Relocating to Ft Collins (Fort Collins, Estes Park: 2014, gated, to live in)

[phil f]

My wife and I are considering relocating from Oregon to Fort Collins. We would just like to know how long the snow season is and how severe it is.

[StealthRabbit]

Where from in OR? it has quite a diverse climate that you will be coming from. Ft Collins Climate is most like Bend / Madras. Occasional snow, but doesn't hang around long.

I relocated from Ft Collins area to near Portland, OR.

I rode my bicycle to work everyday but 3 days, the last yr I lived in Ft Collins.

I have ridden it to work about 3x in the many yrs I have been in Portland.

Snow is generally from Oct to April, but is usually very light <4" and can be gone by noon. There will be a couple 12" - 20" snows that might hang around a week. Wind is pretty significant in Ft Collins compared to much of OR. And... Ft Collins is BROWN from July until May. And the tress in Ft Collins are VERY short compared to Oregon. When we come into Ft Collins from Laramie it appears someone took a lawnmower set at 3 stories high (40') and mowed the whole town at that level.
Bit different than the 300' tall GREEN trees of the PNW. 280 days of drizzle is good if you like green (mossy roofs). None of those in Ft Collins.

Hail will take out your roof in Ft Collins (and can be tough on your garden). Grasshoppers too! They ate the paint and the vinyl screens off our Colorado house.

[phil f]

We're from Eugene, we get a couple weeks of very light snow here and have to chain up every few years because we live in the hills. Really? Ft Collins is brown in the summer?

[Sunderpig2]

The snow season is usually from October to about May. The last snow in 2014 was May 16th or so. The last snow in 2013 was May 1. I've not encountered any "severe snow" so far, but I'm sure that will happen sooner or later.

I disagree strongly with the "brown" allegation of color in town, no matter the time of the year. It's fairly green from late May through late Sept., colorful in October, then grey and light green from November to early May. But even at its best, it never gets deep green like in the PWN.

It's only brown if you're outside of town, such as west of town in the foothills or places like Masonville.

[xeric]

The natural vegetation around Fort Collins is brown for close to 10 months of the year. Sure, people water in the city to make it look like the midwest/northeast in the summer, but it also looks like those regions in the winter (brown when not under a blanket of snow for the duration of our 5 month cold dormancy season). You could put a giant transparent dome over Ft. Collins, heat it all winter, water it year-round , plant tropical vegetation, and make it look like southern Florida, but that wouldn't change the fact that the natural environment is steppe grassland (which is dormant in cold and/or dry conditions).

[StealthRabbit]

Originally Posted by xeric

The natural vegetation around Fort Collins is brown for close to 10 months of the year. ... the natural environment is steppe grassland (which is dormant in cold and/or dry conditions).

Non-irrigated grass dries considerably by August, and then there are the 'Everbrown forests' (Bettle kill).

Cactus is pretty green, as is the campus of Woodward Governor! (very nice!)

I spent nearly 20 yrs in Colorado watering everyday of the summer and fall to try to get trees to grow.

[xeric]

Originally Posted by StealthRabbit

Non-irrigated grass dries considerably by August, and then there are the 'Everbrown forests' (Bettle kill).

Cactus is pretty green, as is the campus of Woodward Governor! (very nice!)

I spent nearly 20 yrs in Colorado watering everyday of the summer and fall to try to get trees to grow.

Not me. I'm more likely to cut a tree down if it interferes with my sun exposure or view.

[StealthRabbit]

Originally Posted by xeric

Not me. I'm more likely to cut a tree down if it interferes with my sun exposure or view.

Farmers / ranchers / stewards of the 'dry' / arid' land in CO don't do that (cut trees for sun or view).

We spend generations trying to grow windbreaks / forests / shade for livestock.

If we feel we need more sun, we are more likely to move the house! (Done that a few times)

[xeric]

Originally Posted by StealthRabbit

Farmers / ranchers / stewards of the land don't do that (cut trees for sun or view).

We spend generations trying to grow windbreaks / forests / shade for livestock.

I don't have a problem with farmers and ranchers making those types of adaptations to allow them to more efficiently produce food. Of course it's only practical in a limited sense.

For me, having a shadier yard would actually reduce my ability to grow both food and xeric landscape plants, and the wrong type of shade in the wrong place would destroy the passive solar setup I have on my south-facing front. Conversely, I have no AC and so I'm not going to save electricity by having more shade.

Views are my personal preference. I choose to live in an open area with mountains to look at rather than in a forested or flat area. But keep in mind that acreage in a naturally treeless area is always going to be predominantly open and whatever trees you do grow will have a limited effect on the overall views and open aspect of the land (creating favorable microclimates generally for some uses while not being extensive enough to have an overall negative impact). Not so in the city where a tree in the wrong spot in the neighbor's yard could make your garden unusable, or eliminate an unobstructed view or southern exposure.

Finally, I reject the idea that forests are inherently better than grasslands or deserts. The best vegetative cover for non-cultivated land is the type that grows naturally there.

[StealthRabbit]

Originally Posted by xeric

...
Finally, I reject the idea that forests are inherently better than grasslands or deserts. The best vegetative cover for non-cultivated land is the type that grows naturally there.

...that would be Forests for me during the 30 yrs I've been away from Colorado (was forest there too / Estes Park... pre-bettle kill)

Same for OP... they need to expect something a bit different than the 300' tall trees in their current backyard. (as I'm sure they do). Ft Collins is no forest, but does have a few nice shade trees (not native)!

Due to 150 yrs of overgrazing / change of native grasses / ecosytem, much of the 'prairie' needs some stimulus to recover to 'natural'.