</p> While the Gardens offers magnificent venues for all kinds of private events, it really shines for weddings. Happy couples have been choosing to spend their special days at our York Street location for decades, surrounded by lush foliage, unique architecture and stunning arrays of floral beauty.</p> Our Private Events team works with each couple to help create an utterly unforgettable experience, some of which stick in our minds as much as in the minds of their wedding guests. These are some of our favorite memories from weddings hosted at York Street last year.</p> Ruthie and Erik</strong></p> </strong></p> After holding a ceremony at a local church, this pair hosted their reception in the Annuals Garden and Pavilion, one of our newest and most breathtaking venues. With the garden in full bloom, and the September air still warm enough for an evening affair, the couple entertained their guests with a square dance caller and a live acoustic band.</p> Emmanuel and Jeremy</strong></p> </strong></p> This dapper couple tied the knot in South African Plaza, a small but stunning venue that has been a favorite for wedding ceremonies for many years. Though they hosted their dinner reception offsite, they took advantage of their ceremony’s lush surroundings by treating their guests to a cocktail hour in the Gardens prior to departing.</p> Lillian and Donald</strong></p> </strong></p> Rather than caravanning their guests from one destination to another, Lillian and Donald hosted their entire wedding at the Gardens. Romanic Gardens provided a stunning backdrop for their ceremony and cocktail hour, and they partied the night away with a reception in Mitchell Hall. Instead of spending the photo break in transit between the ceremony and the reception, their wedding guests had the chance to explore the Gardens in the golden, evening light.</p> These stories capture just a few of the thousands of memories made at York Street during wedding season. Whether a couple is hosting a large gathering or a small party, a traditional wedding or an out-of-the-box experience, one element of their wedding or the entire affair, the diverse array of rental venues at the Gardens offers something for everyone.</p> We’d love to learn more about your wedding dreams to help you find a site in the Gardens that fits you perfectly. To learn more and to set up a tour appointment, contact us at private.events@botanicgardens.org</a> or call 720-865-3551.</p>
Flowers are always a great way to tell someone how much you love them, but this time of year it’s almost impossible to find locally grown, fresh flowers. Nearly all bouquets that you can buy during the winter have travelled a long way to reach the U.S.</p> There is good news for this sustainable floral challenge. A growing movement called Slow Flowers</a> promotes and supports American-grown flowers. The purchase of locally-grown flowers support the local economy, create a smaller carbon footprint and the flowers are truly fresh and smell better (often cut to order).</p> Many local farms and local floral designers offer seasonal bouquet subscriptions. You can often choose if you want weekly, biweekly or monthly bouquets and they sometimes deliver. This is truly the gift that keeps on giving throughout the growing season. Denver Botanic Gardens Community Supporting Agriculture (CSA)</a> offers a summer flower share that can be purchased with a vegetable share.</p> To get you excited about the fast-approaching local flower season, here are some romantic flowers that you may see in your bouquets this year!</p> Love in a Mist (Nigella damascene</em>)</a> – The romance of this flower is in its name. Love in a Mist gets this steamy name from the cloud of bracts that dance around the star shaped flower. If the flower is left to go to seed it will produce very dramatic black seed pods. Both the flowers and the seed pods are used in arrangements. </li> Sweet Peas (Lathyrus odoratus</em>)</a> – </em>This delicate vining plant blooms in the early spring and is a great addition to any bouquet. The flowers come in an array of soft pinks, whites and purples and are graced with the softest sweetest sent. </li> Dahlia</a> – Dahlias always create a bold statement in an arrangement and come in a rainbow of colors and styles. Café Au Lait is a commonly used dahlia that screams romance with its creamy pink huge flowers</li> Love in a Puff (Cardiospermum halicacabum</em>)</a> –</em> This is a vining plant that produces small white flowers and very delicate paper lantern seed pods. The best part about this plant is that when you break open the seed pod you see little black seeds imprinted with perfect white hearts. This is where the name Cardiospermum</em> comes from meaning, Heart Seed.</li> </ul>
