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If it will
Grow In
Wyoming..
Wyoming's
Black Gold Rush
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What’s going on in Wyoming
right now can only be described as a modern day gold
rush. I remember studying in high school American
history class about the 19th century gold
rushes in California and Colorado and South Dakota,
and one can get much of that same gold rush
experience in almost any Wyoming community right
now. To be sure, there are some differences—what’s
going on in Wyoming is a black gold rush—coal, oil,
methane, uranium, and natural gas are the modern day
gold—worth every bit as much in the 21st
century economy as was the shiny yellow metal in the
19th century economy. They are the
sources of the energy that drives our economy, and
we Americans are getting a painful lesson in recent
months about the importance and value of energy in
our day-to-day life. |
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As a result the current wave of
new landscaping projects in eastern Wyoming
communities will generate a wealth of
experience-based information about the hardiness and
soil adaptability of many as yet untested landscape
plants. Some of this information will come about as
prospecting landscape professionals coming into the
state to meet the demand for landscape work
extrapolate their experience with plants in
“slightly milder” environments like Colorado, Utah,
and western Nebraska. But some of the best and most
surprising new information will likely come from the
experience of the large number of job prospectors
moving to the Wyoming from states like Ohio,
Michigan, and California.
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Previous Articles
It's
Finally Spring - March 13
Spring Garden Calendar-March 20
No
Garden Left Behind-March 27
Planting Trees for a Cooler Earth in a Warmer
WyoBraska-April 3
Viburnums - Shrubs for Wyobraska Springs-April 10
Want A Water Conserving Lawn? You might already have
one-
April 17
Creating Long
Term
Tree-lationships April 24
Bigger, Bolder, Brighter,
Better—and Back In The Landscape May 01 & 08
Hardy Shrub
Roses
May 15
Another Look
at Native Plants
May 22
No Child
Left Inside
May 29
June
is Tree Care Month June 05
Summer Blooming Shrubs
June 12
Roses Are
Red.....
June 19
The Plants They will be Talking About Next Year at
the Garden Walk
June 26
Busy Summertime Gardens
July 03
Cutting Your Lawn Down to Size
July 10
July 17
Insect Paranoia
2007 Articles
2006 Articles |
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The dramatic rise in the price
of any energy related commodity in recent years is
driving Wyoming’s black gold rush—and driving it
with an abundance money that has job prospectors
flocking to the state’s communities in search of
get-rich-quick jobs. The jobs are plentiful, not
only in the mining and drilling related work of the
coal mines, oil and natural gas fields, and uranium
mines, but also in a construction boom of housing,
office buildings, schools, and roads. Just as in
the gold rushes of the 1800’s, these energy and
construction job prospectors are filling motels,
apartment houses, and saloons to capacity in many
Wyoming communities.
I am getting to experience this
modern day gold rush first hand, because unlike in
the 19th century gold rush towns where
landscaping was unheard of, much of the construction
going on in Wyoming communities is now governed by
city ordinances and developer covenants which
require landscape development as a part of any
residential or commercial building project. The
result is a mini-landscaping boom in those Wyoming
communities located near the major energy
development regions of the state.
I believe that I once heard
Garrison Keillor say that Minnesota is a lot like
Florida, except that Minnesota is a little cooler in
the winter. The same relative comparison applies
to landscaping in eastern Wyoming—it is a lot like
landscaping in western Nebraska----except the
climate is a little harsher and the soils are a
little poorer. But the one thing that you quickly
learn about people that live in Wyoming—they aren’t
easily intimidated by poor soils or a harsh
climate.
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Unrestrained by expertise in the horticultural
limitations of Wyoming’s climate and soils, they
will try things that no “professional” would even
consider trying, and, happily, some of their
experiments will work out surprisingly well. When
we landscape professionals come across these
successful amateur experiments, our normal course of
action is 1. to be secretly dumbfounded, 2. to tell
the homeowner that we had thought that this new
plant might work in a Wyoming environment (in other
words lie), and 3. then make mental notes to use the
new plant ourselves in some future project.
This new experienced based
information will be particularly useful to the
“slightly more moderate” Wyobraska landscape
region. One nationally known perennial nursery
located in eastern Nebraska has successfully
marketed their plants around the world with the
motto “if it grows in Nebraska, it will grow
anywhere”. After working in Wyoming, I would
suggest that a slight revision to the motto would
reflect what will be learned from the current
landscape rush in Wyoming—if it grows in Wyoming, it
will grow in western Nebraska.
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