</p> Each November, the Gardens turns into a festive holiday shopping extravaganza at Winter Gift Market</a>. One of the longest-running events at the Gardens, Winter Gift Market attracts dozens of artisans selling their wares and thousands of visitors looking to buy them. Though the vendors and products change every year, one of the most popular offerings at the Market remains the same: herb-infused vinegars produced by Denver Botanic Gardens Guild. To learn a little more about how these jewel-tone vinegars are created, the special events team talked to two Guild members, Marilyn Anderson and Kris Persun, for some behind-the-scenes insights on their process.</p> Q: How long has the Guild been making and selling vinegar?</strong></p> A: The Guild has been making herbal vinegars since the 1960s. Our first vinegar was the Herbal Blend, which we still make and sell today. </p> Q: What makes the Guild vinegars special or unique, compared to other specialty vinegars at high-end grocery stores?</strong></p> A: Guild vinegars are unique because they are created almost entirely at Denver Botanic Gardens. The herbs we use are grown in the Gardens and are hand-picked by Guild members. The peppers for the Spicy Chili Pepper vinegar are grown at Chatfield Farms. We hold workshops at the Gardens where Guild members infuse and bottle the product. Then, the vinegars are sold exclusively at Winter Gift Market and in the Shop at the Gardens.</p> Q: How long does it take to make the vinegar?</strong></p> A: The process is pretty lengthy! First, Guild members harvest fresh herbs from the herb gardens at York Street and Chatfield Farms. Next, herbs are washed and placed in gallon jars filled with white wine vinegar. These jars will sit for 4-6 weeks to infuse the vinegar with the herbs. Finally, when the infusing is complete, the vinegar is strained, bottled and sold to Gardens shoppers. </p> Q: What are the most popular flavors of vinegar? </strong></p> A: It really varies year to year. Last year, we made 22 different varieties, and nearly all of them sold out. The most popular at last year’s Market were Basil Blend, Herbal Blend, Mango Ginger, Colorado Peach and Spicy Chili Pepper.</p> Q: Are there any new flavors debuting at Winter Gift Market this year? </strong></p> A: This year, the Gloria Falkenberg Herb Garden had an abundance of many varieties of fragrant basils, so we’ve created several new basil vinegars: Genovese Basil, Crimson King Basil, Spicy Globe Basil, Green Pepper Basil, Lemon/Lime Basil and a Lettuce Leaf Basil. We’ll also feature a Thai Basil Ginger vinegar. Last year’s popular Basil Blend will also return, but it will be made from a blend of this year’s crops.</p> Q: So, what is the Guild?</strong></p> A: The Guild is a service group within Denver Botanic Gardens volunteer program. Our activities include educational lectures, volunteering in the herb gardens at York Street and Chatfield Farms and making herbal products in workshops throughout the year. We also manage the herbs division at the annual Spring Plant Sale each May, and of course, we sell our herbal products and donated antiques at Winter Gift Market. We meet almost every month of the year for a combination of business, education and social activities.</p> Q: What does it take to join the Guild or the vinegar committee?</strong></p> A: To join the Guild, there are annual dues and a 40-hour annual volunteer service requirement. Any Guild member can be on the vinegar committee, and there are many other committees to choose from as well. To learn more about joining the Guild, email vol@botanicgardens.org</a> or call 720-865-3609.</p> Stop by Winter Gift Market this Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Nov. 15-17, to find unique gifts for your loved ones this holiday season. Members receive 10 percent off all purchases! </strong>Learn more about Winter Gift Market</a>.</p>
As Halloween draws near, it seems fitting to highlight a group of bloodthirsty plants that lure, capture and devour insects (and sometimes even small mammals) in order to survive in the nutrient-poor soils of their native habitats.</p>These carnivorous plants can be found growing around the world. The trapping mechanisms they use to capture their prey can be divided into three main categories: active, passive and sticky “flypaper” traps.</p>In this series of blog posts, we will take a look at predatory plants that exhibit each of these types of traps along with where they grow in the wild and where you can find them in the gardens.</p>Active Traps</strong></h3>Carnivorous plants that use active “snap” traps to capture their prey include Venus fly traps (Dionaea muscipula</em>) and waterwheel (Aldrovanda</em> vesiculosa</em>).