Denver Botanic Gardens and Kaiser Permanente have created a first-of-its-kind community supporting agriculture (CSA) program. The community farm will provide fresh local produce to Colorado families.</p> Made possible through a three-year, $500,000 grant from Kaiser Permanente, the CSA will operate as a community farm at Denver Botanic Gardens at Chatfield—located at C-470 and Wadsworth Blvd. in Littleton.</p> Shares of the CSA are sold to members of the public who then receive portions of the garden’s fresh produce during the harvest season, from June through October. This new venture marks an important milestone:</p> The Gardens is the first botanical garden in the country to operate a CSA program of this scale. This partnership is also believed to be the nation’s first CSA collaboration between a botanical garden and a health care provider. In its first year, the Chatfield CSA will serve approximately 65 families who have already signed up for the program.</p> In addition, a percentage of the fresh produce will be donated to local food banks in the Rocky Mountain region. There are plans to expand the garden next season to allow for additional CSA memberships.</p> SEEDED IN SUPPORT BY KAISER PERMANENTE</p> Photos by Scott Dressel-Martin</p>
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. Its not just the purchasing of plants that's on--it's everything from lawn mowing to sowing vegetable seeds to new projects getting underway. The ideas your neighbors and co-workers are entertaining as varied as they are: ask them! Determined to grow fresh vegetables in an area approximately the size of a business card? Try Super Small Space Vegetable Gardening with Patti O'Neal. As intimidated by choosing a contractor as by working alone? Hiring a Landscape Professional with Curtis Manning is for you. Determined to garden without declaring war on woodland creatures? Friendly Wildlife Management with Joe Julian. The string of subjects is epitomized by the range of Rocky Mountain Gardening classes offered in just the next few weeks: Bluegrass and Alternative Turf Grasses, Friendly Wildlife Management, Pots with Panache, Sustainable Greenhouse Design, Tree ID and Selection, and Trees and Shrubs for Small Spaces. Each of these ideas will bring out your fellow Rocky Mountain residents–and I mean out to their lawn, to a neighbors blooms, to your street-side tree. Once you begin to look, you begin to see all the different arenas in which someone from your community is improving their landscape. Pots, boxes and other containers will show up in many contexts. Some will transform tiny patios into lush landscapes, others will accent walkways and decks, and some will even be plopped directly into planting beds, adding color, height, contrast or even a simple way to move a tender plant out of frost's way. You have your choice of classes (Container Gardens for Shady Spaces, Container Gardens for Hot, Dry Spaces, Pots with Panache) but more importantly, you have choices of personal preference and chances for creative expression. You find that most gardeners take their landscape quite seriously–partly because its viewed as an investment in the value of their home–but they let themselves go a little in a container. Not sure if chartreuse vines go with purple grass? Well, I wouldn't do a yard full, but lets try it in this pot from two years ago. And voila! I believe that really good gardeners are not afraid to experiment... Gardeners who appear to be always successful probably just remove the corpses faster than some us. Speaking of successful and really good gardeners, there's a pair of events to take note of this spring. The 2010 Garden Conservancy Open Day in Denver is May 22, the other is its Friday night preview "Inspired by Mountains and Plains: Redefining the Well-Adapted Regional Garden" on May 21, at 7:00 PM. The Garden Conservancy Open Days program features private gardens opened to the public to raise awareness and funds for the nonprofit Garden Conservancy. We are fortunate that Colorado's own garden writers, experts, and personalities have joined together to inspire another year of Open Days in metro Denver, and doubly so to have them many of them speak! I enjoy walking through private gardens because the experience of place is real and tangible, but I love the opportunity to see presentations because it captures another person's view of these spaces. In the case of "Inspired by Mountains and Plains," I expect that the format of the evening, many shorter talks back-to-back, will give me a wealth of experience to have in mind as I tour gardens the next day. Registration for the May 21st event brings you the perspectives of David Salman, owner of Santa Fe’s famed High Country Gardens; Pat Hayward, Director of the Plant Select program; Marcia Tatroe, author of Cutting Edge Gardening in the Intermountain West</em>; Bill Adams, a superb grower of wholesale succulents, alpines and xeric perennials; and Panayoti Kelaidis, Senior Curator and Director of Outreach at Denver Botanic Gardens, whose home garden is also open on Saturday. And then there are the perspectives gained from traveling to more distant