It’s a little hard to believe, but fall truly is upon us. The days are shorter, the air is crisper and, any day now, the trees will let go of their leaves and keep us busy raking until November. During this time of the year, many visitors ask if there are still plants worth seeing in the outdoor displays. Certainly, many flowers are still putting on a show. The easiest way to find them is to follow the hordes of bees and butterflies collecting the last bits of pollen to aid in their journey south or to prepare for their winter break. However, fall is also the best time to appreciate some of the plant features that are overlooked in the warmer months. Among these are berries, evergreen foliage and interesting bark patterns.</p> The snowberry shrub (Symphoricarpus albus)</em>, so called because of the many clusters of small, white berries, is a plant that becomes more beautiful as its leaves begin to drop. Most seasons, the berries persist through the winter providing food for foraging birds. A large group of these shrubs can be seen along the Monet Pond as you enter the Japanese Garden.</p> Another group of plants with a spectacular late-season fruit set are the prickly pear cacti (Opuntia spp.</em>). Throughout several of our gardens, including Water-Smart Garden and Dryland Mesa, Opuntia phaeacantha</em> are covered in fruit that is not only beautiful, but also quite delicious once all the spines are removed!</p> In addition to thriving in dry conditions and producing a gorgeously scented bloom in late spring, the semi-evergreen foliage of Daphne ‘Carol Mackie’ (Daphne x burkwoodii </em>‘Carol Mackie’) also provides an interesting texture to the fall landscape. Deciduous evergreen shrubs are somewhat hard to come by in Colorado; for some of the best examples at the Gardens, check out the Romantic Gardens.</p> My last suggestion for appreciating the Gardens in fall is to admire the tree bark that is so often overshadowed by leaves and flowers during the growing season. That being said, my number one recommendation happens to be the bark of an evergreen tree, Pinus bungeana, </em>or the Lacebark Pine. You must make a visit to the Birds and Bees Walk to see the camouflage-like bark of this gorgeous specimen!</p>
I am a horticulture student from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln entering my junior year. My hometown is the very small, rural town of Ulysses, Nebraska, home to maybe one hundred people. I was chosen to be the propagation intern at Denver Botanic Gardens, an experience that has proven to be unforgettable in many ways. I never fathomed what a city like Denver could be like, so my seven-hour drive to Denver was both terrifying and exciting.</p> When I met Senior Horticulturist Katy Wilcox-Wieczorek, I knew without a doubt that I had a special mentor. She guided me through my daily work and my intern project, answering any questions and making sure that all of our practices were at the highest standards and our methods were scientifically sound.</p> I did many different tasks daily including collecting seeds and cuttings from the Gardens, planting seeds, preparing seeds for long-term cold storage, cleaning seeds, preparing plant cuttings for propagation, transplanting seedlings and rooted plant cuttings, controlling insects and weeds through integrated pest management practices and lots and lots of watering.</p> My intern project focused on determining how well old seed germinated and had three main parts. First, I identified seed from several different plant families that we were interested in studying and that we currently had in long-term storage. Next we germinated those seeds to discover the rate of germination, and lastly we compared time in storage with the rate of germination.</p> I planted about 110 samples of seed (over 50 different species of plants) and collected data on germination rates, times and growth rates every Monday through Thursday. After recording and interpreting the data, I could give Katy a clear chart calculating how long she could potentially keep seed until it became unviable. It also provided data on how often she should collect seed.</p> This unforgettable summer was filled to the brim with excitement, entertainment, hiking and of course more knowledge and education than I could have ever dreamed. I loved every minute of it and I can’t wait to come back and visit.</p> I would like to thank everybody at Denver Botanic Gardens who made this opportunity possible and made this experience so incredible. I would also like to thank my host family, who was extremely welcoming and supported me 110% throughout this whole internship. I cannot thank them enough for graciously opening their doors to me. I encountered so many spectacular opportunities this summer and realized “terrifying” could translate into “momentous!”</p> By Propation Intern Olivia Fiala</em></p>