</p>Venus flytraps are the most easily recognizable predatory plants. Their native habitat is limited to a stretch of coastal plains in North Carolina and South Carolina. Trigger hairs are located inside each trap, which lies open waiting for an insect to crawl in. The sweet scent of nectar produced by the plant helps to draw in its unsuspecting prey. Once triggered, the trap closes and digestive enzymes are released to break the insect down into nutrients the plant can use to grow. Once digestion is complete the trap reopens, revealing the remaining exoskeleton of its prey.</p>A waterwheel plant has a trap that is very similar to those of flytraps, but they are submerged in water, much smaller in size and faster in action. They consist of a single species that is distributed around the world in parts of Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. Its common name is derived from the way the traps are arranged in whorls around a central stem. Tiny aquatic insects trigger the traps to quickly snap shut when they brush against the trigger hairs.</p>Another variation of the active trap is the “suction” mechanism used by the traps of Utricularia</em> species - commonly known as bladderworts. These remarkable carnivorous plants can be found in both terrestrial and aquatic habitats around the world. In terrestrial species, the tiny traps are located in the soil around the plant. These traps have trigger hairs located at the mouth of each trap which are activated when an insect brushes against them. Aquatic species also have traps which are activated when insects swim by and brush the trigger hairs. Bladderworts are the fastest acting of any carnivorous plants, taking less than a millisecond to suck in their prey.</p>Venus flytraps</strong> can be found in a large terrarium located at the east end of the Orangery. Be sure to stop by to take a peek at them as you visit our Fiendish Flora</em> exhibit in the Orangery, which features natural and manmade plant mutations.</li>Terrestrial and aquatic bladderworts</strong> can be viewed on some Free Days at the Carnivorous Plant Education table.</li>We hope to add waterwheel</strong> to our plant collections in the near future!</li></ul>In the next blog post of this series</a>, we will explore carnivorous plant species that use passive traps to lure, capture and devour their creepy, crawly victims.</p>
</p> With only a few days to go before Glow at the Gardens</a>™, we are eagerly awaiting the nights that our pumpkin sculptures will come to life. And we’re not the only ones: jack-o-lantern events are becoming increasingly popular, popping up in more and more cities all over the country. Most of these events, however, share one common trait: their elaborate sculptures are created using fake pumpkins, or “funkins.” But not Denver Botanic Gardens! For each night of the event, every pumpkin we use is the real deal. We’re proud of our pumpkin realness, but we must admit, they do present us with some interesting challenges.</p> Where Do We Get Them?</strong></p> It’s harder than you may think to find 3,000 pumpkins that are about the same size, are fully ripe at the same time, and can be delivered to the middle of Denver during peak pumpkin harvest season. Each year of Glow at the Gardens, we’ve worked with local growers to stake our claim on pumpkins early in the summer. Then we just cross our fingers and hope that hail storms, insects, bears and drought will let them reach maturity by the time we need them!</p> Where Do We Put Them? </strong></p> Once the pumpkins arrive onsite, we work quickly to store them in areas that offer them some protection against the weather. Since October in Colorado can feature wild swings in temperature and precipitation, we want to be ready for anything. However, even if weather wasn’t a factor, finding places to store 75 pallets of pumpkins is no small feat during what has become one of the busiest seasons at the Gardens.</p> Carving on a Clock</strong></p> While funkins can be carved weeks, months, even years in advance and stored for future use, carving real pumpkins is a different ballgame. To make sure the pumpkins will still be in good condition for two nights of the event, our team only has two and a half days to get all the pumpkins washed, gutted, carved and displayed.</p> Variation – Not Necessarily Helpful</strong></p> Harvesting fresh pumpkins means you never quite know what you’re going to get. If pumpkins are too green, they are too hard to cut; if they are too ripe, they turn to mush as soon as they are carved. Also, designing armatures to hold pumpkins can be challenging when you don’t know exactly what shape will show up on delivery day.</p> Pumpkins are Heavy!