“We’ve got this gift of love, but love is like a precious plant. You can’t just accept and leave it in the cupboard or just think it’s going to get on by itself. You've got to keep watering it and really look after it and nurture it.” -- John Lennon</p> </blockquote> The Shop at the Gardens has a wonderful selection of gifts that can nurture a loved one this Valentine’s Day.</p> The Shop has a large selection of fashion accessories, including these garden-inspired earrings that are lovingly handmade in Longmont, Colorado. Hypoallergenic ear wires, 18K gold-filled or sterling with semiprecious stones. $25</li> This heart-shaped recycled glass dish is a Denver Botanic Gardens exclusive and features gold butterflies. Handmade in California. $88</li> Each of these handmade, painted porcelain bud vases is a unique modern statement inspired by nature, whether filled with fresh flowers or used by themselves as sculpture in the home. Assorted shapes, patterns and colors. $14.95 - $28.95</li> Foaming hand soaps with shea butter and aloe vera for gentle cleansing and moisturizing. Assorted floral scents. $14.95</li> This heart-shaped wind chime is handmade with 100% recycled metal and glass by a fair trade company in India. $85.95</li> Stoneglow votive tumblers are hand-poured in the United Kingdom using real botanicals. They have a 15- hour burn time and the candle can be replaced. $28.95</li> </ul> The Shop at the Gardens is open daily, 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. and Gardens admission is not required to shop.</p>
For most, the word “evergreen” evokes the thought of a pine, spruce or fir tree. These are the trees that give year-round structure to our gardens and provide points to hold our attention and direct our focus. They are the forests that we cut for timber, paper and fuel. Without the dominance of the evergreen in the boreal kingdom we would surely have much poorer and colder lives.</p> While these giants provide much for us there are many other plants that share the designation and description of evergreen. To simplify and to broaden the term, evergreen means something that holds on to its photosynthetic tissue for at least a full year. Given this broader definition we can walk the garden in a new light of appreciation for evergreen plants.</p> From the moment you enter the Gardens you are greeted by a long hedge of our native Juniperus</em> </em>scopulorum </em>(Rocky Mountain juniper).</em> This scale-forming evergreen is many things to the O’Fallon Perennial Walk. It is the greenscreen before which a yearlong ballet of color and form dance. Its sheer height creates the illusion of a much larger, grander space. The rather formal specimens that comprise this hedge are nothing like what you would find growing tortured and wild in our adjacent foothills.</p> Moving past the perennial garden we encounter another structural wonder, but this time there is a splash of color and sense of delight and movement. The Romantic Gardens’ allée is created with Thuja</em> </em>occidentalis</em> </em>‘Yellow Ribbon’. Here in front of these glowing spires hundreds of couples have sworn sacred oaths.</p> Some sort or form of evergreen plant can be found in every garden on our campus but there is one garden that is themed just to showcase unique mutations in traditional evergreens. This is the Dwarf Conifer Collection. Most trees in this garden have some form of mutated, stunted or deviant growth habit and are clustered together to highlight how special and different these variants can be. Many of these plants have been collected in the Rocky Mountains and are grafted onto a “normal” root stock. Finding and propagating “dwarf conifers” is an entire industry in and of itself. Collectors from around the world come to study and evaluate these fascinating plants.</p> Up till now we have talked about mostly coniferous plants and how we associate them as having evergreen foliage. But another important group of plants can be seen on the east face of Dryland Mesa. The plants here are what we term broadleaf evergreens and their scientific name is Arctostaphylos.</em> These shrubs are very important members of our western flora and represent examples of species from Colorado and neighboring states. Most have round, thick, almost leathery leaves that have a soft green glow and are possibly best appreciated with a background of snow to accentuate the exfoliating rust-colored bark and the dancing green leaves. Wild and beautiful, these are specimens that are left largely untouched and allowed to grow to whatever form the local climate dictates.</p> The broadleaved evergreen Arctostaphylos</em> x coloradensis</em> has so many attractive qualities that staff member Larry Jackel has turned a rooted cutting of one into a bonsai. This selection blooms quite early and often goes on display in Marnie's Pavilion while in full flower in February.</p> A little farther on there is another example of a broadleaf evergreen. Used as a foundation planting and sculpted as a hedge, garden boxwoods (Buxus </em>‘Green Velvet’) are grown to create separation in the garden beds of Le Potager.</p>
