Despite the balmy 54 degrees Fahrenheit it is as I write this, today is the official start of winter. The winter solstice not only marks the official start of winter but ironically the return to longer and eventually warmer days. Winter has already made several visits to Denver long before the winter solstice this year. Two weeks ago we had highs in the single digits and an official low of -9 degrees at the gardens. Once the thermometer goes below 0 degrees Fahrenheit a profound change takes place in the garden. The cold burns brown or black any perennials or shrubs that were tardily deciduous, now only the true "evergreens" remain to keep us occupied until the first sweeps of brightly colored bulbs enliven the garden sometime in late February or March. Luckily the Rock Alpine Garden has more than its fair share of plants that stay green, silver, or turn shades of chartreuse, red, or purple. Acantholimons or prickly thrift add green, silver, or ghostly gray hedgehog like mounds to the rock garden this time of year. Native to arid regions of Asia they thrive in the Intermountain West. On the same spiky theme is Erinacea anthyllis</em> or the hedgehog broom from Spain, France and Morocco. Its a mystery to me why this plant is not more widely grown in rock gardens or xeriscapes. Asking only for good drainage and full sun it creates dense mounds of olive green stems tipped with a spine. The spines are only painful if you touch the cushions. I have been lucky enough to see great cushions of this plant in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco and the Sierra Nevada of Southern Spain. Still on the spiny trail is Astragalus angustifolius</em> from Greece, while the cold has turned the leaves a pale shade of silver green the cushions are still effective against the bright green of a dwarf spruce. Leaving the spiky theme we move on to saxifrages which sharing the theme with the above plants are ornamental 365 days a year. The porphyllum and encrusted saxifrages are the best for winter effect with their beautiful rossetes of spike like leaves or rounded leaves with patterns of silver, gray, rust and red. Chartreuse also makes its apperance for those that need brighter colors in winter when the needles on Pinus contorta</em> var. latifolia</em> 'Chief Joseph' turn a clear shade of golden green. Hellebrous foetidus</em> sets it off nicely with its dark green leaves. Hellebores are also the only flower currently open in the rock garden with the classic Helleborus niger,</em> the "Christmas rose" opening its first flowers. This particular plant had bloomed reliably every year at Christmas, other individuals in the rock garden of the same species wait until January or February. While winter has officially started there is still much to be seen on these balmy days in the Rock Alpine Garden. </p>
I realize that here in Ski country it's not always popular to complain when the thermometer plummets and your back is saying "enough white stuff already!"...we inveterate gardeners frankly can't wait for spring. How accommodating it is to have crocuses! I took this picture in the Rock Alpine Garden on November 15, just as 14" of snow had just melted. When the latest arctic blast melts away, I suspect these and several other crocuses will be boldly venturing where no sensible bulb has dared to go: namely the depths of winter. You see, we're in the middle of crocus season, after all. It begins in early September when Crocus banaticus </em>opens up, </em>with new species emerging each week through the fall (admittedly tapering off in December) but resuming by January all the way to April some years: that's 8 months when clever gardeners can enjoy a crocus (and quietly pretend it's not really</strong></em> winter)! We grow dozens of species and selections throughout Denver Botanic Gardens, but this graceful imp with impossibly silky texture and luminous lavender chalices rates near the top in my book. We started with a single bulb in 1984. This proliferated and we divided it several times so that now there is a thrifty colony of hundreds of bulbs on the east side of the Cactus and Succulent house blooming for the better part of two months every autumn. This is one of the most recently named wild crocuses, only discovered by Dr. Goulimyi, a Greek botanist, on November 15, 1954, exactly 55 years to the day before this picture was taken! In nature this crocus is restricted to the Mani peninsula of Southern Greece, but it is very plentiful there and now in gardens across the temperate world. Its nearest cousin is Crocus laevigatus</em>, which almost always blooms in Colorado between Christmas and New Years. So the crocus parade continues, and some of us like to pretend it's almost spring already (as we whistle in the icy wind!)...</p>