landscapes too. The Colorado Heartland Tour: Magical Gardens at Peak Spring Bloom will inspire you with garden visions selected by Panayoti Kelaidis, places in Colorado Springs and Pueblo that will inform a Denver gardener even as they are different from Denver. Or further afield, the deadline for "Gardens of Portland, Oregon" with Horticulturist Ebi Kondo is just days away: call Pam Rathke at 720-746-0748 right away if you're interested in the June 17-20 itinerary. It can be tough to travel when your garden is calling... but it can be tough to go another year and realize you haven't traveled. Finally, there are many other arts practiced in conjunction with gardening. The culinary arts are always well-represented (Sensational Summer Soups and Salads, Fiesta in Lucinda’s Garden) and photography should be. I was fortunate enough to have access to Scott Dressel-Martin's photographs from earlier today: Scott is responsible for the photographs on the Gardens' main website, among many other beauties. We are fortunate to have him teach for us too: The Next Stop: Take Your Photography to the Next Level is coming up on May 13. One thing I enjoy about public gardens is being involved with the other people who are involved. With all the growers, speakers, instructors, organizers and volunteers that I encounter, there's a palpable sense of pleasure, an unspoken frisson of excitement because something cool will happen next. It can be as simple as invitation to come over and look at my garden, a shared photograph, or it can be a revelation that changes your gardening forever. The season of gardening is here: all you have to do is dive in.</p>
Denver B-cycle rolls out this week, and the Mile High City will never be the same. The program launches on Earth Day, Thursday, April 22. The York Street B-Station will be one of 45 to 50 stations with 500 bikes spread across the city. Visit the Denver b-cycle website for more info or to join. We still have plenty of room available for your own personal bikes on our regular bike racks, too. Bike to the Gardens this week!</p>
Everybody knows bleeding hearts (Dicentra</em>) but their cousins, Corydalis, are rarely found in Colorado Gardens. Denver Botanic Gardens is helping change all that. The largely drought tolerant genus Corydalis</em> contains hundreds of species (compared with just a dozen or so of the moisture loving Dicentra</em>) and many of these are in peak form at the Gardens right now. The first picture shows 'George Baker', probably the most eye blasting of these spring ephemerals. This picture is taken in my garden, but the combination of draba and corydalis is brilliantly displayed behind the Cactus and Succulent House in the Rock Alpine Garden right now. Go down there quickly! If you poke around the rest of the garden you will find a dozen or more other kinds of this amazing genus lurking here and there. Corydalis angustifolia</em> is another of my favorites, this one coming from Central Asia, forming a large patch in front of the old Alpine House (now the Cactus and Succulent House). You may not find Corydalis at the Rock Garden sale this Saturday (April 24) in Mitchell Hall (from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.) but you will find no end of other treasures: be there or be square! Corydalis angustifolia</p>
</p> Saturday's warm weather drew out more bulbs and other early bloomers, and finally its beginning to look like March should. March belongs to several genera in the rock garden, Crocus,</em> Galanthus </em>and Helleborus</em> are just a few genera that shine in March.</p> First we will revisit the genus Crocus,</em> the main focus of last week's blog. The sunny skies Monday afternoon allowed me to get photos of crocus both open and closed. The first is the same cultivar of Crocus sieberi</em> I featured closed up last week. The bright orange stamens are a lovely contrast to its lavender petals. The white crocus is most likely Crocus chrysanthus</em> 'Ard Schenk' or a similar cultivar. Notice both the pale gray venation on the reverse of the blossoms and the orange stigma sticking out of the far left.Crocus sieberi</em> can be found in the lower meadow smack in the middle of the Rock Alpine Garden, while Crocus 'Ard Schenk' is in front of the Cactus and Succulent house behind the low stone bench.</p> </p> While many of the crocus where open yesterday afternoon, Crocus reticulatus</em> pictured above, is perhaps my favorite crocus. Still closed up deep in the shadows, the reverse of each bloom is a work of art. It is especially beautiful as each bloom opens revealing the interior. </p> </em></p> Iris reticulata</em> cultivars have been getting well deserved attention now, and Iris 'Pixie' pictured above makes up for it's smaller size with the intensely deep color of its flowers. It graces the top of the waterfall at the highest point of the garden. The blooms are less weather resistant than crocus, and snow and temperatures above 70 make them go away quickly. Actually temperatures in the 30s through low 60s make most bulbs last longer than warmer temperatures.