With very few exceptions, January flowers are hard to come by in a Colorado landscape. Not so in the tropical plant collections at Denver Botanic Gardens. The Boettcher Memorial Tropical Conservatory, Marnie’s Pavilion and the Orangery are a perfect venue for your winter floral fix.</p> Clerodendrum </em>× speciosum</em> is a sterile natural hybrid that can be found in tropical regions of Africa. It’s hard to miss the bright orange flowers on this sprawling vine. Look closely and you’ll see that once the flowers have dropped, a bright purple calyx is left behind giving the impression that this plant is almost always in bloom. Look for this vine about halfway through the Tropical Conservatory on the south side.</p> A little further along the south path is a beautiful specimen of Dombeya elegans</em> – a hibiscus relative from southeast Africa. This plant is prized in tropical landscapes for its profuse winter blooms and it drought tolerance.</p> Cross to the north side of the Tropical Conservatory for a beautiful display from Heliconia orthotricha.</em> This species is native to Ecuador and naturally has many color variations. Ours is a bright mix of orange, red and yellow. You can’t miss it.</p> Exiting into Marnie’s Pavilion, take a moment to appreciate the powder-puff-like blossoms of Calliandra surinamensis</em>. In the wild, members of this genus cover a wide range. But as the name implies, Calliandra surinamensis</em> can be found growing wild in Surinam as well as other parts of northern South America. The colorful flowers of the legume attract nectar-feeding birds and butterflies.</p> You can finish your tour of blossoms in the Orangery where you can relax and enjoy the display of orchids in our annual Orchid Showcase, Jan. 10 – Feb. 17, 2019. Hundreds of blossoms will help you forget the worries of the day and plenty of benches are available for you to sit and decompress.</p>
New Year’s resolutions often are focused on the body, mind and soul and for good reason. The busyness of life can lead to unhealthy eating, decreased exercise and not enough self-care. In line with our core values of transformation, relevance, diversity and sustainability, we have a variety of classes and programs that can start off the year on a healthy and refreshed foot.</p> For your body, mind and soul:</strong></p> We host regular yoga classes, including kundalini yoga</a> on Monday nights, morning vinyasa yoga</a> on Tuesdays and Thursdays and evening vinyasa yoga </a>on Wednesdays. Insider tip: the price of the class is a bit less than Gardens’ general admission and you can explore the Gardens between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. before or after your class!</li> We have special yoga and mindfulness programs such as a new year aspirations guided seated meditation</a>. Enjoy bilingual yoga</a> with English and Spanish cues. </li> You can escape the winter chill and enjoy a guided tour</a> through our warm Boettcher Memorial Tropical Conservatory or go on a wagon tour at Plains Conservation Center</a>. We also offer overview tours of the Gardens in Spanish.</li> You can explore the Orchid Showcase, on view in Marnie’s Pavilion and the Orangery, Jan. 9 – Feb. 16.</li> </ul> For your healthy diet and sustainable living:</strong></p> We offer a bounty of gardening classes that can help you grow your own organic food, from starting seeds indoors to raised beds and greenhouse growing. We cover every topic from understanding Front Range soils to determining what plants are best for your garden, organic pest control, harvesting and preserving.</li> If 2020 is the year you are going to try food or flower gardening for the first time or if your fails have been more plentiful than your successes (no judgment here – even our horticulturists have plant casualties!), you won’t want to miss New Gardener Boot Camp in February. There is also an evening New Gardener Boot Camp</a> in March and April. All boot camps present our bestselling beginner gardening classes into day or several evenings to equip you with the knowledge and confidence to conquer the garden once and for all. You will learn how to plan a garden for your space and needs; learn about soil, vegetables, annual and perennials, including tips on growing, watering, pest control and more.</li> </ul> Ready, set, grow and live your best life in 2020!</strong></p> Gardens members receive a discount on all education programs and special events. Learn more and register for our adult healthy living programs.</p> Register Today!</a></p>
</p> The time for planning your next major event is now – don’t waste your time looking at classic board rooms or traditional ballrooms when you could instead immerse your guests in the stunning surroundings of Denver Botanic Gardens at York Street!</p> No matter what kind of event you are hosting, our Private Events team will work with you to find the perfect setting for your group. With over a dozen unique rentable spaces that can accommodate guest lists large and small, the Gardens offers a variety of indoor and outdoor venues at every time of year.</p> Treat your guests to a once-in-a-lifetime experience they won’t soon forget by booking at Denver Botanic Gardens. 2019 dates are on sale now, and our 2020 rental calendar opens on Jan. 4.</strong> Popular dates and venues sell quickly – so don’t delay! We’d love to provide the setting that will turn your dream event into a reality.</p> To learn more and to set up a tour appointment, contact us at private.events@botanicgardens.org</a> or call 720-865-3551.</p>
