A gorgeous garden flush with leafy greens, aromatic herbs and colorful vegetables bursting with flavor is a wonderful thing. There is nothing like picking a ripe tomato right from the vine and carrying it into your kitchen to slice up into a salad with a little drizzle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. And veggies grown in your own garden just taste better than storebought, too. Plus, as the gardener tending your plot—whether in containers, raised beds or in a swath of land—you are in control of what goes into your food. </p> Maybe this sounds like a dream come true, but you have no idea where to start. Or maybe you’ve tried gardening in some form before only to feel like it’s harder than it looks. Just how do you get from seed or seedling to great big, glorious plants? What’s the best place for your garden? How much water do plants need? How do you fertilize them and treat pests? Help!</p> A New Gardener Boot Camp</strong> will help you with all of these questions—and more. We’ve taken our best beginner classes to equip you with all the tools you need to master your garden! Even better, this is an online class, so you can work at your own pace and then join a live Q & A session at the end via Zoom. </p> Course registration opens April 20. On April 22, all course direction and videos will be emailed to participants. From there, you have one week to watch all four courses. Join instructors on April 29 at 10 a.m. for the live Q & A session. The cost is only $46 or $42 for Gardens members. </p> Get full details and register — and get ready for your best garden yet.</p>
It’s Pollinator Month, a time dedicated to celebrating the unsung heroes of our ecosystems: pollinators! From the tiniest bee to the most magnificent butterfly, these incredible creatures are vital to the health of our planet and the bounty of our gardens.</p> Take a stroll through our diverse plant collections, and you’ll notice the flurry of activity. Bees—native solitary bees, fuzzy bumblebees and the familiar honeybees—dart from blossom to blossom, their tiny bodies laden with pollen. Butterflies flit gracefully. Even hummingbirds, with their iridescent throats and rapid wingbeats, do their part, sipping nectar and transferring pollen as they go. A particularly special place to spy pollinators at York Street is the Birds and Bees Walk</a>, which has installations</a> that help support the diverse and eclectic habitat needs of an array of creatures. At Chatfield Farms, you’ll want to visit the butterfly house</a>, where you can encounter native butterflies like swallowtails, monarchs, mourning cloaks and painted ladies in a lush and colorful garden.</p> Why are these small but mighty creatures so important? Pollinators are responsible for one out of every three bites of food we eat. They pollinate crops like apples, almonds, coffee and chocolate, ensuring we have a diverse and delicious diet. Beyond our plates, they are crucial for the reproduction of countless wildflowers, trees and shrubs, maintaining biodiversity and healthy habitats for all wildlife.</p> But pollinators are facing significant challenges, from habitat loss and pesticide use to climate change. Even small actions can have a big impact. Consider planting native plants in your own garden – these are often the best food sources for local pollinators. Reduce or eliminate pesticide use and provide a shallow water source for thirsty bees and butterflies.</p> Visit us throughout the month and observe these amazing creatures up close. You might even spot a new favorite pollinator you hadn't noticed before. Be sure to join us for special programming on Pollinator Day, Friday, June 27</a>, to experience all things pollinators.</p> Let's celebrate our pollinators this month and work together to create a world where they can thrive. </p>
Have you ever thought of your garden as a work of art? Maybe you spend months planning and plotting, considering what plants will look best where, or maybe you take a more abstract approach and scatter seeds like the paint in a Jackson Pollock painting. Whichever type of gardener you are, you are using visual thinking strategies, just like artists. Wander gardens and galleries this summer to learn more about the connections between gardens and art. </p> Start your explorations by visiting Blue Grass, Green Skies: American Impressionism and Realism from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art</a> opening June 7 </strong>in the Freyer – Newman Center. Impressionist artists were famous for painting en plein air</em> (outdoors) so they could directly observe the effects of sunlight on their subjects. What better place to paint outdoors than in a garden? Many American Impressionist artists were garden enthusiasts, including John Henry Twachtman, whose lush home garden became a painting destination for fellow artists, or Childe Hassam, who spent summers painting the seaside gardens on Appledore Island in Maine. </p> After browsing the exhibition, head into the gardens to discover gold frames highlighting garden compositions reminiscent of American Impressionist landscapes. Artists and gardeners think about the same things in their work—emphasis, patterns, color combinations, textures, shapes and more all play an important role in creating a beautiful, cohesive garden, just as they do in a work of art.</p> “Art, to me, is the interpretation of the impression which nature makes upon the eye and brain,” Childe Hassam once said. Nature and art go hand in hand, whether you’re a painter, a gardener, or just someone looking to spend an afternoon outdoors. </p> Full credit for "California Landscape"</em>: William Wendt, "California Landscape," oil on canvas, 1920. 31 5/16” H x 70 3/16” W. Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Gift of James O. McReynolds, Robert Coulter McReynolds and Mrs. Edwin L. Harbach, in fond memory of their mother, Frances Coulter McReynolds and their father, Dr. Robert Phillips McReynolds. </p>
The City Nature Challenge</a> is a yearly community science event for folks in cities all over the world to observe and document biodiversity in their own backyards, and 2025 was the 10-year anniversary. To participate, people make observations of any organism – plant, animal, insect and more – on iNaturalist</a> for a few days in late April to early May. This is followed by a short identification phase – where a community of naturalists work on identifying all species observed. The biodiversity data crowd-sourced through iNaturalist contributes important information to scientists and land managers. </p> In the Denver-Boulder metro area, more than 9,714 observations were submitted by 764 people of 1,260 species! We nearly doubled our number of observations and observers compared to 2024, and we broke our previous record in 2020 of ~7,000. This year, our most observed species was Chokecherry (Prunus virginiana</em>). Fun species observed included a silver fox</a>, long-eared owl</a>, Abert’s squirrel</a>, bobcat</a>, prairie violet</a>, beaver</a>, black-crowned night heron</a>, little brown bat</a>, American mink</a>, elk</a>, moose</a>, Northern Harrier</a> and black bear</a>. We even had 145 research-grade observations of 26 species</a> that are listed as rare, endangered, or threatened by NatureServe or the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (over twice as many as last year). </p> For 2025’s global challenge, there were 3.3 million observations of almost 74,000 species made by 103,000 people from over 62 countries around the world. This brings the total number of observations made during the past 10 years to almost 13 million! The leading city for numbers of observations, species, and observers was La Paz, Bolivia. </p> Thank you to everyone who participated in this year’s City Nature Challenge. We are looking forward to participating with you next year.</p> Shout out to the winners of the Denver-Boulder City Nature Challenge:</strong>Most observations: @Phyllisholst with 405 observations of 150 speciesMost identifications: @Andershastings with 2,265 observations </p>
