  
  

Which Native Plants Offer Late Summer and Fall Interest?

• Maximilian sunflower produces stunning, tall, yellow flowers that bloom from late summer to frost. Note that this is an aggressive spreader, so give it a lot of room.

• Navajo tea blooms with yellow daisy-like flowers through late summer.

• Prairie zinnia is prized for its late-season yellow flowers.

• Sulfur flower produces yellow blooms that fade to rust brown, which complement its red foliage in the fall.

• Blue star foliage turns yellow in the fall.

• Serviceberry provides orange to red fall foliage, and the Utah serviceberry foliage turns yellow.

• Rocky Mountain maple provides a woody structure underneath yellow foliage in the fall.
  

Which Native Plants Add Winter Structure?

• Native evergreens offer seasonal interest, especially during winter.

  
  

• Big sagebrush produces silvery, evergreen foliage and lovely textured bark.

  
  

• Curl-leaf mountain-mahogany is a beautiful dark evergreen with attractive, feathery seed heads.

  
  

• Manzanita’s foliage remains bright against its deep red stems in the winter.

You can always leave native grasses and perennials with their seed heads intact; this may provide food for wildlife and offer visual interest throughout the winter.

How Can Colorado Native Plants Be Combined With Patios, Walkways, and Outdoor Living Spaces?

• Plant ground cover natives such as prairie smoke, sulfur flower, prairie zinnia, and kinnikinnik around walkways and patio edges. This way, they don’t affect traffic flow.

  
  

• Place tall perennials and larger shrubs, such as serviceberry, around outdoor living areas to add vertical structure.

  
  

• Combine native plants with pavers, natural stone, gravel, retaining walls, and other hardscape elements.

  
  

• Use repeating plant patterns to create visual continuity.

  
  

• Match your plant beds and irrigation zones, only placing plants with similar water needs in the same bed.

What Are The Best Design Tips For Creating A Low-Maintenance Native Landscape?

• Site matching is essential for native planting success. Make sure each plant in the bed has the same sunlight, elevation, and soil requirements.

• Combine plants with similar water needs in the same area.

• In each bed, mix early-, mid-, and late-blooming species to have continual color throughout the seasons.

• Add evergreens and shrubs for structure among flowering perennials.

• Take mature plant size into consideration when planning out your beds.

• Instead of using 15 different plants, stick to the same 4 to 5 across your landscaping; pattern repetition is visually appealing.

• Define planting areas and reduce weeding by strategically using hardscaping and mulch.

How Bath Landscape & Irrigation Creates Beautiful Landscapes with Colorado Native Plants

Bath Landscape & Irrigation can combine plant design with patios, walkways, irrigation, retaining walls, fire features, and other outdoor living elements.

We base our plant selections on plants native to Northern Colorado and your specific site conditions. Professional landscape design accounts for mature plant size, drainage, bloom sequence, maintenance, and the relationship among planting beds, hardscape, and irrigation. With Bath Landscape & Irrigation, you can create one cohesive landscape rather than adding disconnected native plant beds over time. Reach out to our team today to discuss your project.

Resources:

Colorado State University Extension. "Native Plants." https://extension.colostate.edu/resource/native-plants/

Colorado State University Extension. "Native Herbaceous Perennials for Colorado Landscapes." https://extension.colostate.edu/resource/native-herbaceous-perennials-for-colorado-landscapes/