So, the holidays are over…. What to do with the festive plants that remain? Here is a short list of holiday plants and “the truth may hurt” fate of each.</p> Poinsettia</strong> – Euphorbia pulcherrima</em>: While beautiful during the holidays, poinsettias are pest magnets and aren’t worth the struggle. Throw it in the compost and get a new one next year.</li> Christmas cactus</strong> – Schlumbergera</em> hybrids: This is an easy-to-care-for houseplant and one you should keep. It requires more water and fertilizer and less light than most cacti. A drop in temperature for a few weeks in the fall will help initiate plenty of blossoms around the holiday season. Properly cared for, these plants can live for decades and cuttings can be generously shared with friends and family.</li> Amaryllis</strong> – Hippeastrum</em> species and cultivars: These rarely bloom a second time in a home environment and only flower once per year. I recommend composting this plant, too.</li> Florist cyclamen</strong> – Cyclamen persicum: </em>Cyclamen continue to gain in popularity and can remain in bloom for months when provided with good growing conditions. Keep plants on the cool side (65 degrees F) and provide plenty of light. Keep plants constantly moist or leaves will yellow and detract from the plant’s overall appearance. Remove spent flowers to encourage more blossoms. After several months of bloom, plants will go dormant. At this point, it may be easiest to dispose of the plant and get a fresh start the following season.</li> Norfolk Island pine</strong> – Araucaria heterophylla</em>: This is a very easy-to-care-for houseplant! It can handle wet or dry soil, lots of light or low light, with one demerit: it wants to grow to over 100 feet tall. You can cut the top back for years but one day, you’ll get sick of it. When that time comes, enjoy the plant outside through the summer and drop it in the compost at the end of the season.</li> Rosemary</strong> – Rosmarinus officinalis</em>: This is a tricky plant to overwinter indoors and may not be worth the effort. If you can provide a position with plenty of light and relatively cool temperatures, you should be able to hold onto your rosemary plant until it can be moved outside for the summer after danger of frost. If you cannot provide these conditions, it may be best to harvest a few sprigs for winter cooking projects and then discard the plant.</li> </ul> Chances are you’ve already killed some of these plants—we all certainly have—but it might not have been your fault. Most holiday plants start in perfect conditions, only to be shipped halfway across the country in a dark, cool truck, just to sit around at the supermarket for several weeks under artificial light. If you wish to keep a holiday plant alive after the holidays, purchasing a locally grown plant will serve you well in the long run.</p> This blog post was written by former Denver Botanic Gardens' horticulturist Aaron Sedivy.</em></p>
Denver Botanic Gardens has partnered with Craig Hospital to offer an internship in horticultural therapy (HT) that meets the requirements of the American Horticultural Therapy Association (AHTA) for professional registered horticultural therapists. Craig Hospital is one of the top rehabilitation hospitals in the country specifically focusing on traumatic brain injury (TBI) and spinal cord injuries (SCI).</p> Craig’s mission is to provide exceptional patient and family-centered care for those affected by spinal cord and brain injuries, striving for optimal health, independence and quality of life. To achieve this mission, Craig provides a wide range of rehabilitation programs. Of these programs, one that is integral to returning to life post-injury, is therapeutic recreation (T-Rec), of which horticultural therapy is a part. Rehabilitating from a TBI or SCI is not easy, and T-Rec offers respite from the demands of therapies, as well as offers patients adaptations so that they can continue to do the things they love when they return home.</p> This process includes interviewing patients to learn about their interests. Communication with the patient’s treatment team, including doctors, physical therapy, occupational therapy and more, helps us to evaluate patients to create goals and activities that are in alignment with their treatment plan. Patients are referred to HT by recreational therapists who learn that gardening is a hobby or interest. Occupational, physical or speech therapy also arranges co-treatments with HT to work on functional skills. Patients can get involved in HT by signing up for group horticulture activities, which range from making kokedama moss ball planters to painting birdhouse gourds grown in the Therapy Garden at Craig.