</p> Did you know that Denver Botanic Gardens is a museum accredited by the American Association of Museums? We are proud to announce the addition of an ethnobotanical herbarium to the list of official museum collections at the Gardens. The other collections are:</p> The Library (botanical, including rare books)</li> The art collection</li> The living collections: Cactus and Succulents, Alpine, Native Plants, Aquatic Plants, Steppe Climate Plants, Tropicals and Amenity</li> The Sam Mitchel Herbarium of Fungi</li> The Kathryn Kalmbach Herbarium (plants)</li> </ul> The 12th collection, the Ethnobotany Collection, documents those plants that are being used or have been used in the past by humans in our region. These include medicinals, plants used for spiritual purposes, plants used to track the seasons, aphrodisiacs and others. There are three main components of the collection: The Market Collection (specimens purchased at Botanicas and other Native and Hispanic markets), Colorado Native Plants (species that grow in our region that are used by people), and Plants Used by Native Americans. The collection will be a resource to educators, Gardens staff, researchers, and the interested general public. This newest collection is made possible by the donations and expertise of Dr. Don Hazlett, Gardens Adjunct Researcher, who has volunteered many hours compiling and curating the collection. He has been aided by Virginia Till, another valuable Gardens volunteer with particular interest in ethnobotany. "We are very fortunate to have Dr. Hazlett doing this work" says Dina Clark, Curator of the Kathryn Kalmbach Herbarium who made the presentation of the proposal to the board last week, "The Ethnobotany Collection is a real asset to Denver Botanic Gardens that supports each of our core values of sustainability, diversity, relevance and transformation." </p> This blog post was written by Anna Sher, Ph.D.</em>, adjunct researcher and former director of the Research & Conservation Department at Denver Botanic Gardens.</em></p>
</p> Three new Colorado records of mushroom species were discovered among our collections of our Sam Mitchel Herbarium of Fungi, thanks to a visit from Gasteromycete specialist, Dr. Scott Bates. Dr. Bates identified a Tulostoma</em> and a Geastrum</em> (an earth star, pictured above) which have never been documented as occurring in the state before now. </p> The Geastrum</em> has been collected three times throughout the last decade right here in the Botanic Gardens, presumably brought in by landscaping projects and then the spores have migrated with the help of our gardeners. It has not been reported here in the wild but Scott Bates has recorded it from Arizona in natural habitats. These are puffball-type mushrooms, fungi that form pretty, bulbous, white fruiting bodies; what we know as mushrooms are the fruiting body or reproductive part of the fungi, which is mostly underground. The photo below shows Bob Brace, a former herbarium volunteer, holding a fine specimen.</p> </p> Because identification of mushrooms is so difficult, it is believed that only a very small percentage of existing species are even known to science. Hence, identification by visiting experts is critical for any herbarium to determine if previously collected specimens might have been misidentified, or to update names that have been changed. Dr. Bates has extensively studied the Gastromycetes (puffballs </em>and their allies) in desert areas of Arizona and has a great interest in our specimens that have been found in prairies and mesas of Colorado.</p> This blog post was written by Anna Sher, Ph.D.</em>, adjunct researcher and former director of the Research & Conservation Department at Denver Botanic Gardens.</em></p>
Get a head start on your holiday shopping with this fun night out activity: The Gardens’ Holiday Sale Preview Party! Be the first to shop among our finest vendors, while enjoying a leisurely experience complete with samples of wine from D’Vine Wine and chocolate fondue samples from the Melting Pot--plus enjoy live holiday entertainment all evening. There will be chances to win tickets to Trail of Lights, Blossoms of Light or a Gardens membership. Limited tickets will be sold for this event so you can enjoy shopping to the fullest without the crowds. So grab your friends and have a fun night out! Some perks:</p> Free parking and complimentary gift wrapping</li> Music live in the main building from 5-8:30 p.m.</li> Carolers in the crossroads from 5-6:30 p.m. and 7:15-8:15 p.m.</li> </ul> Don’t Miss Out! Friday, Nov. 13, 2009 from 5 – 8:30 p.m. Admission: $15 Buy your tickets here >></p>
</p> Autumn is imbued with intimations of mortality: dying leaves, dormancy, doom, gloom, Hallowe'en colors and ghosts and spooks: Boo! Gardeners know another side of this "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness": there are a number of plants that only begin </strong>blooming in September, with one or another species coming on until the spring: Hellebores, crocuses, cyclamen and witch hazels are all plants that have a different notion of the growing season. It's their spring right now! A well stocked collection of any of these genera begins with heavy bloom in October and one or another will keep blooming right until the hot days of late spring when they go dormant (so to speak) for the summer doldrums. These are my kind of plants! Crocuses for most of us means the bright orangy-yellow Crocus flavus </em>or C. ancyrensis</em> among a host of others, not to mention the Dutch giants derived from C. vernus</em>. Although pitifully few Coloradoans grow them, crocuses will thrive almost anywhere they are planted in a Colorado garden: dry or wet, sunny or shady. They love it here. Now is a great time to plant these spring bloomers for a