walking tour

This tour was designed by Panayoti Kelaidis, Denver Botanic Gardens’ Senior Curator and Director of Outreach.  To experience this tour, please print this page and follow the experts advice on the best way to stroll the Gardens in the month of September.  

In Praise of Trees 
 
After the long, hot summer, September eases in with all the grace of a second spring. Though spring is often tempestuous and blustery in Colorado, September almost always has a gentle, slow descent into cooler and cooler weather, with blazing blue skies and flowers galore.
 
By now, some of us are getting a tad tired of watering containers, and the cooling days let us neglect our duties now and again without too much damage to plants. There seems to be more time for contemplating vistas and reflecting on the garden. Trees suddenly come into focus -- just in time, really, for they are about to explode with color.
 
The first tree to turn, invariably, seems to be Ohio buckeye (Aesculus glabra). There are a number of these scattered strategically around the Gardens at York Street, but the most impressive specimens stand in the crossroads between South African Plaza, Sacred Earth and Dryland Mesa. Some years they are mostly orange and yellow, but other years they are shot through with a deep, scarlet tinge. By September, their spiny, intriguing seeds are falling around you, especially when a squirrel is shaking a few loose. I’ve been told that in the Eastern Woodlands these trees are not noted for their fall color. However, in Colorado they are always star performers. And very drought-tolerant, as well.
 
Maples and various ashes often follow quickly on the heels of the buckeye. There is such a wealth of unusual maples in PlantAsia, I find this is a great time to look at them and see how radically the leaf shape differs from one plant from the next. Everyone’s favorite seems to be the paperbark maple (Acer griseum), with its polished, burnished trunk, and awesome pink and red fall color. 
 
Oaks tend to be very late to turn color, some not coloring until well into November. But such is the wealth of oaks at the Gardens - I never walk about without finding one or another to admire. This would be a good time to stroll through the Gates Montane Garden, which borders the Cheesman Park fence. Almost every tree native to Colorado is found in this shadiest of our gardens (since it was first to be planted). I never walk this shady path without admiring the many conifers - always pausing to marvel at how quickly the giant sequoias (Sequoiadendron giganteum) are growing, midway along the path on the west side. Opposite these, and a bit farther north, is the most magnificent Gambel oak (Quercus gambelii) I have ever seen; I suspect it may be larger than any in the wild at this point. Easily 50 feet tall, each trunk is approaching a foot in diameter. To call this plant scrub oak is blatant defamation. Surely this is an example of how enthusiastically native plants adapt to cultivation.
 
What can be more remarkable than a tree? Providing shade, oxygen, firewood and structural material to build our civilization, many trees feed us with their fruit - and as we continue to release metric tons of carbon dioxide, nothing sequesters carbon like a tree. Our very future as a species depends more, perhaps, on trees than we can begin to imagine…
 
One thing is certain: A stroll around the Gardens is sure to leave you inspired, relaxed and hungry for more!