Autumn is right around the corner, and before you sigh because that means summer is ending, I want to show all the reasons why fall at the Gardens is a very, very good thing.</p> </p> 5 Special Events</a> (with discounts on tickets or purchases for members)</h4> Corn Maze at Chatfield Farms</li> Fall Plant & Bulb Sale at York Street</li> Pumpkin Festival at Chatfield Farms</li> Glow at the Gardens at York Street</li> Día de los Muertos at York Street</li> </ol> </p> 4 Places to Wield Your Membership Card</h4> Members get 10% off at the Hive Garden Bistro, Offshoots Café, Copper Door Coffee Roasters</a> and at the Shop at the Gardens</a>. Look for tasty fall or harvest-themed food and drink items and, of course, autumn décor and gifts at the Shop! So show that card and enjoy.</p> </p> 3 New Art Exhibitions </h4> Including sculptural forms (Fervor: Ana María Hernando</em></a>), augmented reality (Seeing the Invisible</em></a>) and a 15-foot-tall Aztec deity (Alebrije: Xólotl</a></em>), which you can experience in our new gallery spaces, out on the grounds or in the Freyer - Newman Center. </p> </p> 2nd Spring</h4> Okay, technically it's fall, but if you think the beautiful blooms fade with your suntan, you must visit the Gardens in September and October! Ornamental grasses</a> turn all kinds of rusty, sunset hues; all kinds of asters</a> are bursting from the gardens; and it feels like nature is giving us a glorious send-off before it goes dormant for the winter. Plus, that sizzling summer sun has backed off a bit, and the light is golden and perfect for photo ops. Your membership gives you unlimited general admission, so you can visit all fall long.</p> </p> 1 Membership</strong> gets you all of this! And this is just for fall--we haven't even talked about summer, spring and winter. Continuing education classes</a> change seasonally, as do special events, art exhibitions, and, of course, all of the incredible horticultural displays onsite.</p> I hope to see you at the Gardens soon.</p> </p> If you're not a member, join today</a> to take advantage of everything the Gardens has to offer. </p> </p> </p> </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>
I have fond memories of being a child and walking next to Grandpa as he rototilled the garden. There is something comforting about the smell and texture of newly tilled soil. As an adult, though, I’ve learned that leaves the soil exposed to wind and rain and the resulting erosion can be devastating. </p> The best way to prevent erosion is to “armor” the soil, i.e. keep it covered. Cover crops, as their name suggests, are a great way to do this. Plant some rye and vetch seeds in the fall as you are putting your garden to bed for the season. In the spring, knock down the growth or mow it and the residue will increase organic matter as it decomposes. The natural mulch will also shade the soil, keeping it cool and reducing evaporative water-loss. </p> </picture> </div> </article> Chatfield Farms CSA</p> The cover crop roots will produce exudates, or food for microbes and fungi in the soil. Those microbes and fungi are bringing nutrients to plant roots and establishing the foundation of a complex ecosystem in the soil. The result is a stable soil, full of spaces for new roots to grow, and allow water and oxygen to infiltrate. </p> Having a garden full of plants and living roots, instead of clean-looking, bare soil takes some getting used to. Especially if, like me, you have grown up tilling your soil every year, but the benefits are worth it. If you would like to learn more about soil health, look at the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s (NRCS) Soil Health home page</a>; How to Create a Soil Community</a> from Rodale Institute; or this Planttalk</em>® Colorado</a></strong> from Colorado State University (CSU) Extension on using cover crops. </p> To see a variety of cover crops in a larger area, come down to Chatfield Farms where you can see sorghum-sudan grass, vetch, rye, winter wheat, crimson clover, buckwheat, pacific mustard and triticale, among others. Using cover crops at Chatfield Farms is part of our soil management plan but also has several other regenerative benefits including additional habitat for beneficial insect predators, pollinators and cover crops can provide competition to weed growth which helps farmers with the never-ending task of weed mitigation. </p>
