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A Visit to Denver Botanical Gardens |
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The Denver Botanical Gardens in downtown Denver introduce visitors to the possibilities of gardening in a climate that cossets neither plants nor plantspeople. This photo, taken across the street from the gardens' eastern boundaries, shows the Front Range and the Rockies in the distance. |
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A nearby high rise looks out on the Japanese Garden, its pond and teahouse. Thick ice covers parts of the pond. Mounds of deciduous shrubs, spiky grasses, graceful boughs of evergreen shrubs and trees, and the fine tracery of bare poplar branches combine in a satisfying structure for this winter view. |
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Paving, gravel, and stepping stones provide finely contrasting textures in an area near the teahouse. Bare twigs set enhance the green of the pine trees. Curves, however subtle (as in the stepping stones at left), feature importantly because of the usual practice in Japanese gardens of avoiding utterly straight paths. |
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A view reminiscent of Monet's Japanese bridge. White birch bark highlights reddish-brown tones of bare shrubs and the greying lumber of the bridge and fence. |
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Notice the careful proportions not only in the building -- the width of the garden gate and its diagonally set grid compared to the screens on the teahouse, for example -- but also in the plants chosen to soften, without completely obscuring, the geometry of the teahouse. |
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In contrast to the curving paths of the Japanese Garden, this grand walkway outside the Tropical House shows the importance of hardscape -- the patterned walkway, benches, arches, and the lamps -- to the skeleton of a garden.
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