Another day in paradise...

People ask me all the time "When is the best time to visit Denver Botanic Gardens?" I confess here and now, I find this question annoying. Denver Botanic Gardens is simply gorgeous every minute and every day, and although I have a special love for spring blooming bulbs and wildflowers, I took a stroll around today, nearly the middle of September, and was frankly blown away: my thirty third summer here, and I felt as though I had never been here before. The waterlilies and water gardens have never been so splendiferdelicious (they need new adjectives to describe them...) There are incredible container plantings everywhere, and annuals cunningly tucked among perennials, and combinations of colors that dazzle wherever you look... There are masses of colchicums here and there, and cyclamen are making quite a show in the Rock Alpine Garden...I love the late summer bulbs. We seem to have more and more every year! There is a spectacular planting of scarlet morning glory on the trellises of the Birds and Bees garden worth making the trip for in and of themselves...you may well see some hummingbirds visit these! The native gardens are especially beautiful right now: the fruits of the many cacti on Dryland Mesa are nearly as showy as the flowers in the early part of the season, and there are no end of yellow daisies everywhere (here Zinnia grandiflora) Where but at Denver Botanic Gardens would you see a forest of giant yuccas from Big Bend growing alongside Sunset hyssop and the Oriental sedum ('Indian Chief'), all combined with such artistry--this one has Dan Johnson's fingerprints all over it (Assistant Director of Horticulture and designer extraordinaire)... I have not shown you the Michaelmas daisies blazing through the O'Fallon Perennial Walk, or the Desert Willows covered with flowers everywhere, nor the masses of colors along the promenade in front of the Orangery, nor the sweeps of Muhlenbergia reverchonii sparkling through the Rock Alpine Garden meadow...nor a hundred (or thousand) other dazzling gems of flower, shrub or tree at their lustrous peak of beauty... When is the best time to visit Denver Botanic Gardens? Right now!