splash of color in February and March. There are another group of true crocuses that wait until October to put on their show. These you must order early in the season and plant in September preferably. Denver Botanic Gardens boasts wonderful plantings of these in many gardens: they are among the largest flowered plants in their genus and have flowers of a luminous shades of lavender, purple and occasionally white. Ten days ago we had a precocious bout of winter that froze many leaves and diminished our autumn beauty. But I have never seen the autumn crocuses bloom more spectacularly than they have the last few weeks. I am not talking about the pink Colchicums that go by that name (they are mostly done and are in the Lily family and have six stamens: true crocuses are related to irises and have only three stamens!). Above you have Crocus speciosus</em>, the commonest and bluest of the autumn crocus which is blooming in the east west pathway and the Rock Alpine Garden right now. Below is C. nudiflorus</em> in my own home garden. An even darker C. medius</em> will be blooming the next few weeks in the Rock Alpine Garden. Remind me to order more of these and the rest next year for my garden! To walk into a garden where dozens of unearthly, fluted goblets of autumn crocuses are gently trembling in the autumn breeze is heavenly. It's as though they are toasting the start of the crocus season with their beakers, full of sky blue or evening lavender. Cheers! </p>
</p> It is with utmost pleasure that I report that the official dedication of the Sam Mitchel Herbarium of Fungi was a smashing success. Approximately 45 colleagues, friends, and admirers of the late Dr. Mitchel met for a formal luncheon today with presentations by Vera Evenson, Curator of the Herbarium; Dr. Barry Rumack, Colleague who worked with Sam on mushroom poisoning research; Dr. Hope Miller, mycologist; and Rosa Lee Brace, long time friend, patient and colleague of Sam's. </p> Denver Botanic Gardens is proud to introduce the Sam Mitchel Herbarium of Fungi. To honor his memory, an endowment was established to support the scientific application of the collection. The primary goal for the Herbarium of Fungi is to continue to realize Sam Mitchel’s vision of a premier Rocky Mountain fungal collection that serves the public and scientific communities by continually expanding and improving collections, contributing to education programs, serving the Rocky Mountain Poison Control Center, and other activities.</p> </p> Dr. Duane H. "Sam" Mitchel (1917-1993) was a medical doctor by training. He turned a love of wild fungi into a second profession in 1965 when he established a collection of preserved fungi at Denver Botanic Gardens. He donated his time, equipment and supplies to create the foundation of our mycological lab; the first with proper documentation of collections for this region. Dr. Mitchel’s initial collection of almost 4,000 specimens was the foundation for our now world-class collection of over 24,000 specimens, including several type specimens (the original voucher for a newly discovered species). The fungal herbarium at Denver Botanic Gardens is now the largest and best curated collection of Rocky Mountain fungi in existence.</p> This blog post was written by Anna Sher, Ph.D.</em>, former director of the Research & Conservation Department at Denver Botanic Gardens.</em></p>
Have you ever wondered what really happens within plants to help them carry on through the winter? As autumn approaches, the sun begins to set closer to the horizon, leading to cooler nights and shorter day lengths. This sends a warning signal to plants that winter is soon approaching and that they need to get ready to go into dormancy, which is similar to hibernation in animals. During dormancy, the plants stop growing, fluids within cells stop flowing and the tender growing tips are enclosed in a tight, frost resistant bud. Before entering this dormancy, the leaves of the plants turn from green to yellow, orange, or red before dropping to the ground. So, what causes the change in leaf color? In leaves, both the green chlorophyll and the yellow-orange carotenoid pigments occur within the chloroplasts. Since there are more chlorophyll pigments than the carotenoid pigments, the leaves appear green. In the fall, the chlorophyll pigments decompose allowing the caretenoids to express themselves as orange and yellow. In some plants, the leaf cells produce red pigments, the anthocyanins. In these leaves, once the chlorophyll has decomposed, the anthocyanins mask the caretenoids, thus turning the leaves red. The change in color and dropping of leaves are the plants' way of avoiding freezing damage to themselves. During freezing, the water within the cells of leaves turn to ice, causing disruption of the tissues. These damaged tissues become inviting sites for fungi and bacteria to invade the plant. In order to prevent microbial invasion, plants drop their leaves and form a protective seal over the areas where the leaves were once attached before the freeze damage can occur. Even though plants look lifeless in the winter, be assured that they are ever sensitive of their surroundings, keeping tabs on the temperature and day length before getting ready to spring back to life!</p>
