Posted June 17, 2010 by Matt Cole, Director of Education
Irises in the Lilac garden
Irises in the Lilac garden
Like several other bloggers here, I have really enjoyed the irises in bloom in the Lilac Garden. They’re stunning! While we all rhapsodize about how colorful the blooms are, and how marvelous the experience is, I keep going back and finding another gem in the display. (Of course, that is what we all do: whether it’s Lisa’s post or Joe’s or Ellen’s, you see the gems we’ve just uncovered and can’t wait to share, whether its programs or people or plants.)
For me, its a treat to wander and compare the blooms and colors and impressions they leave on you. Iris isn’t even my favorite plant (I refuse to choose!) but they were exactly the right display for me when I was out with my camera. On that day, the lilac were still in bloom, and their sweet scent reached me even before I turned into the garden. But once inside it was clear that the irises were stepping onto the stage.
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Posted June 14, 2010 by Matt Cole, Director of Education
Denver Botanic Garden's green roof
This is the week for the Green Roof for the West Symposium! On Thursday, June 17, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Denver Botanic Gardens opens its doors to a regional conference with international speakers. The Gardens and its co-hosts (the U.S. Green Building Council – Colorado Chapter, Colorado State University and UC-Denver College of Architecture and Planning) have been looking and working towards a reprise of last year’s sucess. This year promises to be as forward-thinking and informative as the first ever symposium, also held at the Gardens. The registration price is $125 for the entire day, and current students with valid ID pay only $30. Includes continental breakfast, box lunch and beverages.
The symposium will feature a full day of in-depth sessions, presented by leading green roof experts and designers from across the U.S. and around the world.
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Posted June 11, 2010 by Ellen Hertzman, Manager of Visitor Experience
Penstemon grandiflorus
There is much to choose from this week! Whether you are looking for a profusion of blooms, a delicate Colorado landscape, or a dry and prickly color feast—you can find it here!
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Posted May 25, 2010 by Matt Cole, Director of Education
I’m eating lunch right now. (That’s part of the reason there is no picture: you don’t need to see me chewing.) And this sandwich is my payoff for being attentive to my gardening. It might seem to be just a leftover from dinner last night, but I know it includes the first harvest of homegrown spinach for the year. Its fun to grow plants for their beauty, or the composition of the garden overall, but there’s a special satisfaction that comes with the first harvest of something edible.
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Posted May 17, 2010 by Matt Cole, Director of Education
David Salman of High Country Gardens
David Salman has plenty to keep him busy. There are plants to tend, businesses to run, articles and blogs to write (and if you read his blog, there’s a rescued puppy named Jarrah who’s always ready to play), and certainly an appreciative audience anywhere there are gardeners in the west. We are so fortunate to have him join us in Denver for “Inspired by Mountains and Plains: Redefining the Well-Adapted Regional Garden” Friday, May 21 at 7:00 p.m.
Its a story familiar to anyone whose left lush gardens behind to move into the west: rocky mountain gardening is profoundly different. While many mail order nurseries can send you a plant across the country, their experiences and catalogue descriptions aren’t usually calibrated for a mile high and western dry. David Salman started High Country Gardens to be the mail order division of Santa Fe Greenhouses, his retail nursery company in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He tapped in to a desire for plants appropriate to western climates. And it seems he’s quite good at it.
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Posted May 8, 2010 by Matt Cole, Director of Education
I can tell gardening season is here, not just by the brilliant sunshine, the gardeners eager to get started, the students jumping into classes that they’ll use next week, the plant sale and the shoppers, or the colleague rashly vowing to start his peppers outdoors this weekend in spite of frost warnings at his altitude. Rocky Mountain Gardening has some element of risk and unpredictability after all (last nights low in Denver was close enough to freezing to inspire a protective measures for all the plant sale plants). No, its the sequence of plants blooming, and the patterns of temperatures, and the reactions people make that confirms it all to me. Spring sprang already, and now’s the time to get into gardens, landscapes and yards.
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Posted April 23, 2010 by Panayoti Kelaidis, Senior Curator & Director of Outreach
Almond tree on Vine St. near the gardens.
Knobby with almond blossoms
Of course, this being Colorado, no one wants to say it yet. But I am bold! So let me say this 
is the spring
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Posted April 20, 2010 by Blaire Lyon, Special Events Coordinator
Strut your stuff and come to the red carpet event that opens this year’s gardening season: Denver Botanic Gardens’ Spring Plant Sale.
All you wonderful VIP’s will enter through the new fabulous group entrance and be greeted by one of our 500 dedicated volunteers. Don’t forget to strike a pose in our gift shop and stock up on all your gardening needs.
Then, sashay on up to all 12 plant divisions that not only offer great plants, but, each division provides advice from our knowledgeable volunteers or industry professionals, including the Gardens’ own rock star horticultural staff.
Keep an eye out for this year’s plant division stars: Fruits, Berries, Vegetables, Herbs; Grown at the Gardens, Water-Smart and our newest division “Container Gardening.” This division will feature easy, grab-and-go kits for succulent, shade and sun containers.
Famished or overwhelmed? Nothing that an Izze or panini can’t fix. Stop by the Gardens newest café, Offshoots or stroll to the Monet deck for something on the grill.
After hitting all these hot spots, rock it out in the check-out area.
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Posted in: At the Gardens, Rocky Mountain Gardening, What's Blooming - Comments(1)