The transition from one year to the next is often filled with celebrations and time for reflection. At the Gardens, we are all filled with gratitude and a keen determination to do everything we can to support the community, especially in light of the widespread stress and challenges that will likely continue in 2024.</p> We start by providing spaces that delight and enlighten. Walk in a celebration of nature, co-created with skilled horticulturists, and soon you will find yourself calmer, even revived. When wesurvey visitors the most common reason they give for coming to our locations is to find peace and connection. Each of our sites offers wonder and discovery at every turn.</p> Providing access is a high priority for us. Many people face barriers to engaging with the Gardens, and we work diligently to remove any obstacle. We begin by forging partnerships withdiverse community organizations —186 of them and counting. Only through listening can we create programs that address needs. We are fortunate to have support from countless donors,enabling us to provide everything from free admission to transportation and outreach.</p> </p>
Calling all Brownie Girl Scouts who are looking to “go green.” On Saturday, February 3, join us at Denver Botanic Gardens for our Household Elf Girl Scout Exploration Day and learn how your scout can make a positive environmental impact. </p> This Exploration Day, designed to meet the requirements of the Household Elf badge, helps Girl Scouts explore the Gardens in a whole new way as they learn how plants conserve water and energy, and how they can help the planet by conserving water and energy, too. Participating Girl Scouts also take a stylish step in reducing waste by decorating their own reusable bag, and—bonus—get their hands dirty planting an air-purifying plant! </p> Learn more about this program</a> and how you can register your Girl Scout or troop.</p> Let’s work together to make the world greener, one step at a time. </p> This article was contributed by Family and Children's Program Coordinator Helena Nitz.</strong></em></p>
Compost seems to be a hot topic these days. We all love the thick white steam cloud emitted from a healthy compost pile in the cool mornings of the fall, but what happens to a compost pile during the winter?</p> Unfortunately, most compost piles freeze solid in the coldest winter months. When a compost pile freezes, however, it isn’t lost forever. As microbes become less active, they no longer produce enough body heat to keep a pile from freezing. Just like us, soil microbes slow down in the cold. But microbes have an ability humans can only mimic in the coldest months of the year: dormancy.</p> A frozen compost pile isn’t dead; it’s dormant. In winter months, soil microbes enter a state of deep hibernation until the conditions are optimal to become active again. In some cases, ancient microbes can remain dormant for thousands of years, waiting to reemerge when a combination of oxygen, moisture and temperature form their ideal microclimate. The vast majority of compost microbes survive even the deepest freezes for a few months.</p> But what if there was a way to keep compost active in the coldest months of the year? While it is possible to keep a compost pile warm in the winter through frequent turning, snowy and icy conditions can prevent farmers and gardeners from accessing their piles. What if there was a way to keep compost warm without turning it?</p> Aerated Static Pile (ASP) composting can keep piles warm through the winter. By “forcing” air through a PVC pipe frame, ASP composting can oxygenate the center of a pile without having to turn it. While traditional compost piles should be covered with a "breathable" material, ASP systems can be sealed with a tarp. Tarps keep moisture in the pile while oxygen is introduced from outside of the pile through the forced aeration. </p> At Denver Botanic Gardens Chatfield Farms</a>, we are installing an ASP composting system this winter. While Chatfield Farms produces around 100 tons of compost a year, ASP systems are relatively easy to build at any scale. A home gardener could build an ASP system with a leaf blower and a few PVC pipes.</p> ASP composting is a great experiment to keep a “soil nerd” occupied through the offseason, but it is by no means the only way to create quality compost. So, whether your compost goes dormant during the winter or stays active year-round with an ASP system, keep up the good work!</p>
Gardening is a complex endeavor. A symbiosis with countless living things, both seen and unseen, and the management of numerous interactions with the nonliving world. As such, it can be challenging to troubleshoot the underlying causes of poor garden performance or unexpected behavior of plants in the garden. Sometimes, it's best to go back to basics. And soils are often, quite literally, at the root of it all.</p> This year, the horticulture research team implemented a large field experiment at Chatfield Farms to determine the most effective combinations of soil amendments and mulches to improve soil characteristics, reduce water loss, limit weed growth and promote healthy ornamental plant growth. In early spring, we prepared over 16,000 square feet of land at Chatfield Farms. We removed existing vegetation, incorporated amendments into the soil, and applied mulches to the soil surface. Our team monitored plant growth, phenology and weed invasion throughout the season and sampled soils for physical and chemical analysis. Instruments were also installed in each plot to continuously measure the soil temperature and moisture content throughout the study.</p> Despite a dizzying amount of information in magazines and on the web, there is relatively little empirical research on this subject, especially for semi-arid regions like the Front Range of Colorado. The results from this work will help to inform our Sustainable Landscape Services</a> program and our general horticultural practices at the Gardens.</p> An exciting feature of our study is that only native and regionally adapted plants with low water requirements are included. Generally, this group of plants does not require high soil fertility or lots of organic matter. Instead, excellent drainage and open pore space are thought to be more important, which goes against common horticultural wisdom urging gardeners to apply composts and organic mulches to improve soil fertility and texture. We hope the results illuminate best practices for this understudied group of landscape plants.</p> Mulching and soil amendment practices have also been shown to significantly influence how water from precipitation and irrigation infiltrates the soil and how much of that water is lost through evaporation. Through this study, we can compare how unique combinations of amendments and mulches differ in their ability to capture and retain precious water, recommendations that will further our goal of water conservation horticultural practices.</p> If you are interested in hearing about the preliminary results from this work or taking a deeper dive into soil science, members of our horticulture research team will present at the Landscaping with Colorado Native Plants Conference</a> this February. </p>
