Slide Show: Mile High Gardening
Swathes of little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) at a downtown Denver park. Ornamental grasses really work in Denver’s dry, windy winter climate.
I had an opportunity to meet Panayoti’s friend and long-time former Denver Botanical Garden employee Sandy Snyder. Her garden brims with cold-hardy succulents, cacti, shrubby native oaks and Mahonia, and an intriguing array of cushion plants fro
Sandy and Panayoti – long time friends and co-workers.
One of many gorgeous cold-hardy rock garden plants. I need a reminder on the name of this charming plant!
Sandy has an extraordinary lawn of buffalo grass – apparently a sheet of multi-colored species crocus and adorable, miniscule narcissus in spring. I caught the very tail end of the show but it was still beautiful!
The crevice rock garden in Sandy Snyder’s front garden. In another couple of weeks, it should be bright with sub-alpine flowers.
Early Pulsatilla flowers at the drought-tolerant public display gardens at Kendrick Lake
Gardens at Kendrick Lake – looking spare in late March, but soon to be engulfed in sheets of bright flowering bulbs, cushion plants, cactus blossoms and perennials.
Acres of sinewy gravel beds, thickly planted with drought-tolerant plants, provide Denver residents with a spectacular palette of environmentally suitable plants.
Love the handsome olive-green foliage on this Agave rupicola – a species that was unscathed by particularly brutal early and late frosts this past winter.
A gorgeous purple Opuntia cactus at Kendrick Lake gardens
Chatfield houses the stock and propagation greenhouses for the Denver Botanical Gardens. Panayoti checks out trial plants here, including his recent collections from Kazakhstan.
