Do you have the winter doldrums? Is your house full of bored guests? If you’re tired of being indoors and need some fresh (if cold) air, here’s a great excuse to get into a garden. Denver Botanic Gardens is worth a visit any time of year, but right now (through January 3), the gardens are decorated with over a million lights—with spectacular results.
We recently braved the cold and plunked down our $9.50 admission. (Entry to “Blossoms of Light” is separate from the $11.50 daily entrance fee. They shoo all the daytime visitors out first, then open the doors again from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m.)
Have you finished your Christmas shopping yet? Christmas is only two days away! Well, if you’re still scratching your head searching for ideas, I have just the thing for that hard-to-shop-for person on your list. And if you are done with your shopping, may I add one more person for you to shop for—someone you don’t know and will probably never meet?
It’s November. Bushes have bare branches, perennials are dead, dried stalks. Except for a few hardy groundcovers and various conifers (pines, junipers, and the like), the landscape is asleep. Except… wait! Are those daffodils in that flower bed? And does that window box really have bright red, white and blue flowers in it at this time of year?
The sky is bright blue, the sun is shining, the predicted high is well above freezing, and it’s been like that for months. Sounds like perfect weather—but not if you’re a plant. As I look out my window at my dormant garden, I can hear the plants crying for water. Everything is so dry! Desiccating winds have drained the last vestiges of moisture from exposed leaves and branches, and even the so-called evergreens are shriveled.
With temperatures dipping into the low 20s and our first (finally!) snowfall, the bugs in our gardens are either dead or in hiding. But before we collapse into that comfy recliner with a garden book and a cup of tea, we need to take a good look at our houseplants. It might be winter outside, but indoors the bugs are having a field day.
You’ve never noticed the shrub before. Its rounded green leaves and vase shape let it lurk unobtrusively in the background, where it may eventually grow to 15 feet tall and wide. Then, seemingly overnight, there’s a neon-fuchsia beacon glowing in the landscape. Fall has arrived, and the Burning Bush is on fire.
Gardening in Colorado is not easy. Late freezes, early snow storms (though not this year), hail, drought, torrential rainfall, over 100 species of grasshoppers… there is plenty to complain about.
Mountain Plover 