Never heard of this plant but the picture by @Valleylynn caused me to stop and take a look and to look it up.
If you have seeds for this one next year, I would love to have some. The Montana Field guide says it can grow in Colorado too.

It should really love your climate Marilyn. It does need pretty much full sun to be happy. But a container on your patio would work.
I could even try making starts for you.

It will be fun to see how it does for you. I will get busy making a start for you. Now is perfect weather to give this a try.

And just look at how hardy/tough these plants can be, and how many different kinds there are. Just a small sampling:
https://www.cnps.org/cnps/nati...

I will look forward to seeing more. And I really like the colors in the ones you had the most recent photo. Although that Desert Cushion in the link is awfully nice too.

It is such an interesting plant, the flowers start out yellow and turn red as they age. And it is even interesting when not in bloom.

Cool plant, great blooms!

Until tonite all I could say about "buckwheat" would be related to reruns of "The Little Rascals" or Eddie Murphy's SNL parody, or a different plant entirely.

I do remember Buckwheat in the 'Little Rascals'. What a fun program, I don't think I missed any of them.

This is my second year with it, and it seems to be a slow grower. It isn't much bigger than when I got it. As soon as our summer dry weather arrives it get a heavy wooly coating on the leaves. There are a number of species here in Eastern Oregon, the wooly covering protects them in the high desert summer heat.
The blooms are really interesting, starting out pale yellow and morphing into red as they age.
You might like to give it a try, just give it very fast draining soil to grow in.