We think of passion flowers as something exotic, tropical and certainly not something you can grow in Colorado. Fiddlesticks! There is a garden in Littleton where passion flowers are practically a problem. Sandy Snyder (who worked at Denver Botanic Gardens for 17 years as horticulturist) has perhaps the finest private garden in the metro area. The south side of her house is positively DRAPED with passion flowers (see below): in fact, she weeds them out (they do sucker a bit much, you know). Right now, the whole glorious wall boasts hundreds of these frilly, incredible Faberge gem-like blossoms. I know a garden in West Denver (Jim and Dorothy Borland) that has a similarly rambunctious white flowered passion flower growing just as vigorously. Sandy's plant originally came from the South Denver garden of Tom and Ann Johnson, who passed away decades ago--great gardeners whose plant and memory lives on. We have not yet managed to grow this outdoors at Denver Botanic Gardens, although we have quite a few passion flowers in the conservatory and containers. But I suspect one day we will. Isn't it amazing what the great gardeners of our area are doing? </p>
</p> Have you ever wanted to go on a mushroom hunt? Your opportunity has arrived. Join the Colorado Mycological Society September 18-20 for the Rocky Mountain National Park Mycoblitz. The mycoblitz, an event where a group of people get together for a short period of time to identify mushrooms in a given area, will be the second to be held at Rocky Mountain National Park. The mycoblitz is a joint endeavour between the Colorado Mycological Society (CMS), Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) and Denver Botanic Gardens Sam Mitchel Herbarium of Fungi. This is the second year of this important activity designed to document the types of macrofungi growing in 10 selected habitats throughout the Park in a short period of time. The 24-36 hour period is varied from year to year in order to survey the great variety of mushrooms fruiting in varied ecological niches in the Park. The essential aspect of a scientific Mycoblitz is ‘vouchering’ each specimen. This involves careful collecting by dozens of volunteers, identification of each by specialists (Dr. Michael Kuo and DBG's own Vera Evenson) using macro and micro features, photographing, drying, and labeling each collection. As in 2008, the RMNP specimens will be brought to the Sam Mitchel Herbarium of Fungi for further documentation, databasing, and permanent integration into our diverse collection. Collections made during the 2008 mycoblitz include at least 4 new-to Colorado species within the genera Phaeocollybia</em>, Galerina</em>, Suillus</em>, and Russula.</em></p> You never know what treasures may be found, a new species of Amanita</em> was found in a bioblitz at Soapstone Prairie Natural Area earlier this summer. For more information on how to participate visit the CMS RMNP mycoblitz website or the MycoRant. For more information about the Sam Mitchel Herbarium of Fungi visit our web page.</p>
Concert season is over for the year both at our York Street and Chatfield locations. We had a dazzling array of talented musicians here again this year, and the Gardens have never looked better.</p> </p> I wasn’t able to make it to all of the concerts, however at every show I was fortunate enough to attend I saw the same couple up and dancing in the area in front of the stage. At the second-to-last concert, I finally had the opportunity to meet these music aficionados. Rick Hum and his wife Karen, longtime members of the Gardens, along with a loyal group of friends, attend most of the concerts together. They do a little research on the various artists that play at the Gardens and talk about the artists' backgrounds and history while enjoying their picnic dinner on the lawn before the concert. Here are some helpful tips from Rick Hum on attending concerts next year that I think you will find useful. Thanks, Rick, for your great insight. I'll see you front and center at our first concert next year!</p> </p> Making the most of your concert experience at Denver Botanic Gardens.</strong> Denver Botanic Gardens is the finest concert venue in Colorado. The intimacy of the grass bowl, the staging, the comfortable listening and the opportunity to bring your picnic dinner and beverages make the concerts at the Gardens a wonderful opportunity. There are some members of the Gardens that have taken concert-going beyond the simple picnic and two-hour concert. Here are some suggestions to maximize your Gardens concert experience next year: Get in line early. This provides best concert seating but also allows time to enjoy pre-concert activities.</li> Meet and make friends with others who come early and are in line.</li> Bring champagne [York Street only] and hors d’oeuvres. This increases your pleasure and helps you make friends.</li> Use your membership to walk in the Gardens during the afternoon [York Street only]. Once you've made friends in line, taking a little time to visit the Gardens is usually no problem.</li> Create a friendly and considerate culture among concert participants and those in line.</li> Bring rain gear and umbrellas, just in case.</li> Eat a light dinner before the music starts.</li> Get up and dance!</strong></li> </ul> </blockquote>