</p> </em></p> Sternbergia candida</em> is a lovely white flowering bulb in the Amaryllis family. It is rather rare in gardens, as all Sternbergia</em> are CITIES listed meaning permits are needed for them to cross international borders. This is done in part to curb the widespread collection of bulbs out of their native habitats. Many species of bulbs are still in dangered of extinction through gathering for the horticultural trade, and habitat loss. Enjoy the photo of the Sternbergia </em>is it is in a part of the garden not accessable to the public.</p> </p> Eranthis hyemalis </em>is the last bulb featured this week. A member of the buttercup family you can see the resemblance to several of our native buttercups found in the high country. On a side note the buttercup family has been broken up and Eranthis</em> maybe in the hellebore family. This cheery little gem is under the Magnolia at the east entrance of the Rock Alpine Garden.</p> </p> Staying in the same family but departing the bulbs, is Pulsatilla vulgaris</em> or pasque flower with its deep lavender or purple blooms. The word pasque is French for Easter and refers to the general bloom time. Soon it will be time to find our native pasque flower Pulsatilla patens</em> in the foothills. Pasque flowers can be found throughout the Rock Alpine Garden.</p> </em></p> Helleborus vesicarius,</em> a feature of a blog several weeks ago is now in full bloom, as you can see it is a far departure from the open blooms of Lenten roses (Helleborus x hybridus</em>) or Christmas roses (Helleborus niger</em>), but it has its own charm. Spring is well on its way.</p>
Poor drabas! Such a colorless name...and they have other image problems too--that acid yellow color and their general similarity to one another. Oh well: some of us look beyond these superficialities. We have a welter of alpine drabas we must wait until June to see in the alpine, but if you are lucky enough to have a rock garden, you can have drabas blooming early indeed. Spanish draba (Draba hispanica</em>) is always my first to bloom. I admit most drabas wait till April to come out, but these specimens, on this hot wall, have been known to bloom in February! Right now they are in peak form and buzzing with bees. Wise gardeners know that microclimate in our fierce steppe climate is everything: I like to say that the south side of our homes are like Arizona and the north side like Alaska. On this toasty Sonoran wall the draba is precocious, but in my shady home rock garden you can find the same species still blooming in May, three months later (Alaska). In Colorado, there are no green thumbs. Just clever gardeners with compasses! Aaaah! Spring! P.S.: Just found this touching quote: "So our human life but dies to its root, and still puts forth its green blade to eternity." (Henry David Thoreau, Walden</em></strong>)</p>
If you haven't been able to swing in and check out the Boettcher Tropical Conservatory in the last couple of weeks, now is a great time. We have just recently finished a bed renovation that is sure to please all who come to enjoy it. My teammates and I decided to not hold anything back on this one and included some of our favorite plants that weren't previously on display to the public. As the focal center point of the newly planted bed is the gorgeous Medinilla magnifica</em>. As the name hints, when in flower, this plant is magnificent! Medinilla magnific</em>a is native to the Philippines and belongs to the Melastomataceae family. While our new addition is not in bloom right now, be sure to visit frequently throughout the year; you won't want to miss this one. My teammate, Conservatory Horticulturist, Alan Schroder can barely hold back his excitement about the addition of two more plants to the new planting: the wavy-leaved Anthurium brownii</em> and the unique Begonia 'Pigskin'. Anthurium brownii</em> will surely grow into quite the specimen plant with its bright red venation and symmetrically wavy leaves and not to mention the unique spathe and spadix produced by the plant. Anthurium brownii</em> has a native range from Costa Rica to Colombia and it really adds a nice aroid-ean touch to the bed. Begonia</em> 'Pigskin' is a unique rhizomatous begonia with a rough leaf texture. One of the nicest aspects of the plant is how when light hits it just right, the green leaves take on a bronze-ish appearance. This begonia stays low to the ground and makes quite a nice ground cover with white to pale pink flowers, be sure to take a good long look at this one. One of my favorite additions to the new bed is the new bromeliad display we designed. Just in the front of the bed is a small embankment of lava rock that will serve as an area to rotate blooming bromeliads and orchids in and out of as we please, so that we are able to make more of our rare and beautiful plants available for public enjoyment....as well as our own! There are many other interesting plants in the bed, so be sure to come in and see for yourselves! The newly renovated bed in just inside the doors to the Boettcher Tropical Conservatory to the right of the pond...there's no way it could be missed. Hope to see you soon as the days are lengthening and warming!</p>