</strong></p> Because real pumpkins are far heavier than foam ones, we must carefully think through the structural integrity of the armatures that form the base of each sculpture. The last thing we want to see is a sculpture with pumpkins tumbling off of it!</p> Squirrels</strong></p> Those little creatures just love October at York Street. It seems that there is nothing more enticing to our squirrels than the exposed flesh of freshly carved jack-o-lanterns! We frequently have to replace jack-o-lanterns just hours after they have been displayed because, well, the squirrels gnaw and nibble through their faces.</p> Ephemeral Art</strong></p> Like a bouquet of fresh flowers, a pumpkin sculpture is at its prime for just a couple of days before nature takes its toll. As the jack-o-lanterns begin to shrivel and decay, the designs that have been carved into them morph and fade.</p> Our goal for Glow at the Gardens is not only to provide an incredible Halloween experience, but also to push the very boundaries of pumpkin carving. Could we have more displays if we used funkins? Sure. Would we be able to carve them farther in advance and reduce the hustle and bustle of the days leading up to the event? Absolutely. But the Gardens’ mission is to connect people with plants: what better way to do so than by designing and carving the fruit of the most popular plant of the season? </p> Glow at the Gardens is open October 17, 18, 23, 24 and 25. Tickets are extremely limited and are expected to sell out. </strong>Purchase tickets online</strong></a> or at the Bonfils-Stanton Visitor Center at 1007 York Street. </strong></p>
This summer Denver Botanic Gardens conducted a multi-faceted project along the 71-mile High Line Canal that traverses the Denver Metro Area. In this post, you’ll receive some insights into one aspect of this project, the High Line Canal bee survey.</p> While honey bees and bumblebees are easily recognized and well-known, most people don’t know that the state of Colorado is home to nearly 1,000 bee species! The majority of these species are solitary and ground-nesting, and often go unnoticed by many of us. However, these bees are vital to our Colorado ecosystems, both natural and unnatural (urban and agricultural areas).</p> The High Line Canal bee survey aims to document the diversity of bees along the High Line Canal and to examine how the surrounding urban development and local ecology of the Canal is influencing this diversity. As part of my graduate research at the Gardens and the University of Colorado-Denver, I conducted the High Line Canal bee survey.</p> For two weeks each month from May to July, I set out to collect bees from 30 locations along the Canal with the help of several volunteers. These bees were brought back to the Gardens to be identified under the microscope. All insects collected are currently being processed and stored for long-term future research at the Gardens. I sorted and identified 3,826 bees in 32 bee genera. This includes some rare genera such as the squash bees (Peponapis</em>) and the carpenter bees (Xylocopa</em>).</p> The hope of the larger High Line Canal project, which includes ecological monitoring and a comprehensive floristic inventory, is to guide the management of the Canal, to ensure it is a quality ecosystem for pollinators, plant communities and for visitors from the Denver Metro Area and beyond. </p> This blog post was written by Liam Cullinane, Denver Botanic Gardens & University of Colorado-Denver graduate student. </em></p>
As an American, learning what I could from books and professors, Japanese garden design seemed almost sacred. I quickly found myself focusing on individual symbolic details of traditional Japanese gardens and how to ‘correctly’ and ‘authentically’ translate these elements within a different cultural context. This train of thought easily led to a seemingly inaccessible perception of Japanese garden design that followed me to Denver Botanic Gardens and made me initially wary of everyday tasks for fear of ‘tainting’ the sanctity of the Japanese Garden, Shofu-En.</p> After working extensively in Shofu-En’s sand, tea and strolling gardens, however, I came to understand that the importance of these design elements lies more in the overall experience they help create rather than their correct representation—a concept I had heard before but never fully grasped.</p> In Shofu-En, meticulous tamamono (rounded shrubs) and character pines along with a central pond and island create an uplifting and expansive strolling garden in a surprisingly small corner of the overall campus of the Gardens, while naturalistic trees and shrubs create an introspective tea garden along with indirect paths and traditional water features. Whether this experiential emphasis within Japanese gardens developed more recently due to the current popularity of international styles or has always been integral to Japanese gardens I cannot be sure, but it has definitely affected my present understanding.