The heat of June could be eclipsed by even more oven-like temperatures in July. But the Gardens will still beckon your visit. This month’s tour will help you find the coolest spots to hang out while enjoying some of July’s highlights in the Gardens. These shady spots feature benches where you can enjoy surrounding gardens, little known vistas and even a waterfall.</p> Shady Lane</a> – shade is in the name! This main path that runs from east to west when entering the Gardens can be found just beyond the Boettcher Memorial Tropical Conservatory’s dome and the entry plaza to Marnie’s Pavilion. Along the wide walkway lined with mature crabapples on the south side and younger ones to the north, look for secondary paths with benches. Here you can be bathed in shade by the Austrian pines (Pinus nigra</em>) behind you and the many varieties of fruiting crabapples in front, all while you sneak views of the perennials on the sunny side of the walkway and the Orangery plantings beyond. Several brightly colored lilies (Lilium</em> cultivars) can be seen blooming in July.</li> The next oasis is nestled in the back of Oak Grove</a>. Follow the mulch path from the rounded patio area and you will find several benches and chairs in the proximity of two spectacular trees: the fernleaf European beech (Fagus sylvatica </em>var. heterophylla </em>‘Aspleniifolia’)</a> and the Colorado state champion bigtooth maple (Acer grandidentatum</em>)</a>. The grey trunks of beech trees always remind me of an elephant’s stout leg, and the lacy leaves of this cultivar are likewise charming. The maple, tied for the largest of its kind in Colorado, is also a native tree species in Colorado.</li> Next head toward the western edge of the Gardens, perhaps first grabbing a cold drink at the Hive Garden Bistro or taking in the beauty of the brightly colored waterlilies in the Monet Pool along the way. The Gates Montane Garden</a> is always a favorite place to visit on a hot day as nearly the entire walkway is cast in shadow throughout the long days of early summer. This was the first garden established after the founding of the Gardens in its present-day location at York Street. Ponderosa pines and aspens are just some of the trees you can see in this native centric garden focused on Colorado’s montane environment. Benches along the main path offer respite, but for more adventurous visitors, the uphill loop on the east will bring you to a bench where you can hear rushing water and glimpse a waterfall that plunges to the pond below, as well as take in beautiful views of the Laura Smith Porter Plains Garden as the swaths of native grasses are hitting their stride in summer.</li> More shady spots can be found along the southern boundary of the Gardens. The first one you’ll encounter is a curved wooden bench on the west side of the moongate entry into June’s PlantAsia. Sitting under a majestic Kentucky coffee tree (Gymnocladus dioicus</em>)</a> during a morning visit, you’ll be able to view the multiple colors of daylilies blooming in the Ann Montague Iris and Daylily Garden while staying in the shadows. Walk through the moongate and around the southern path of PlantAsia’s steppe-inspired area and you’ll find some stone steps leading to a mysterious chapel-like passage of bamboo</a> with a bench tucked just in the right spot to enjoy cool breezes that slip through the green and golden leafy poles.</li> The next garden east of PlantAsia is Woodland Mosaic. As the name suggests, you will find several shady spots to linger under the trees here. A rounded metal seating area overlooks a grand swamp white oak (Quercus bicolor</em>)</a> as well as the solarium, which also has seating near it as well as on the deck to the south.</li> </ul> Hopefully these tips will help you find a new enchanting spot to cool off during your next summertime visit to the Gardens. Do you have a different favorite shady spot?</p>
The boom of colors and blooms that reign down at Denver Botanic Gardens this time of year is astounding. From the first gardens you see as you walk through the front gate – such as Roads Water-Smart Garden – to one of the last, our world-famous Rock Alpine Garden, the blooms never disappoint. These blooms are ensured year after year with the help of seed collecting. Often these seeds are grown over the winter in the greenhouses and planted once again the next spring for more awesome blooms. </p> You can practice seed-collecting as well in your home garden. Not only can it provide an opportunity to preserve your garden flowers, perennials and annuals alike, seed harvesting lends a way to share your lovely favorites with friends, family and neighbors. </p> </picture> </div> </article> Seed from Winecups (Callirhoe Involucrata</em>) at natural seed dispersal. Photo: Brooke Palmer</p> Finding the right time to harvest </h4> As the flowers fade, the fruits and seeds begin to form. Collecting at the right time can be tricky, because if you harvest the seeds and fruits too early you risk collecting underdeveloped seeds that will not be able to germinate later. You may find yourself playing “I spy some seeds” all summer long to harvest at the right time, especially since not all plants bloom and go to seed at the same time. There are plenty of exceptions, but a trick I like to do for most plants is to look for old flower heads or fruits to be brown and dry. If the seeds begin to fall off the plant at a natural dispersal state, they are indeed ready to go! </p> How to collect </h4> Once you get to this stage, the collecting itself is easy. Make sure you have some paper or cloth bags on hand for collecting; this will ensure your seeds stay nice and dry when you get to point of storing them. For this reason, avoid plastic bags. I love repurposing paper bags from restaurants and grocery stores just for collecting seeds. When you see seeds that are ready to harvest, you can either snip the dried fruits right into the bags or hand-pluck them if there are not too many. Don’t forget to write down what you have collected as you go.