</p>Today, the first batch of pumpkins arrived on site for Glow at the Gardens™. Our pumpkin carving team will spend the first half of next week cleaning, gutting and carving hundreds of giant gourds to create our one-of-a-kind pumpkin sculptures. And while all this carving is a challenge in such a short time, the harder part is actually coming up with the designs in the first place.</p>Know Your Canvas</strong>Each year, we brainstorm dozens of ideas for sculpture designs. The possibilities seem endless! However, we’ve learned that certain kinds of designs may sound great at first, but they don’t necessarily render well when carved into pumpkins. What will the pumpkins look like in the dark, with only the carved portions visible? Will the design require a level of detail that will be too time-consuming and challenging for our carvers to achieve? Is the design one that will look good when pieced together across multiple pumpkins rather than on a single canvas? If you’ve ever struggled with a design for one jack-o-lantern, imagine sculpting 50-60 together to create a unified image!</p>Unpredictable Colorado Weather</strong>If we know anything about Colorado in October, it’s that the weather is highly unpredictable. As you probably know if you’ve left a jack-o-lantern on the porch during an October snowstorm, pumpkins don’t fare so well when it’s cold. They also don’t like unseasonably hot weather. With this in mind, we’ve worked to think about designs that will allow us to wrap or move pumpkin sculpture to protect them from the elements.</p>Structure & Safety</strong>Because real pumpkins are far heavier than foam ones, we 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>Lighting & Props</strong>Lighting our pumpkins is almost as important as carving them. Inside lighting, outside lighting, accent lighting, and non-pumpkin props all add to the sculpture and help our audience interpret them. This year, we’re even adding sound effects to a couple of the designs!</p>We’re looking forward to seeing the pumpkin sculpture designs for this year’s Glow at the Gardens finally come to life, and we hope you’ll join us to see them too!</p>Tickets are limited and a sellout is anticipated.</strong> Purchase tickets online or at the Bonfils-Stanton Visitor Center.</p>
Colorado is known worldwide for its lush mountain habitats with towering forests of pine, fir and aspen. This grand topography, tied to a romantic history of silver mining and pioneer grit, shapes much of the state’s identity. Yet it is only one part of Colorado’s unique ecological and human story.</p> The Eastern Plains of Colorado comprise 40 percent of the state’s land, boasting their own natural beauty and rich history of people forging close ties to the land. In an age when people are aggregating in cities and, some might argue, losing touch with the faraway lands that provide their food and fiber, rural landowners are becoming critical stewards of our ecological treasures.</p> Cattle ranching is a major part of the agricultural economy on the Eastern Plains. In contrast to planting crops, which is a (necessary) land use that displaces native plants and animals, grazing can support diverse and ecologically important habitat. This is because sustainable cattle grazing mimics historic conditions, when bison roamed the prairies feeding on native grasses. The result is that many ranchers in eastern Colorado steward healthy grassland habitats that reduce soil erosion, filter water and enhance groundwater recharge, and support abundant wildlife. Now consider two things: private grazing lands cover nearly one-third of the nation, and many of these grasslands are woefully under-studied from a botanical perspective.</p> Botanical inventories form the foundation of plant biodiversity research, which aims to understand where different species occur and why. Such understanding has far-reaching applications, from documenting where medically important plants occur, to determining how species will respond to global change. During a botanical inventory, individuals of different plant species are collected and accessioned into a herbarium, where both the specimen and its associated data are curated in perpetuity.</p> At Denver Botanic Gardens, we have more than 60,000 plants accessioned in the Kathryn Kalmbach Herbarium. We are still growing the collection to expand knowledge about Colorado’s plant communities. A look at the numbers reveals a striking gap in what we know about grasslands: of more than half a million plant collections made in Colorado since the early 1700s, less than 30,000 (5 percent) are from the 14 counties that make up the state’s rural Eastern Plains. This lack of data represents a serious challenge to conserving one of the nation’s major ecosystems.</p> This past summer, staff and volunteers from the Gardens had the opportunity to survey well-stewarded, private grazing lands in Kiowa County, which is in the southeastern corner of the state on the border of Kansas. Unbroken (never ploughed or tilled) grassland habitat provides the closest representation of pristine prairie available to researchers today. We surveyed beautiful sandhill sage prairie habitat on the properties of Cardon G. Berry and Cathryn Anderson, both of whom have long-time family ranches.</p> If you have not seen sandhill sage prairie, Go East, young men and women! This habitat occurs on deep, sandy soils associated with dune systems and ancient floodplains. Sandhill sage (Artemisia filifolia</em>) shrubs have thread-like silvery leaves filled with aromatic compounds that perfume the sun-warmed prairie air. A sea of visually and taxonomically diverse grasses, including blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis</em>), sand bluestem (Andropogon hallii</em>), and western wheatgrass (Pascopyrum smithii</em>), grow within the shrub matrix. During the team’s September survey, many of the grasses had dehisced (let loose) their anthers, presenting an explosion of miniature yellow, magenta, and orange streamers to those with a keen eye. Several species with showy flowers streaked the prairie with late-season color. One of our favorites of the trip, a golden beauty of the daisy family, Pectis angustifolia</em>, smelled of the freshest lemons in Italy when crushed (true to one of its common names, Limoncello).