</p> For individual sessions, we create activities that are driven both by the patient’s interests and by specific goals the patient is working on. We often do co-treatment sessions with a patient’s occupational therapist or speech therapist so the patient can be further supported in working on relevant goals. For example, for a patient who is working on strengthening their hands post-injury, we may practice skills using adaptive tools. For a patient who has experienced a brain injury and is experiencing left neglect, where they have trouble paying attention to their left side of the body and left field of vision, we may practice left attention and left visual scanning by deadheading a patch of flowers.</p> Adaptive tools and wheelchair accessible gardens are integral for working with patients at Craig Hospital. We use a variety of tools that are adapted to the needs of patients, ranging from specifically manufactured tools, to creating many of our own using common items such as duct tape, funnels, rubber bands, and spoons. When you look at the world through the perspective of a patient at Craig, it is easy to find ways to "do"! One item that we use often is a utility cuff, or "U-Cuff," which is a cuff that fits over a patient’s hand. The cuff includes a pocket in which a tool can be inserted and allows patients with low hand strength to work with tools independently.</p> While at Craig, I designed and led a group activity making herb-infused vinegars. Facilitators harvested and prepared fresh herbs from the Craig Therapy Garden. Patients were empowered to create their own herbal vinegar recipe. Myself, my mentor, Susie Hall, volunteers and family assisted with adaptations to allow the patient to make their herbal vinegar as independently as possible. It was a wonderful sensory experience, as the table was filled with the sights, smells and textures of fresh herbs.</p> I am grateful for this partnership between Denver Botanic Gardens and Craig Hospital to offer this HT internship. I am thankful for the incredible staff in the T-Rec department at Craig Hospital, especially Susie Hall. Working with patients at Craig has pushed me to develop my skills working with differently abled populations, and inspired me to continue accessible gardening in my future.</p> This blog post was written by Gina Sferrazza. Gina first discovered her love of gardening by sowing seeds in a tiny backyard patio. She went on to develop her horticultural skills through working on vegetable and medicinal herb farms. She has volunteered with horticultural therapy programs at The Mental Health Center of Denver and Jeffco Transition Services before starting as the Horticultural Therapy Intern at Denver Botanic Gardens. Gina's personal mission is to use her knowledge to teach others how to cultivate plants, in order to create a world in harmony with nature. </em></p>
</p> The holiday season is in full bloom at York Street as Blossoms of Light™</a> delights thousands of guests each night with mesmerizing displays of light and color. Though it is a tradition for many Front Range families, the new designs and features provide a new adventure every year for even the most seasoned visitors. In fact, CNN has ranked</a> Blossoms of Light as one of the top places to see lights in the entire country! </p> As you wander the lights, keep in mind that it takes a lot to get to this point! Here are some fun facts about Blossoms of Light that, if they don’t make you enjoy the lights even more, may at least shed some light (ha) on the scope and scale of this massive public event.</p> Blossoms of Light opened its first season of illumination over 30 years ago, in 1988.</li> Blossoms of Light is the Gardens’ largest single event of the year, drawing in more guests and revenue than any other.</li> It takes 13 months to design, plan, and execute the event. </li> Installation of lights begins on the Tuesday after Labor Day, and every light is removed by the end of February. Lights are installed with poles, lifts, climbing harnesses, waders and cherry-picker buckets.</li> Custom-strung lights are built by hand starting in early summer. Unusual light colors, such as teal or purple, must be ordered 6-8 months in advance because manufacturers only produce limited quantities each year.</li> We estimate there are more than half a million individual lights in the entire display. The exact number is very difficult to calculate!</li> 100 percent of the decorative lights used are LED.</li> Squirrels and wind are the biggest enemies to the lighting equipment.</li> The eagle-eyed visitor may notice that we double-dip in a few areas – we turn on some of the spookiest lights for Glow at the Gardens in October.</li> This is the first year in over a decade that we have extended Blossoms of Light more than a week past New Year's.</li> </ol> Tickets are selling quickly, so get yours before they are gone. We look forward to celebrating the season of light with you!</p> Blossoms of Light is open nightly (closed December 25) through January 16, 2021. Tickets must be purchased in advance. Get your tickets today!</a></strong></p> </p>
