Is donning a shamrock on St. Patrick’s Day just not making you feel GREEN enough? Becoming a volunteer with Denver Botanic Garden’s Green Team will do the trick!
Green Team Volunteers at a Summer Concert
I have always considered myself very fortunate to be part of the Gardens’ horticulture team, but right now, as part of the team creating the new Darlene Radichel Plant Select Garden, I feel it even more so. This new garden, located on the former site of the Monet Garden, will showcase the many plants selected and promoted by the Plant Select program since its inception 10-15 years ago.
These are plants which are unusually wel
l-suited to thrive in our area, our soils, and our climate supporting home-owners in their quest to garden beautifully within the scope of our region’s available resources. Like many, I was sad to see the Monet Garden go. But its multitude of perennials, roses, trees, and decor now enhance so many other parts of the Gardens, and working to bring this new garden to life in its place has made me very enthusiastic about this new garden opportunity.
As you can see in this photo, the structure of the new garden is already established replete with new irrigation, pathways, lighting and
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When gardeners dish the dirt, they may speak of soil, either their own or the soil they wished they had. It really is the bed in which you make your garden lie. So 2008 MacArthur ‘Genius’ award recipient David Montgomery, author of Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations, is the perfect speaker to help peer into our soil’s soul and see what sustainable means to the planet’s soil.
Speaking at March 4th’s Down and Dirty: the Scoop on Soil, Dr. David Montgomery will share his thoughts on the human relationship with soil. Today’s gardeners interested in growing food, enjoying beauty and living sustainably have many of the same challenges that humans have faced throughout history. Plant nutrition, soil erosion, healthy harvests, sustainable production all have underground dimensions: any garden’s foundation is literally the soil.
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It has been nearly a year that this blog has been up. Last February, Celia shared her thoughts about sustainability as the very first foray into the Blogosphere.
Well, she has not stopped tackling the subject. On February 12, the 2009 Passion to Action Sustainable Landscaping Symposium tackles “Muddy Waters – Who Owns the Rain?” This event is the second in what looks like an annual series. I think it would be fair to say that Celia has been working on this symposium for the whole time this blog has been up!
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I saw works by a few of the artists contributing this summer’s Urban Nature exhibit here at Denver Botanic Gardens on York Street just recently. Their work is so striking! Unfortunately, the official announcement of the material is still under wraps so all I can say is “It’s gonna be great! Stay tuned!”
Fortunately, I can say that Rick Darke’s public appearance on April 1st is titled In Your Face: Ethics and Urban Ecology. Both prolific writer and speaker, he seems perfect to set the stage for a conversation here in Denver. The New York Times recently visited his home in Pennsylvania to learn about his world gardening philosophy. According to the article, Mr. Darke said, “A sensible palette takes a global ethic. You never want to do anything potentially damaging to any habitat. But if we are going to keep spaces green around the world, we can’t restrict the garden to plants that existed before anybody touched it.”
Rocky Mountain Gardening is just that–gardening through the length of the Rocky Mountains, which means that the climates are vastly varied. Denver is a mile above sea level and seems dry and windy, but compare that to the top a fourteener (that’s a mountain reaching 14,000 feet)! I’ve already heard stories about gardening in idyllic mountain towns, in sheltered valleys, in urban college towns, and on windswept steppes. So it’s a very diverse experience and books (or blogs) should be crafted to the challenges here and avoid recycling untested information from other parts of the country. I think for many of us moving into the Rocky Mountains the challenge is adapting to new gardening, growing and best-use assumptions.
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