Detailed review by koshkha
koshkha(46)
Northampton, United Kingdom98%
As a Brit, I'm unashamedly confident in believing that we do big gardens better than anyone else. Forgive me - after all, we don't have THAT much to show off or feel superior about. One year I took my parents and my sister and her partner to a major international garden exhibition in Holland and we strutted around feeling horribly superior about the national gardening efforts of our European neighbours. We are blessed of course with fabulously awful weather that favours gardens (i.e. lots of rain) and with a national obsession with green stuff. Our garden of course is a weed-ridden disgrace with more moss than grass but despite that, we still expected to be able to swan around the Denver Botanical Gardens looking down our noses at what they had to offer. We were staying with my friend Kris who's a local boy and were preparing ourselves for being pleasantly polite and mildly patronising about the Botanical Gardens which were his choice for our first attraction in the city.
We arrived mid afternoon and parked our rental car in the free car park. In typical American style, the spaces were large and the parking was really easy. From the car park we could already see the giant greenhouse rising up in the centre of the gardens like an elongated geodesic dome. Kris got a discount on the entrance price as a local whilst we paid full price but I can't grumble about that and indeed I think it's only fair that local people should benefit from better prices.
Once inside we were really pleasantly surprised at the breadth of what there was to see on this 23 acre site and at the quality of the planting and the care that had clearly gone into keeping everything pristine. I'm told there are 9500 species of plants but I didn't count so I'll take that on trust. From fabulous calming oriental gardens to cactus gardens and educational exhibits on how bees make honey and how plants reproduce, there was something for everyone. We were there in May, still a time of year when Denver can get hit with snow, and the flowers were a couple of months behind their European cousins and the trees were in blossom. But spring is my favourite time of year so who can complain about getting to see an extra spring a couple of months later. I also really enjoyed the many and varied sculptures and works of art around the gardens - from traditional bronzes to graffiti-style walls and giant ethnic carvings, there really was a bit of everything. There are also lots of small pavilions scattered amongst the plantings - great places to take a break and just soak up the atmosphere. I was also impressed to see that everything had been laid out to make access easy for visitors who were less mobile and was nearly run down by one visitor in a motorised wheelchair as she whizzed past.
The use of water in the park is particularly noteworthy and surprising considering that Denver struggles to have enough water at some times of year. The reflections of the trees in the lakes were memorable and my camera was twitching each time we passed another display.
Towards the end of our visit we headed inside to check out the greenhouse. In the lobby we found a lovely display of bonsai and a shop selling all sorts of gifts and memorabilia. Entering the greenhouse the temperature and humidity shot up immediately and we sweated our way around, taking in the beautiful orchids and bromeliads and tropical exhibits including some very impressive bananas which were fortunately just out of reach. Part of the exhibition was closed off for repair work which meant that the logical flow through the greenhouse was disrupted but it was no great hardship to figure out our own route through the place.
In total we spent about an hour and a half in the gardens and really enjoyed ourselves. I'd recommend a visit to this lovely site - it's big enough to offer a wide diversity of flora and style without being so big that you have to fear you've missed something important. It's a very manageable size and I was utterly wrong to expect it to be anything less than splendid.
Denver Botanic Gardens6
Ratings
-
Accessibility
-
"Must See"-Factor
-
Budget Friendliness
-
Architecture
-
Diversity of Vegetation
-
Relaxation Value
