</p> Autumn is imbued with intimations of mortality: dying leaves, dormancy, doom, gloom, Hallowe'en colors and ghosts and spooks: Boo! Gardeners know another side of this "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness": there are a number of plants that only begin </strong>blooming in September, with one or another species coming on until the spring: Hellebores, crocuses, cyclamen and witch hazels are all plants that have a different notion of the growing season. It's their spring right now! A well stocked collection of any of these genera begins with heavy bloom in October and one or another will keep blooming right until the hot days of late spring when they go dormant (so to speak) for the summer doldrums. These are my kind of plants! Crocuses for most of us means the bright orangy-yellow Crocus flavus </em>or C. ancyrensis</em> among a host of others, not to mention the Dutch giants derived from C. vernus</em>. Although pitifully few Coloradoans grow them, crocuses will thrive almost anywhere they are planted in a Colorado garden: dry or wet, sunny or shady. They love it here. Now is a great time to plant these spring bloomers for a splash of color in February and March. There are another group of true crocuses that wait until October to put on their show. These you must order early in the season and plant in September preferably. Denver Botanic Gardens boasts wonderful plantings of these in many gardens: they are among the largest flowered plants in their genus and have flowers of a luminous shades of lavender, purple and occasionally white. Ten days ago we had a precocious bout of winter that froze many leaves and diminished our autumn beauty. But I have never seen the autumn crocuses bloom more spectacularly than they have the last few weeks. I am not talking about the pink Colchicums that go by that name (they are mostly done and are in the Lily family and have six stamens: true crocuses are related to irises and have only three stamens!). Above you have Crocus speciosus</em>, the commonest and bluest of the autumn crocus which is blooming in the east west pathway and the Rock Alpine Garden right now. Below is C. nudiflorus</em> in my own home garden. An even darker C. medius</em> will be blooming the next few weeks in the Rock Alpine Garden. Remind me to order more of these and the rest next year for my garden! To walk into a garden where dozens of unearthly, fluted goblets of autumn crocuses are gently trembling in the autumn breeze is heavenly. It's as though they are toasting the start of the crocus season with their beakers, full of sky blue or evening lavender. Cheers! </p>
Have you ever wondered what really happens within plants to help them carry on through the winter? As autumn approaches, the sun begins to set closer to the horizon, leading to cooler nights and shorter day lengths. This sends a warning signal to plants that winter is soon approaching and that they need to get ready to go into dormancy, which is similar to hibernation in animals. During dormancy, the plants stop growing, fluids within cells stop flowing and the tender growing tips are enclosed in a tight, frost resistant bud. Before entering this dormancy, the leaves of the plants turn from green to yellow, orange, or red before dropping to the ground. So, what causes the change in leaf color? In leaves, both the green chlorophyll and the yellow-orange carotenoid pigments occur within the chloroplasts. Since there are more chlorophyll pigments than the carotenoid pigments, the leaves appear green. In the fall, the chlorophyll pigments decompose allowing the caretenoids to express themselves as orange and yellow. In some plants, the leaf cells produce red pigments, the anthocyanins. In these leaves, once the chlorophyll has decomposed, the anthocyanins mask the caretenoids, thus turning the leaves red. The change in color and dropping of leaves are the plants' way of avoiding freezing damage to themselves. During freezing, the water within the cells of leaves turn to ice, causing disruption of the tissues. These damaged tissues become inviting sites for fungi and bacteria to invade the plant. In order to prevent microbial invasion, plants drop their leaves and form a protective seal over the areas where the leaves were once attached before the freeze damage can occur. Even though plants look lifeless in the winter, be assured that they are ever sensitive of their surroundings, keeping tabs on the temperature and day length before getting ready to spring back to life!</p>
We think of passion flowers as something exotic, tropical and certainly not something you can grow in Colorado. Fiddlesticks! There is a garden in Littleton where passion flowers are practically a problem. Sandy Snyder (who worked at Denver Botanic Gardens for 17 years as horticulturist) has perhaps the finest private garden in the metro area. The south side of her house is positively DRAPED with passion flowers (see below): in fact, she weeds them out (they do sucker a bit much, you know). Right now, the whole glorious wall boasts hundreds of these frilly, incredible Faberge gem-like blossoms. I know a garden in West Denver (Jim and Dorothy Borland) that has a similarly rambunctious white flowered passion flower growing just as vigorously. Sandy's plant originally came from the South Denver garden of Tom and Ann Johnson, who passed away decades ago--great gardeners whose plant and memory lives on. We have not yet managed to grow this outdoors at Denver Botanic Gardens, although we have quite a few passion flowers in the conservatory and containers. But I suspect one day we will. Isn't it amazing what the great gardeners of our area are doing? </p>
</p> </p> Yet another BRAND NEW experience is waiting for you at Denver Botanic Gardens. The Gardens has opened a new gift shop, Shop at the Gardens. The entire gift shop was re-designed from the ground up to offer our visitors the most sustainable, creative, unique garden and gift products in Denver.</p> </p> Come shop an extensive collection of gifts and toys for children, unique jewelry, garden and cook books, apparel, affordable gifts made from the most cutting-edge sustainable materials and packaging, plants and other items sure to be found nowhere else in Denver. Plus, you give back to the Gardens when you shop with us. Proceeds from the gift shop help fund Gardens' programming for the community.</p> Chuck McGlothlin (pictured above), is the shop manager and buyer. He and his very capable staff are here to help you select just the right gift for yourself, someone you love or for your home!</p> Shop at the Gardens is open year-round during regular Gardens hours and is located in the new Bonfils-Stanton Visitor Center. Admission to the Shop at the Gardens and all parking is free.</p> We'll not only offer you the most unique gifts in the City of Denver, we'll make it easy for you to shop with us as well. Think all-natural gifts. Think plants and gardening supplies. Think affordable, relevant offerings. Shop over 10,000 items that have been personally selected by our staff to reflect the Gardens’ core values of sustainability, transformation, diversity and relevance. We look forward to seeing you soon!</p>
</p> What threatens Sclerocactus glaucus</em>? Installation and maintenance of huge pipelines that move oil and gas from the well pads miles and miles to the collection facilities; roads; browsing and trampling from livestock; weeds; and people who collect them from the wild to name a few. Why are we doing something about it? Just look at the beautiful landscape and plant community. Do you want to lose that? Neither do we.</p>
