During the dark and cold parts of the year a garden can seem colorless and devoid of life. We may walk through it with eyes to the ground or avoid going out into the Gardens at all. As we approach the new year we are also faced with the traditional time of contemplation of our past year, the structure of our lives and our hopes for the future. It is in this mindset that I think the winter garden is a perfect place to look at the trees around us laid bare while considering our own life paths. During summer trees are filled with leaves and blooms which, while beautiful, obscure the scaffolding and support that hold these massive organisms together. I enjoy spending a few minutes staring at a single tree from a distance, following the branching and imagining how each massive branch was formed when it was only a slender twig. Come along with me.</p> June’s PlantAsia</h2> Begin at the southwest corner of the Dwarf Conifer Collection and look east down the path toward the moon gate in June’s PlantAsia. A Kentucky coffee tree (Gymnocladus dioicus</em>) towers next to the moon gate. This tree has what I would call a “wiggly” growth pattern, weaving back and forth. I love the movement of this tree. Its irregularities are offset by the more precisely growing SKYLINE® thornless honeylocust (Gleditsia triacanthos</em> f. inermis ‘</em>Skycole’</em>) rising out of PlantAsia just to the left. Stop and spend several moments to stare and tune your eyes to the subtleties of this season’s color and texture, notice how the red hues from the honeylocust contrast with the slate grey of the coffee tree. To the right, see how the soft, feathery, beige-colored dormant Siberian larch (Larix sibirica</em> ‘Conica’), a unique deciduous conifer, plays off the courser textures of the other two trees.</p> Turn around and immediately in front of you to the left of the path is a green ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica</em>). Ash trees have opposite branching, which means that two branches emerge at the same point on a stem, on opposite sides of it. You can easily see the forked branching pattern represented all the way from the tiny new growth down to the largest branches. Notice also how this tree’s branches arch downward and then flex up at the tips. This movement is caused by a ballet of opposing forces acting out over time and becoming solidified into the tree’s form as branches thicken. New growth tips arch skyward to receive more light. Over time as new growth becomes old, gravity pulls the increasingly heavy branches downward. The effect is beautiful: A form shaped by time, the tree’s genetic plan and the chaos of environmental factors.</p> South African Plaza</h2> Walk down the steps and into South African Plaza, stopping in the middle of the plaza to look north to the three stately Ohio buckeyes (Aesculus glabra</em>) at the crossroad. Like the ash, these trees also have opposite branching, though you might have to look more closely to see it. I love how these trees flex their upper branches outward, like if you put your arms straight upward and bent your wrists out. Do that now and imagine staying there for the many years that it took for those shapes to form, season by season.</p> Rock Alpine Garden</h2> Walk to the Rock Alpine Garden and down the main path. Immediately upon entering the garden you’ll see a small tree to the left of the path, the curly willow (Salix matsudana</em> ‘Snake’). If the Kentucky coffee tree is a wiggly growth tree, this one is comically so. Its contortions look like a wooden representation of the movements of fire. Smile at the absurdity of this tree. Walk down the main path and look left across the garden and to the weeping birch (Betula pendula</em>). The stark contrast of colors and shapes on this tree are incredible. Bone-white bark against red-hued tips, large stick-straight branches paired with arching, finely textured new growth trailing down toward the ground.</p> Gates Montane Garden </h2> As you leave the Rock Alpine Garden and enter the densely wooded Gates Montane Garden you will see an icon of the Rocky Mountains: the quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides</em>). The branching pattern of an aspen is alternate, meaning one branch emerges at a single point on a stem, and then further on another emerges on the other side of the stem. You can see this easily at the new tip growth, though you will probably struggle to see that pattern lower down into the older growth. The patterns laid down at the tip growth points are quickly muddled as the tree regularly drops lower branches that do not receive enough light. The branch dropping is an adaptation that allows the tree to conserve energy as older branches become more shaded by new growth higher up. Many aspens have no branches off the main trunk at all until fairly high up on the tree. Aspen bark varies in color from creamy white to soft grey and pale green and has characteristic black spots where past limbs have dropped off. Aspen bark quickly heals after being damaged, leaving a black scar behind that contrasts strongly with the white bark.</p> Winter is an excellent time to be quiet and introspective. Much like the trees, the shapes of our lives are laid open during periods of quiet. At this point in the year we can look at where we came from and to where we are going. We must examine the objects, behaviors and emotions that we are clinging to, and like the aspen, decide which we must shed in order to walk forward into spring. Now continue to walk through the Gardens and beyond, with your gaze inward and upward.</p>
The first time I saw the sagebrush shrub steppe of North America, my mind melted. I grew up in a lush part of the country where tall shade trees blocked out the sky, we regularly lamented rain and the color green was taken for granted. The intense silver glow of the arid West was alien and exotic to my eyes and I instantly fell in love.</p> Plants have developed silver appearances as a reaction to the desiccating effects of sunlight and drought. Silver, grey, white and blue colorings of plants are the results of growing trichomes (plant hair), increased wax exudations on their surfaces or genetic mutations of cell colors called variegation. All of these adaptations help plants retain moisture and keep their cells cooler by increasing their surface albedo, their ability to reflect sunlight.</p> The American West is not alone in its glory of argent shrubbery. The world’s desert, Mediterranean, alpine and other steppe regions (Middle Asia, Patagonia, Argentina and Southern Africa) also hold their own wealth of silvers, and we’ve been zealously collecting these incredible beings in the Steppe Garden.</p> Begin exploring our collection by walking beneath the cottonwood trees on the eastern edge of the Steppe Garden.</strong> Look for the long white stems and yellow flowers of rabbitbrush (Ericameria nauseosa</em>) emerging from the shortgrass prairie.</li> Head north on the curving gravel pathway.</strong> To your left you’ll see the Southern African Helichrysum trilineatum</em>, a small silver mound, full of yellow flowers.</li> Then, just beyond, exploding around the edges of the garden’s spinal stones, the fine-leaved Gomphostigma virgatum</em>.</li> Walk a bit further </strong>and you’ll see a collection of steppe shrubs—the shimmering and columnar Shepherdia argentea </em>‘Totem’; the three-lobed, almost-white Artemisia cana</em>; and the soft and sprawling Artemisia ludoviciana</em>—all extremely important plants in our local shrub steppe ecosystem.</li> At the end of this path</strong>, under the boughs of Austrian pine, you’ll see a small plant with thick, pearly leaves. This is Shepherdia rotundifolia</em>, usually a resident of areas further southwest than Denver, but surviving in our colder climate, none-the-less.</li> Continue following the westerly curve of the pathway</strong> to the Middle Asian section of the Steppe Garden to the tall and graceful Caragana microphylla </em>‘Mongolian Silver Spires’. Look, but don’t get too close, as tiny thorns protect this shrub from grazing animals.</li> Cut southeast on the gravel path </strong>that runs between the two Middle Asian garden beds to see the ultra-white and very fragrant Helichrysum maracandicum</em>, </em>which, when gently touched, gives off the scent of curry spices!</li> Journey across the canal to the Patagonian sections of the Steppe Garden </strong>to glimpse our last three shrubs, all from the important steppe genus of asters, Senecio</em>, including S. patagonicus</em>, S. filaginoides</em> and S. bracteolatus</em>.</li> </ul> Now, with your eyes attuned to the beauty of silver, continue exploring the gleaming shrubs of the Gardens.</p>