</p> Despite the lure of so many olfactory and visual distractions, the field team, led by Dr. Janet Wingate, collected over 48 county records in Kiowa this year! This fact is both inspiring and sobering: inspiring because our own backyards still hold the promise of fresh discovery; sobering because until we document what is in our own backyards, we cannot hope to conserve them for future generations. We thank the private landowners who helped us explore another corner of the world this field season!</p>
Gardens and hospitals are both recognized as places of healing, but it’s not always obvious how the two can work together.</p> As the therapeutic horticulture intern for Denver Botanic Gardens this summer, I not only worked in the York Street Sensory Garden, but I also trained with the horticultural therapist at Craig Hospital. This collaboration offers a blended learning environment with unique opportunities for growth.</p> Denver Botanic Gardens approaches the healing effects of nature by completely immersing and engulfing visitors in thoughtfully designed gardens. The Sensory Garden is filled to the brim with fascinating plants that engage all of the senses, not just sight. One of the projects I accomplished this summer was to create a self-guided tour to help the visitors get the most out of their time in the Sensory Garden. The tour highlights key sensory features of the garden, along with some facts about the plants they will encounter.</p> I encourage all the visitors to the Gardens to come to the Sensory Garden and try out this new guide to see how in-touch you are with your senses! You might be amazed at what gets overlooked. The sensory tour can be found on the Gardens Navigator website</a>.</p> Horticulture therapy at Craig Hospital focuses on accomplishing specific patient goals before they are discharged from the hospital. These goals could be anything from increasing fine motor skills to finding more adaptable ways to get out and keep doing the things they love to do, like gardening. For some patients, recovering the ability to garden after a traumatic injury could be just as therapeutic as learning to walk again. The patients look beyond the limitations of their accident and gain a new outlook on their abilities.</p> Through my exposure to both therapeutic horticulture programs I was able to invite an outpatient of Craig Hospital to work with me as a volunteer once a week in the Sensory Garden. This gave me the chance to work with a patient on specific skills in an immersive garden setting. Gardening is a passion of hers and working closely with me and other volunteers and staff has provided her with the opportunity to work on other therapies, like occupational therapy and speech therapy that are helpful to her recovery.</p> The partnership between the Gardens and Craig Hospital is a perfect example of how collaboration leads to innovation, and how our connections with the natural world are both strong and necessary for a healthier life.</p> This post was contributed by Horticulture Therapy Intern Kristina Gehrer</em></p>
</p> This weekend, gardeners will flock to our annual Fall Plant & Bulb Sale</a>, where scores of spring-blooming bulbs and hardy fall plants will be available for purchase and our horticulturists will offer expert advice on how to grow them. Free admission to the Plant Sale and to the Gardens.</p> This year, you can also sit in on a free lecture by Mike Smedley, a bulbs enthusiast who grows over 10,000 bulbs in his home garden in Durango, CO. A humor columnist for his local paper, Mike has more juicy stories about bulbs than we even knew existed. We asked him to share a few interesting tidbits as a little sneak peek before his lectures this weekend, and here’s what he had to say.</p> What are the differences between a bulb, a rhizome, a tuber and a corm? </em></strong></p> The term “bulb” lumps together “geophytes,” or things that grow in the ground and have stored energy that will be used for next season’s growth. Bulbs are the “Happy Meals” of horticulture because everything is right there ready to go: all you need to do is plant them! That being said, there are some major difference between a bulb, rhizome, tuber or corm.</p> Bulbs</strong> – If you slice open a “bulb” with a knife, you will see layers kind of like an onion. These layers are the leaves that will emerge; meanwhile, in the middle you will find the beginnings of a flower. The bottom of the bulb will have roots. Examples of true bulbs are tulips, daffodils, amaryllis, lilies and garlic.</li> Rhizomes</strong> – Rhizomes are underground stems that are fleshy and not woody. They grow horizontally at ground level and have “eyes” or buds from which growth will emerge. The most well-known are bearded iris and canna lilies.