</p> Storing your seeds </h4> At this point you want to make sure your seeds are dried down and cleaned before storing them for the winter. Seed cleaning is a topic for a different day, but for most seeds you want to clean them from their fruits and chaff (other dried up flower parts) and store in paper bags or envelopes. They should be stowed in a dark, cool room or closet until you are ready to plant in the fall or spring. </p> </picture> </div> </article> A flowerhead of Pincushion flower (Scabiosa graminifolia var. compacta)</em>, ready to be harvested. Photo: Brooke Palmer</p> If you know where to look, seed harvesting can be a great way to insure you have the same lovely flowers year after year, and a hidden joy in your regular garden care. </p>
This summer, perhaps and with fingers crossed, we can take a deep breath and just relax a bit. The past decade, by which I mean the last 12 months, have been grueling. At all four of our locations, the Gardens is primed to offer more than quiet healing experiences, which have been critical to countless, and let loose true joy. </p> Joy is back this summer as spring rain and snow have prepped a parched land for a verdant eruption of life. Joy is back in the form of children cavorting in Mordecai Children’s Garden and rolling down the slopes of the UMB Bank Amphitheater. </p> The amount of birdsong is enthralling, as is the return of butterflies and bees.</p> It is going to take some time for many to feel fully comfortable, and we all get it. The cloud of menace has weighed heavily on us all. That’s why we can all help everyone we encounter by demonstrating simple respect, giving people some space whenever they need it. It is something I see every day as groups wander, some with masks on, others without. We are living in a time of miracles, and few could have predicted during the dark days of shutdowns that we would be emerging into such better days now. Thank goodness for scientists and the medical community for shepherding our rebound.</p> Thanks too for the donors, volunteers and members who keep Denver Botanic Gardens vital and vibrant. You have seen us through a challenge, and we are all awash in gratitude.</p> Two words in our mission statement</a> really stand out – delight and enlightenment. With four sites, deep levels of research and dynamic, inspiring programs, the enlightenment part is constant. And now, we aim to delight all people we attract with a reopened</a> Mordecai Children’s Garden, Science Pyramid and Boettcher Memorial Tropical Conservatory. We are thrilled by the response to the new art galleries in the Freyer – Newman Center where visitors can also take in a documentary movie in the Sturm Family Auditorium. Classes are back. The new Helen Fowler Library is finally open.</p> And events</a> like Evenings al Fresco and Lavender Festival will provide plenty of fun times.</p> Deep breath. Big smiles. We are ready for a summer of joy.</p> Onward. </p>
As we begin the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration</a>, we are doing our part to help restore our creek and meadow habitats at Chatfield Farms</a> and work to develop better practices for restoration. Our riparian restoration project started in 2016. Onsite beavers are restoring part of the property and we are mimicking their work on areas where they aren’t active. We have successfully restored three historical oxbows (creek meanders) to their original flow and have seen ducks and other waterfowl taking advantage of this expanded habitat. We have planted 2,725 willow stakes throughout the creek restoration area. We continue to conduct annual monitoring along the creek to track the progress of this project.</p> </picture> </div> </article> Creek restoration site at Chatfield Farms</em></p> This year has been a wet one along the front range, and we have seen some impressive gains on this project. Not only are our three in-stream structures still functioning, but we are starting to see continued improvement of riparian habitats in both the restoration and active beaver areas. </p> </picture> </div> </article> Beaver habitat at Chatfield Farms</em></p> While we have been working on the restoration of Deer Creek and its riparian habitats, we have also been working in small and big ways to restore the hundreds of acres of grassland habitat at Chatfield Farms. Some of this work has been ongoing by Chatfield staff for many years, working to clear non-native grass areas with burning and spraying followed by seeding with different mixes of native grasses and forbs.