Posted January 30, 2012 by Featured Instructor
After several months of bare tree branches, I am ready for the arrival of spring and with it returning to Colorado’s flower filled natural areas. The gardeners I know spend these short days and long cold nights perusing seed and plant catalogs to gear up for the next season.
In lieu of shiny catalogs, botanists, like myself, and mycologists work with specimens (mycologists study organisms in the kingdom Fungi). Specimens are individual plants or fungi that have been dried and archived into a collection. These plants and fungal specimens are collected as part of a scientific study to document species diversity and distribution.
The specimens themselves serve as a voucher or as a representative of the population for future botanical and mycological research. For botanists, anxious to get out into the field, specimens allow us to continue our work even when the plants or fungi are dormant for the season. Likely for this reason, in the 1500’s, the Italian botanist and physician Luca Ghini developed the practice of preserving plants by pressing and drying them when freshly collected, and then
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Posted January 27, 2012 by Matt Cole, Director of Education
A Tangelo blooms in the Denver Botanic Gardens Orangery in winter.
Winter is busy, and not just for Colorado skiers. Gardeners are planning, dreaming and preparing; growers are tending indoor blooms; and propagators are starting plants to be ready for warm weather: busy! Evergreens are balancing photosynthesis and drought, orchids are delivering on the promise of color and beauty, and seeds are trying to intuit the fine line between germinating too soon and too late: busy! For some gardeners, winter means that their busy, short days can’t hold time to appreciate each bloom and everything that is happening.
You can’t always look ahead either. It was pure chance that I saw this white Tangelo blossom on a snowy day. (The Orangery at the Gardens looks lovely with the orchid showcase throughout.)
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Posted January 21, 2012 by Featured Instructor
Usually I get to see the look on people’s faces when I give them a bag of delicious produce in winter from my passive solar greenhouse. You should have seen MY face the other day when Cord came home with a large bag of vine-ripened, delicious, juicy winter-grown tomatoes! From somebody else’s greenhouse!
Cord finished building a 44’ state-of-the-art totally sustainable passive solar greenhouse late last August and the owners lost no time in getting tomato plants in the ground soon after. They planted large potted tomatoes in deep beds at the base of the wall of stored water – the thermal mass.
Now, in January, they are 10 feet tall and bursting with tomatoes. Not only were they grown in winter – but with passive solar. And, oh yeah, at 8,000 feet in the mountains!
No tomato ever tasted so good. The juice ran down our chins. I started laughing while I was eating
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Posted January 17, 2012 by Featured Instructor
Urban beekeeping has been all the buzz, lately. And for as many people that keep bees, there are that many reasons WHY people keep bees.
One of the most important reasons to keep bees is for pollination. Bee pollination is needed for the production of an estimated one-third of the food crops grown in developed countries. When it comes to fruit, the number of bees visiting a plant affects the size, uniformity and amount of fruit it produces. Bee pollination also has an impact on other foods we eat, such as meat
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Posted December 13, 2011 by Julie Casault, Gardener
Growing vegetables can be one of the most gratifying gardening experiences. It is amazing to watch seeds, bulbs, and small plants grow to become a productive food harvest. For children, this can be the first exposure to horticulture and a very educational experience in nutrition, health and science.
The space outside of the Morrison Center, previously the Sensory Garden, was left undeveloped during construction of the Mordecai Children’s Garden during fall 2010. The original plan for this space was to add six simple vegetable beds. With 1,000 square feet of space, it became a challenge to create something that would be impactful.
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Posted December 5, 2011 by Featured Instructor
Wondering what a Tibetan Singing Bowls “Sound Healing Concert” is all about? It is an opportunity to lay down (if you wish) and receive some seriously good vibrations….literally!!! Sound healers Jason and Chris Anne Coviello will begin the concert with Jason playing his Hang Drum which is a very rare steel drum that is made by only two people in the world. Some say it sounds like a stringed instrument. Jason’s Hang Drum is tuned to the note that vibrationally corresponds to the heart chakra and when he plays the drum, he takes you on a heart-opening journey. If you would like
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Posted December 2, 2011 by Brien Darby, Greenhouse Production Assistant
From time to time, the greenhouse team at Denver Botanic Gardens will build hypertufa troughs. These troughs are a great addition to a garden, especially for showcasing some of the rock garden plants, native wildflowers, and cacti that might otherwise be lost in a larger landscape. We sell our planted troughs at the Spring and Fall Plant Sales and occasionally throughout the season at the Shop at the Gardens. However, if you are interested in making your own hypertufa troughs, I would like to share with you our process and recipe for making a simple hypertufa trough.
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Posted November 18, 2011 by Featured Instructor
The holiday season is upon us!! Whew, how did that happen? Wasn’t it just summer yesterday? Well, it seems like it, anyway.
With holiday lights being installed on homes and businesses all over town and Blossoms of Light (BOL) at Denver Botanic Gardens on York Street and Trail of Lights (TOL) at Denver Botanic Gardens at Chatfield opening soon, it’s time to get out your camera and tripod and get ready to take some wonderful holiday photographs. If you’re really organized, you can visit BOL or TOL early in the season, make a nice family portrait in front of the beautiful lighting displays and have your cards printed and delivered in plenty of time to beat the holiday rush! Wouldn’t that be awesome?!!
Photographing BOL and TOL presents some unique challenges. The biggest challenge is the low light you’ll be photographing in. By the time these events open to the public each evening, it is fully
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After several months of bare tree branches, I am ready for the arrival of spring and with it returning to Colorado’s flower filled natural areas. The gardeners I know spend these short days and long cold nights perusing seed and plant catalogs to gear up for the next season.
Posted in: At the Gardens, Conservation & Ecology, Education - Comments(1)