</li> Tubers</strong> – Think of a potato. Tubers have “eyes.” From each eye, a stem will grow. Tubers can be cut into pieces as long as each piece has an eye. The best-known tubers are caladiums and dahlias.</li> Corms</strong> – These look like bulbs, but if you cut them open, you won’t find the onion-like “layers.” The insides will be solid and whitish or cream-colored. Familiar corms include crocus and gladiolas.</li> </ul> How long have humans been cultivating bulbs? Where and when did cultivation begin?</em></strong></p> No one really knows exactly how long people have been growing and fussing over bulbs, but we have a few clues. Saffron (which comes from the three red stigmas found in each crocus bloom) appears in a 7th century BC Assyrian botanical treatise, so we can safely assume crocus cultivation began long before that. The Bible also mentions several geophytes, including iris, garlic and saffron. Meanwhile, the first drawings of lilies found in Crete date back to 1580 BC, and Asiatic lilies are mentioned in writing in Chinese tests from 78-140 AD.</p> There’s a record of the Seljuk Turks growing tulips around 1000 AD in what is now Baghdad, but since they brought those bulbs with them from their homeland on the Central Asian steppes, it is likely they had been raising them for much longer than that. Daffodils, probably the most hybridized bulbs on the planet, are native to the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) but have been grown all over the world for thousands of years because of their portability in dormancy. </p> Where are some of the strangest tales of bulbs in our history?</em></strong></p> Western and Eastern mythology and history are rich with references to bulbs. Narcissus, the true name of a daffodil, is the identity of a tragic Greek character who fell in love with his own reflection. Daffodils were also carried by Roman legions to the British Isles, where they have now become a state symbol of Wales, despite the fact that they are not native. The “saffron crocus” is probably a form of a crocus that Bronze Age folks of the Mediterranean harvested so extensively that it eventually became a sterile corm. When Hercules wrestled Cerberus, a vicious three-headed dog who guarded the Underworld, Cerberus foamed at the mouth and wherever he drooled, a winter aconite sprang forth.</p> Perhaps the most sordid tale in bulb history occurred on a cold February day in 1637, when the entire Dutch economy imploded after a commodities bubble burst. What caused this? Tulips. Ordinary citizens became swept up in buying and selling tulip bulbs, with no intention of ever planting them. Tulip futures trading reached ridiculous speculative proportions. One lone tulip bulb was reportedly traded for wheat, rye, four oxen, eight pigs, 12 sheep, two vats of wine, four kegs of beer, two tons of butter, 1,000 pounds of cheese, a bed, some clothes and a silver cup! One day, the trading just stopped and prices utterly collapsed, leaving the last traders with massive debts that couldn’t possibly be paid and a court system so backlogged with breach of contract suits that the judiciary refused to hear anything about tulips. It was all very embarrassing and humiliating. Interestingly, the Dutch are now the leading importers of bulbs, though without the speculative pricing!</p> What are the newest varieties of bulbs?</em></strong></p> New named varieties of bulbs come onto the market each year, primarily from the Big Three – Crocus, Daffodils and Tulips. Each will have some sort of a “new” trait. I’ve noticed that daffodil breeders have a thing of late for pink cups. The Orange Monarch is an exciting new crocus. And the annual parade of new tulips is astonishing. Just when you think the tulip couldn’t be more colorful, along comes a new variety!</p> Want to learn more about the fascinating history of bulbs and buy some bulbs of your own? Stop by the Fall Plant & Bulb Sale this Saturday and Sunday, September 23 and 24, from 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. Lectures will take place in the All-America Selections Garden at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. each day. </strong></p>
I feel lucky enough to have grown up amid Tennessee’s lush and rolling hills, and more recently to have lived alongside the Great Smoky Mountains. Unsurprisingly, Steppe regions are not commonly discussed in southern Appalachia. So naturally, I gravitated towards the Steppe Garden, mostly because it was the furthest thing from what I was used to. When I was told I would be working in the Steppe Garden I felt incredibly lucky.</p> This summer I was brought on as the Plant Records Intern; the majority of my efforts were dedicated to documenting and mapping the many fantastic species within the Steppe Garden. I was able to learn more about the plants indigenous to the many Steppe regions of the world. Walking through this garden I saw so many fantastic and unique species, from the wild Lithops</em> in the Living Stones bed to the sweet creeping gold buttons (Cotula)</em> in the South African beds. Although, what I enjoyed most was hearing the history behind the plants, which occasionally involved stories of their retrieval from different countries around the world. The Steppe Garden is such a wonderful representation of so much history and geography. This garden truly is a wonder, and is well worth a visit.