</p> To preserve the atmospheric nature of this garden, a community of volunteers and interns alike work together with the curator to manage the constant maintenance and data collecting Shofu-En requires.</p> Plant records are essential to the maintenance of any garden, providing the curator a tool with which to keep track of any recent work or changes and compare those to changes occurring over the years. This summer, I contributed to an ongoing records project measuring the growth of the many character pines intrinsic to Shofu-En and recording the overall maintenance occurring throughout my internship.</p> Records such as annual growth can indicate tree health, while recording maintenance practices provides a good reference point for the curator in charge and can serve as a rough schedule outlining future projects. Although invisible to the public eye, plant records are essential to the seamless enjoyment of any garden—Shofu-En being no exception.</p> This summer, the trees on Shofu-En’s central island were reduced dramatically to help visually emphasize a single central tree. Due to the abundance of water in their current home compared with their original mountain habitat, the trees on either side of the island had grown too large, reverting to a strong, vertical growth habit and consequently cluttering the hierarchical composition dominated by a central pine. Strategic pruning and needling of these trees returned them to a more desired, horizontal form, diminishing their impact and returning the focus to the larger, central tree while also highlighting the intriguing structure inherent to character pines.</p> This blog post was written by </em> Sophy Fitzcollins. Sophy grew up in Minnesota and is currently a junior at the University of Minnesota, studying plant science and architecture. While uncertain of her career path, she is excited to be the Japanese Garden intern at Denver Botanic Gardens to discover new interests. </em></p>
Water can be a fickle friend to ephemeral streams that go dry for part of the year. Water levels can change dramatically over the course of only a couple days. But when the rains come and water levels rise, so do the critters. Chatfield Farms is jam-packed with furry and feathery friends, which we have captured with trap cameras strategically positioned along Deer Creek. Some are shy and cautious…others, like the ducks, are much more outgoing.</p> A healthy stream helps support high biodiversity of both plants and animals. Riparian zone plants, like our native cottonwoods and willows, are adapted to moist soils and stream overflow into the floodplains they colonize. These trees, along with other riparian plant species, help to stabilize stream banks, reduce erosion and provide vital food and shelter for both aquatic and terrestrial animals.</p> One of the hardest working (and cutest!) creatures that rely on these riparian plants is the North American beaver (Castor canadensis</em>). These busy little guys are ecosystem engineers, which means they significantly modify their environment and the surrounding area to suit their needs. Beavers use riparian trees to dam up rivers and streams, which slows the water and forms pools and ponds. These new ponds help to keep water within ephemeral river systems for longer than would be possible with precipitation alone. This means that the plants and animals that live within this system have a home and greater supply of resources for a larger part of the year. Chatfield Farms is fortunate to have resident beavers along Deer Creek helping to maintain wetlands and healthy ecosystem functioning.</p> In areas where the beavers aren’t active, we are conducting restoration activities to help restore healthy riparian areas. This not only boosts stream productivity, but also gives us more time to observe our furry animal friends.</p> This blog post was written by Meghan McGill, seasonal botanist in the Research & Conservation Department.</em></p>
