Paris has nothing on Aurora in April. Sure, the creperie choices are slightly more limited along the right bank of the High Line Canal than the Rive Droite along the Seine. But few things look or smell sweeter than when everything in Colorado goes off at the same time to race our climate’s short summers to fall. Until it snows a few feet overnight, the warm April sun and mild breezes make you want to get outside and play in the dirt.
This month, Aurora magazine scribes dig deep into suburban gardening, asking the best of the best how to keep your lobelia purple and blooming and your tomatoes producing against the long odds of growing cool things in a hot desert.
If you haven’t been, Paris isn’t really much of a city of flowers, not the way London is. April in Paris is about the trees. The City of Lights that’s been paved from end to end comes alive because creators were wise enough to cut holes in the sidewalks for trees, and plant them just about anywhere a car can’t drive.
It’s the trees in April that makes Aurora such an amazing place, too. That could make Denver Post editorial cartoonist Mike Keefe choke. Not so long ago, Aurora was the butt of many an arborist joke. The city virtually exploded with development in the 1970s. Houses came first. Trees, not so much. Keefe had a routine of poking fun at Aurora’s “One Tree” several times a year. City hoo haws never really saw the humor in that, pointing out that Aurora is actually a “tree city.” Yep, it’s true. They took it further in the 1990s by mandating that all new homes come not only with grass and trees, but they had to be pretty decent-sized trees as well. None of those twigs they hand out at school on Arbor Day.
Even though it’s easy to see how successful Aurora’s tree planting program has been when every year in April Aurora turns emerald, Aurora continues the push for more. Trees offer shade, oxygen, wind block and beauty. To encourage residents to appreciate all of that, each year the city offers steep discounts on prime trees. This year the sweet deals are for maples, oaks and Japanese Tree Lilacs, costing anywhere from $27-$38. Stocks are limited but often available for order before pick-up day on April 20. Call 303-739-7177 to see if you can get yours.
If zinnias and tomatoes are more interesting to you this year, read on and find out what local experts say about ensuring a harvest rather than a haircut this growing season.