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.)
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.
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.
Are you tired of gardening? We’ve had a longer-than- average growing season this year, and the weather is still warm enough to encourage flowers to bloom and pumpkins to turn orange. If your kitchen counter is piled high with zucchini, and you’re actually getting a tad tired of vine-ripened tomatoes, this is the perfect time to plan next year’s garden.
A calm oasis in Monument Park, the 
As you enter off Mesa Road (a continuation of W. Cache la Poudre Street) or Glen Avenue in downtown Colorado Springs, the noise of the street fades, replaced by the chirping of birds and the gentle sigh of a cool breeze. Rarely are more than a few other people present.
After my recent post about spiders, and how I’m struggling to tolerate them, it might come as a surprise that I (unlike my husband) am deeply fond of snakes. Phobia—and love—know no logic.
Mountain Plover 