A garden area has awakened at the south end of the Welcome Garden. Stalks tipped in tiny purple pompoms lean into a new path, as if watching for their first visitors, while tendrils of vines consort to turn trellises into cone topiaries.</p> Their quiet arrival, coming weeks after bricks were laid for the path, was fitting for a space that doesn’t want to make its presence terribly known. For this space is a secret garden – a garden that wants to whisper visitors inside, then cheerfully gather around them like fairies to a child.</p> If you believe as I do that there’s a spirit to every place, this area has long felt like it wanted to be a secret garden. For years, it was part of a children’s garden, then in 2009, when the Welcome Garden was created, it was walled in on two sides and fenced in on another, giving it a secluded feel. A lack of public access into the area made it feel discreet and murmuring fountains in the Welcome Garden added serenity.</p> The area sat for almost 10 years – barely noticed, but by the horticulturists who tended it, much like a secret garden waiting to be discovered. An eclectic collection of plants was allowed to romp around and weeds tried to stake their claim. Then last fall, I put pencils to work sketching a design and by winter, a proposal was born.</p> But a secret garden next to a group gate and near a visitor center? How can a garden feel secluded in such a busy place? That’s where a few key design elements come in, a bit of patience as plants mature and a willingness to imagine such a thing can be true. Though it may be hard to think of this space as tucked away just yet, try to imagine it as it longs to be.</p> This spring we began navigating a path from hoping the garden can be done to seeing it done. Thanks to a generous gift from The Ladd Family, we completed the first phase of the garden: a wrought iron gateway, a privet hedge, a sunken brick path and stone wall, and trees to fill in the woods of the space. In addition, beds were dressed in a tapestry of purple and pink annuals for their debut.</p> Each of these elements has helped anchor the space, separate it from the wide-open design of the rest of the Welcome Garden and create an air of quiet and repose.</p> The entrance, welded from antique window covers by Roadrunner Fabricators, gives away the theme of the place the moment patrons step out of the Visitor Center. Aged and exaggerated in size to convey a sense of the fantastical, it is the “hole in the wall” of the secret garden, beckoning visitors closer.</p> In time, an arbor framing the gateway will be thick with vines and a privet hedge (Ligustrum vulgare ‘</em>Cheyenne’), will become a living fence for the gate, furthering a sense of mystery, as well as concealment.</p> The path, laid by the Gardens’ master mason Robert Smith, meanders like a river, hiding views so that they can then unfold and providing another path into the heart of the Gardens. Bricks are placed lengthwise to draw visitors along and the path is partly sunken to allow wheelchair access and raise the height of beds on either side.</p> As time goes on, something will be in blossom from the time winter goes away until it comes again, and vibrant bark and branch structures will keep the garden lively in between – and, if we are lucky, visitors will feel more and more of the abiding spirit of this space, a delicious sense of retreat and enchantment.</p>
When my professor, Dr. Gerber of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, suggested that I apply for an internship at a botanic garden, I jumped at the opportunity to see what working at an institute that values conservation would be like. I have always been interested in living out west, so I was hoping to find an internship that was in Colorado. When I found Denver Botanic Gardens, I knew it would be the perfect place for me to learn about native plants, continue my plant biology education and explore the mountains.</p> The Plant Records Department consists of a group of women who work year-round to stay up-to-date on the location, blooms and new additions of plants to the collection. Every year, the Horticulture Department sits down to discuss the most important mapping projects for the summer. My main project was to map the new Nexus Garden that Nick Daniel, Gardens horticulture specialist for the cactus and succulent collection, installed with hardy cacti, highlighting a collection of Opuntia </em>hybrids that were developed by a local nursery. Holly Parrott, Gardens plant mapping specialist and one of my amazing mentors, and I would go out to the garden with a tape measure in order to accurately map plants by scaling down the size of the garden into a map-appropriate size.</p> In addition to measuring distances for accuracy, we relied on the stones in the garden that had been precisely mapped using a drone to aid in placing plants on our map. Identifying plants and the sources of plants required either help from the horticulturist of this garden or the help of accession tags placed near the specific species. We often refer to ourselves as “plant investigators” when going through this multifaceted process. After the “plant investigation” was done, I would submit plant locations and photographs into our database.