August tips from the mystery man with a familiar voice

By Dan MacArthur
North Forty News

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Regular listeners of the wide-ranging Greeley public radio station certainly have heard the horticultural advice ladled out mornings by Tom Throgmorton in his soothing and seductive tones.

But it's a special style of speech, confesses the man behind the voice, which sounds decidedly less smooth after a hard day's work. "That voice is what happens between 5 and 6 in the morning with a cup of coffee," he explains.

Throgmorton allows that the image his syrupy voice evokes may likewise be misleading. He recalled recently meeting one disappointed Steamboat Springs listener who expected someone older and taller.

That's the risk of forming an impression based on a disembodied voice over the radio. But Throgmorton actually is tall enough to compete with the sunflowers towering in the predictably lush yard at his home northeast of Fort Collins. And at 50, he's plenty old enough, thank you, to have earned graying and receding hair, studious yet stylish spectacles and deep-set greenish (of course) eyes.

Those years have been good to Throgmorton, giving him an encyclopedic knowledge on all manner of plant matters. He's also exceptionally fit, trim and tanned in testimony to his demanding work in his new enterprise of installing and maintaining landscaping for residential and commercial customers.

Throgmorton brings all that knowledge and experience together in the informative, inspirational and sometimes fanciful pieces he presents on public radio station KUNC. It's a gig Throgmorton's had for 15 years after inheriting it from colleague Shane Smith.

The two were instrumental in organizing the Laramie County Community Solar Greenhouse in Cheyenne, which has since evolved into the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens.

Raised in Cheyenne, which he said was larger and more promising than Fort Collins at the time, Throgmorton's blood ran green from the start. His grandfather was a gardener and at 14 Throgmorton went to work for a local landscaping company. "It was one of those things where you did it all," he said.

He worked there through his early university days in Laramie before returning to join Smith as manager of the Cheyenne facility. "It was a progressive thing," Throgmorton explained, embraced by open-minded community acceptance of such undertakings in an era when he still was capable of growing a ponytail. Throgmorton later went on to earn an associate degree in horticultural therapy.

Throgmorton likely would still be in Cheyenne had he not married his wife, Deb, a professional musician who found the city too far removed from the venues in her far-flung profession.

They moved to Fort Collins, and he continued commuting to Cheyenne for half a year until it became clear something had to give. He went to work at Fort Collins Nursery, staying there for 18 years until starting his own business, Throgmorton Plant Management, two years ago.

Now Throgmorton puts his skills to work helping property owners define and achieve their landscaping goals. With low-maintenance landscaping all the rage today, Throgmorton said, his task is determining exactly how clients define the term so he can make it happen.

"It's interesting because everything's a little different. Every yard is a challenge," he said.

Throgmorton is fortunate to have a profession he so enjoys because it would be tough making a living on the radio pieces, which pay precisely zip. But he clearly enjoys doing them and considers them a contribution to the community.

Plus, there's always the priceless joy of watching the reaction of those suddenly realizing that he's the shorter and younger man behind that voice on the radio.

Tom's tips for August:

• Cooling soils make now through mid-October the second-best time behind spring to plant or transplant perennials and trees.
• Plant cool-season vegetables such as peas that will yield crops in the fall.
• Cut back on watering trees and shrubs so they go dormant and don't produce fall growth that can freeze.
• Inspect spruce trees for spider mites.
• Accept that bluegrass lawns go dormant in the heat of the summer but will green up again.
• Watch for bargains at upcoming sales as nurseries clear out this season's plant stock.
• And perhaps most importantly, take time to sit in the shade, watch things grow and eat your tomatoes.