</p> Due to the newness of the Steppe Garden, mapping and documentation the plant collection often had its challenges. The process is detailed and rewarding and I was able to work closely with staff members to identify the different specimens within a bed that I needed to record, map and photograph. Through this process I was able to learn a lot about the plants native to these regions.</p> This process may seem tedious, but it not only enhances the Gardens’ internal database, but also improves Gardens Navigator</a>, our public plant database. This is an incredible resource for staff members and visitors alike. Gardens Navigator allows staff to easily locate specific plant material or acquire other information about the plant, regarding bloom time, habit, source, etc. Visitors can use it as a tool to identify the plants they are seeing throughout the Gardens. Here is Gardens Navigator website</a>.</p> While I was able to map and photograph a significant part of the plants in the Steppe Garden during my time as the Plant Records Intern, keeping our database current is an on-going process. As the Gardens continues to evolve, having a capable plant records team becomes increasingly essential. It is not often that people consider this to be an important part of botanic gardens, however, I was able to learn how invaluable they are to a garden of this scale. The Gardens has a wonderful plant records team, and being able to work alongside them was truly fantastic. Being able to hand visitors the tools to learn and explore is such a large part of what the Gardens do, and being able to further sharpen those tools was an excellent way to spend a summer.</p> Chloe Reeves is a senior at the University of Tennessee, majoring in Plant Sciences with a concentration in Public Horticulture. She came to the university from Nashville, Tennessee where she was born and raised. Moving forward, she has hopes to work towards a masters in Landscape Architecture.</em></p>
This year Denver Botanic Gardens is celebrating the 50th Anniversary of its fungal herbarium, the largest collection of Rocky Mountain mushrooms and fleshy fungi in the North American continent. The herbarium is home to more than 18,000 mushrooms, puffballs and other fungi of many varieties and 80% are from Colorado. All this started by the simple passion of Dr. Duane “Sam” Mitchel, the namesake of the Sam Mitchel Herbarium of Fungi.</p> In celebration of the herbarium’s anniversary, Vera Evenson, curator of the Sam Mitchel Herbarium, and I decided to pay a visit to Sam’s former Ranch. The home he lived in is just south of Edwards, Colorado, where he made some of his first collections. Many of these now reside in the herbarium that bears his name.</p> With some direction from Sam’s son Kirk Mitchel, I contacted the realtors that sold the ranch and they introduced me to the current owners of the property. With the current owners’ permission, Vera and I took the trip on July 29 to see what we could find.</p> Driving through the valley on the way to Sam’s former Ranch, I could see what enchanted him so much about the area. Overlooked by New York Mountain, and bordered by fir and aspen, the valley was lush and clearly a place where any mushroom enthusiast would enjoy spending time. This is where Sam’s sons approached him with some mushrooms asking him what they were. The question motivated Sam so much that he ended up pursuing answers to the diversity of Colorado fungi for the next 25+ years.</p> While on the property, Vera and I visited what Kirk called “God’s half acre.” This name made sense given that the recent rains created such a lush and damp environment along a tree-lined creek. The place was practically heaven for mushrooms.</p> There was a lovely Pluteus</em>. Wood decaying Stropharia</em> were growing all over the place. I also found what I considered to be a charismatic LBM (little brown mushroom) that likely belongs to the Gymopus</em>/Marasmius</em> group. And there was a beautiful polypore, Phellinus tremulae,</em> growing on aspen.</p> Perhaps the find of the day was another LBM I found. After bringing it back to the herbarium, we were able to identify it as Tubaria confragosa</em>. As luck would have it, our herbarium had only one other specimen of this. That specimen was collected in 1969 by Sam Mitchel on his ranch. As a scientist, I don’t spend a lot of time pondering about mystical forces in the universe, but when something like this happens I’d be lying I said I didn’t enjoy thinking about it.</p> Because of this trip we were able to add several new collections to the Sam Mitchel Herbarium. The trip was very enlightening and I enjoyed the thought of walking through the same woods that Sam collected in nearly half a century ago. After all this time I think Sam would be happy to see what his little herbarium has turned into, and that his simple passion for studying mushrooms ended up becoming his legacy.</p> “I practice medicine to make a living and I study mushrooms to make living worthwhile.” - Sam Mitchel</p> Our visit would not have been possible without the generosity of Bob Lentz and Bob Avis who were kind enough to allow us to roam their property, much like Sam did 50 years ago. Also, thanks to Pete Seibert and Deborah Wittman for facilitating contact with the current owners of the ranch.</em></p>