</p> In the future, the plant records team will periodically check on the garden to update the status of the plants and note accordingly. Keeping the database up-to-date is a never-ending process. It is important to map plants so that both the public and the staff can find where a plant is. In addition, a physical description, habit, blooming nature, health, source and important dates are all recorded to maintain accuracy. All of this information can be accessed by the public through the Gardens Navigator</strong></a> plant database website.</p> One of my other minor projects included weekly mappings in the Steppe Garden with Holly. We would frequently map in the Rock Alpine Garden with Mike Kintgen, the curator of the vast rock alpine collection. These gardens are constantly changing and thus need to have continuous attention from the plant records team. In addition, my job included photographing current blooms and measuring hardscape such as troughs, raised beds or stones for the base map. I became proficient in AutoCAD by creating these new map features, which was a bonus to this internship.</p> Through my work, I learned about many of the plants that are native to Colorado, such as spotted evening primrose, yucca, and the vast amount of Penstemon</em> species. Learning these species from the horticulturists at Denver Botanic Gardens was a once in a lifetime experience. The Gardens taught me so much about the Colorado flora, and the importance of mapping plants. I will carry the experiences with me through the rest of my undergraduate degree and will use my acquired skills to apply for graduate school. Through this internship I discovered that I would love to further my studies in native species conservation. This internship made me eager for my future endeavors with all that the plant world has to offer.</p> This blog post was written by plant records intern</em> Skylar Burg. Skylar is a senior at University Wisconsin-La Crosse, where she is majoring in biology with an emphasis on plants and fungus, and a minor in geography. Skylar loves exploring the native flora of Wisconsin in her free time and takes care of her campus greenhouse. As the plant records intern, she is excited to learn about Colorado’s native flora and to experience working with plants and conservation. </em></p>
This summer we began a new research project surveying the High Line Canal to understand the botanical and ecological resources along this corridor through the Denver Metro Area. The High Line Canal spans 71 miles across Colorado from Waterton Canyon in Littleton to Green Valley Ranch east of Denver. Once used to ferry water to the eastern plains for irrigation, the High Line Canal has transformed into a popular biking, walking and horseback riding trail.</p> Many changes occur across these 71 miles in both the trail itself, as well as the surrounding plants and environment. The trail transitions from a wide, hard-packed dirt walking path to a cement sidewalk and to a barely discernible, unmanaged dirt path that could be easily mistaken for any other social trail. The canal, too, goes through a dramatic transformation as it progresses north. The southern reaches of the canal maintain the most reliable water levels throughout the year, but the canal runs dry for most of its length as it winds northward.</p> As the water level changes, so does the associated vegetation. The southern reaches are characterized by very large, very old cottonwoods that tower over the canal like patient sentinels. Long-time hikers of the canal trail (and Denver Botanic Gardens researchers), appreciate the long stretches of shade and cool relief these trees provide on hot summer days. Willows and other moisture-loving shrubs, forbs and grasses make up the understory of these reaches.</p> However, as one follows the trail northeast towards more urban areas, the vegetation changes dramatically to a drier, grassland prairie habitat. Cottonwoods and willows still grow directly adjacent to the canal along some reaches, but grasses and drought tolerant shrubs become the dominant species. Invasive, weedy species such as dandelions, thistles and escaped cultivated species also take over in the drier, more disturbed canal areas.</p> These shifts and transitions make the canal an evolving, dynamic being and allow those who utilize this area for recreation to experience the wide range of plants that Colorado has to offer. We hope that the ecological surveys we conducted this summer will help guide future management and enjoyment of the High Line Canal.</p> This blog post was written by Meghan McGill, seasonal botanist in the Research & Conservation Department.</em></p>
