On Tuesday at Denver Botanic Gardens, development seeds sown almost a decade ago bore more fruit in the form of three newly dedicated spaces: the Sensory Garden, the Steppe Garden and the All-America Select Garden.
“In our master development plan, these three zones were identified as areas that needed to be rethought, and they’ve evolved,” said Brian Vogt, CEO at the Gardens for almost 10 years.
Sensory Garden
The Sensory Garden was dedicated in honor of the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Lee McCoy, a DBG horticulturist also trained in horticultural therapy, designed the Sensory Garden.
“The power of plants to heal and support people might seem trendy, but it’s always been the case,” she said. “It’s a complex subject, but we humans used to live amongst plants, and to live removed from them is unnatural for us.”
McCoy created the Sensory Garden to engage all five senses. With vibrant pink and red zinnias, yellow rudbeckia, orange trumpet vines, purple butterfly bushes and cobalt blue containers, the garden provides obvious visual interest. A scope with a dragonfly eye offers a close-up, multifaceted view of plants.
Yet not all visitors have the benefit of vision, so the garden awakens other senses, too. Lavender, lemon balm, scented geraniums, jasmine, honey-scented heliotrope and budding roses add their alluring perfumes. Visitors can taste culinary herbs such as basil, rosemary or mint. Soft-leafed sages and mimosa pudica — also known as sensitive plant — invite touch, as do groupings of textural ceramic container gardens. For auditory elements, northern sea oats rustle in breezes while a bubbling fountain pleasantly gurgles.
The Sensory Garden will delight any visitor, yet the space grants particular consideration to people with disabilities. Situated near the visitor’s center, the accessible garden’s wide paths provide traction and gentle inclines. Raised beds present plants at an ideal height for guests using a wheelchair; workstations also accommodate wheelchairs. Fresh, smooth hardscape provides safer footing for people using walkers or canes. Handrails add another safety feature. And handsome new wood cabinets hold materials for horticultural therapy programs.
McCoy and Vogt emphasized that the Sensory Garden is not only for people with disabilities. “We all crave to be surprised by nature again,” Vogt said. “Something mysterious is harder and harder to find. Things get homogenized into monocultures. But here at the Gardens, people find variety. The joy is in seeing people discover something they didn’t expect.”
Steppe Garden
The new Steppe Garden includes unexpectedly large rocks almost the size of Smart Cars. Plant plots embedded in stacked flagstone cairns hold high-plains plants basking in full sun. A stroll through the garden suggests a trek in Patagonia, Central Asia or South Africa — other steppes DBG studies.
“Steppes are an area of huge devotion for us,” Vogt said. “We’ve been focusing on steppe ecosystems because Denver is one of the only major cities in a steppe with high, dry plains and climate determined by mountain ranges.”
Diverse, yet fragile, steppe biomes provide habitat for many living things. Steppe vegetation endures drastic temperature fluctuations, drought, even wildfires.
“We’re doing more study on how plants have adapted over time to extreme weather conditions and significant storms typical of steppes,” said Vogt. “We believe — particularly in the future with very hot, very dry environments popping up all over — that these profoundly resilient plants will have a lot of connection to the future of agriculture.”
DBG focuses on steppe education in its Science Pyramid and recently signed an agreement to conduct cooperative research with Patagonia.
“It’s really inspiring to enjoy the combination of nature and humans working together,” said Vogt. “It gives us a sense of something bigger. We all need that humility from time to time to take us out of ourselves and give us a bigger perspective.”
All-America Selections Garden
From any angle, the new All-America Selections Garden displays showy, floriferous, tried-and-true annuals carefully vetted through plant trials.
“It’s a celebration of color and light,” said Vogt.
The new garden includes a new pavilion that replaced an old tent.
“This pavilion is for weddings, cocktail parties or other private events,” Vogt said, “but also for visitors who want some shade and a place to sit.”
A gardener’s work is never done, and that’s doubly true in public gardens held to the highest horticultural standards. Along with constant tilling and toiling, weeding and watering, DBG also is undertaking an overhaul of the dome of its midcentury Modern Boettcher Memorial Tropical Conservatory. The Gardens mark the structure’s 50th anniversary this year with a restoration of the dome’s concrete and replacement of Plexiglas panels.
“By the end of September, it will look brand new,” said Vogt.
One project remains on DBG’s ambitious redevelopment list: the Center for Science, Art and Education. Plans call for groundbreaking north of the main building within 18 months in a nonpublic area currently serving as a nursery.
“We’ll have a new library with a real rare books room, a coffee shop, art galleries and an herbarium. We’ll be able to expand our botanical illustration program which has high demand,” said Vogt. “This sets the stage for the next 50 years.”