</p> </picture> </div> </article> Grassland restoration site at Chatfield Farms</em></p> We also started a partnership with external colleagues in 2018 to expand our grassland restoration work. These researchers are testing different management treatments (e.g., tilling and herbicide intensity), seed mixtures and seed treatments to better understand the most efficient ways to get rid of non-native grasses (in our case, mostly smooth brome, Bromus inermis</em>), help with seed establishment and create a diverse plant community. It is definitely a challenge to work with difficult soils and dry conditions but a challenge we are hoping to overcome through partnerships that bring together a diverse range of knowledge and experience.</p> </picture> </div> </article> Grassland restoration site at Chatfield Farms</em></p> We have been fortunate to have four graduate students and several undergraduate and high school students working with us on these projects. These students have been exploring a range of research topics including the impact native plant competition has on an invasive grass, the role of seed source in the performance of restoration species, riparian plant community response to restoration and the impact of grassland restoration methods on pollinator habitat. In addition, we are working with the Bureau of Land Management to expand our research on federal lands. As part of the Chatfield Master Development Plan, we hope to continue to expand our restoration work, continuing to not only improve habitats we manage but also serve as a demonstration site for restoration methods at a larger scale. </p>
For many, the term flower farmer is a new one – but for the last 10 years the “slow flowers” movement of producing American grown flowers has been gaining momentum and market share in the flower industry. I am a flower farmer – and that means that I grow flowers the same way we grow vegetables or other crops in rows, with the same methods. </p> Traditionally, 80% of all flowers purchased in the United States are imported from countries that use harsh chemicals and cheap labor to get perfect stems into your grocery store – with a rather large carbon footprint. Many flower farmers across the country are producing flowers without chemicals, grown and sold locally. Chatfield Farms offers a flower share through our CSA</a> to bring a regenerative approach to your bouquet sourcing. </p> </picture> </div> </div> </article> Because we endeavor to reduce tillage of our soil and not to use herbicides or chemical fertilizers (that reduce field work time), our flower and vegetable production can be labor-intensive and strenuous. When we think about regenerative agriculture, we normally equate practices that are gentle and helpful to our ecosystem; but we should also think about our farmers and physical labor as another input. If we can reduce the amount of inputs going into each crop being produced, we save time, money and physical stress on each farmer. </p> Enter in flower production with perennials and native varieties. Most flower operations heavily depend on succession plantings of annuals for lots of blooms all season long (myself included). But annuals are time and resource intensive, often leaving the farmer to plant literally thousands of transplants every spring and mid-summer to produce an adequate supply. Perennials bloom every year without much work, except for annual pruning and fertilizing. Native plants assist native pollinators to access vital nectar and habitat – as well as increasing the overall health of the farm ecosystem. </p> </picture> </div> </article> </p> This year I am trialing a new approach to my cut flower operation by introducing several native perennials that I hope over time will replace a few annual non-native crops. I am trialing several species recommended by Grace Johnson, our Plant Select</a> expert, including Phlox paniculate, Penstemon cobaea, Baptisia alba, Linum lewisii </em>and Physostegia virginiana</em>, among several others this season, to see how they do in a row-crop setting, integrated into the annual production. </p> If I can get these varieties to bloom several times after being sheered, then perhaps they will become formal members of my bouquet repertoire. This will save me hours spent seeding, transplanting and then removing hundreds of annuals at the end of each season. Regenerative systems benefit the earth first, but they also benefit the life of the farmer and their workload. At the end of the day, the farmer needs to start regenerating their own system, and that is what we hope to see happen with our shifting awareness of regenerative agriculture. </p>
