Is it just me or is August flying by? Seems like only yesterday that it was the 4th of July. At any rate, we’ve breezed through to another Friday. And if it’s Friday, that means we’re joining our fur-iends, Rosy and her brothers from LLB in our Backyard.

This week is all about waterlilies. A recent trip to the Denver Botanical Gardens proved this is prime time for viewing these plants. Frenchman Joseph Bory Latour-Marliac (1830-1911) often considered the father of hardy waterlily hybridizing, creating over 100 hybrids in a rainbow of colors using species from around the world, including North America, as parent plants. Until the introduction of these hybrids, most people in Europe were only familiar with their native white-flowering hardy waterlily, Nymphaea alba.

In 1889, Latour-Marliac displayed many of his new waterlilies at the World Fair in Paris, where they won first prize and caught the attention of one Claude Monet. Monet placed an order with Latour-Marliac’s nursery (which still operates to this day in Le Temple-sur-Lot, France) and soon thereafter, planted them in his new garden in Giverny. The rest is history.

The Botanic Gardens’ collection includes twenty of Latour-Marliac’s historically significant hybrids in its own “Monet Pool” that were originally introduced in the gardens in the early 1900’s.

The day was sunny and bright (not the best for picture taking) but the reflections were stunning on the still water. The ducks were actively skimming the sides of the pool for whatever it is that ducks eat and dragonflies flitted about enjoying the sunshine and warm temperatures.

Hope you enjoyed strolling through one of my favorite areas at the Denver Botanical Gardens. Enjoy a fabulous weekend and don’t forget to enjoy some nature yourself.

Live, love, bark! 🐾

Welcome to the last Friday of July. Today we join our good fur-iends and Nature Friday hosts, Rosy and her brothers from LLB in Our Backyard with a ‘flashback Friday’ about the nature we encountered this week.

You may recall me mentioning my plans to visit the Lavender Festival at Denver Botanical Garden’s Chatfield Farms location but what I didn’t mention was a different reason for visiting-to see the recently opened Stickworks exhibit and what a great two-fer it turned out to be.

Nature provides us not only with gorgeous flowers like lavender, but also many of the building materials we use to build homes. Enter internationally recognized artist Patrick Dougherty who builds open-air, site-specific stick sculptures who recently completed his 300th installation of his career. This was not his first in Colorado. Dougherty has completed a handful of sculptures in the state, including the one still standing in Vail. This spring, he returned to Colorado to construct a distinctly different exhibit at Denver Botanical Gardens Chatfield Farms location.

Each exhibit is specific to the site upon which it is installed and all of  Dougherty’s creations are created using locally-sourced materials to minimize the environmental impact. Because Colorado is relatively arid, this exhibit is expected to last longer than average installations. I know I’ll be visiting the Chatfield site often over the next  couple of years.

As he frequently does, Dougherty utilized a dedicated team of volunteers when he created his stick installation at the Chatfield location. Denver Botanical Garden volunteers helped shape the structure, weaving small branches to ensure the sculpture’s integrity as well as in the finishing touches. The Botanical Garden staff used sticks from within the grounds, as well as materials from neighboring homeowners spring cleaning efforts and material from BLM land. Two truckloads of long yellow sticks from the Fort Collins area helped create the sweeping sense of motion of the snakelike shaped structure.

The scale of this maze-like installation is impressive at 60 feet by about 30 feet and towers at 13 feet high.

Drone footage shows the exhibit during construction.

Shall we go inside and take a closer look?

The intense sun of Colorado has already weathered the structure in just three months.

Have a great weekend and don’t forget to get out there and enjoy all that nature provides. And now for a couple of images from our garden that began blooming in the last couple of days. Isn’t nature grand?

Live, love, bark! 🐾

Our favorite day is here so that means, we’re joining our good friends and hosts, Rosy and her brothers from LLB in Our Backyard. Other than the arrival of the weekend, we love Fridays because wine arrives too. After a stressful week, a lovely glass of wine at the end of the day sure hits the spot, don’t you think?

We know wine comes from grapes which are vines so we thought we’d highlight another vine plant nature has been showing off this month in spite of pizza-oven heat. Our favorite vine in the garden (other than the grape) is Clematis.

With nearly 300 species within the buttercup family, Ranunculaceae, one of the most popular of the hybrids in the Clematis family is C. Jackmanii. It has been a garden standby since 1862. This cultivar was named after 19th century British nurseyman, George Jackman. As a hybrid, “Jackman” comes from the marriage of C. Lanuginosa and C. Viticella. Clematis can be woody and deciduous; there are also herbaceous and evergreen varieties as well.

Jackman blooms in our Zone 5 garden in July and like many Clematis needs support. It likes well drained soil and shallow rooted plants around the base provide the necessary shade to cool the roots. It does not like ‘wet feet’ and seems to do well in a xeriscape garden. Jackman has large (5 inches across) blooms, which come in a dark purple-violet color.

Here’s one last look at Jackman with best wishes for a terrific weekend. We hope you are able to enjoy a bit of the magic that Mother Nature provides.

Live, love, bark! 🐾

It’s Friday and you know what that means…we make a point to showcase all the beauty Mother Nature freely provides us…when we look around. As always, we join our ‘fur-iends’ Rosy and her brothers from LLB in Our Backyard in sharing what we’ve observed. Like much of the country we’ve managed to receive frequent rain showers. Just as the garden was bursting forth with color galore, a quick hail storm threatened to put the kibosh on the beauty, but we actually managed to dodge the bullet unlike that monster that hit us a couple of years ago. But enough about the weather (can’t change it anyway, right?) so let’s get right to the beautiful and fascinating sights from this week.

Appreciating nature in my ‘hood only requires a quick walk and when you’re out and about a few times a day with a couple of knuckleheads, that’s extra easy. Walking with the dogs, seeing what interests their snouts provides me with observing things too many people miss because they have their noses stuck in a little screen. It’s still astounding that people think they’re walking their dog, but are actually tethered to a small screen. They neglect to see the beauty (or dangers) surrounding us. What’s an observer of life to do? Relish what IS seen!

I had to make a few extra trips to the post office and library this week and walking to each location allows me to see stuff I wouldn’t if I drove. Like this dragonfly that landed next to the sidewalk. I nearly missed him. Those transparent wings nearly made him  invisible but for his body being a bright green.

Speaking of pollinators, check out this gorgeous Swallowtail butterfly that flew right past me. I gasped and worried he might take off before I could pull out my phone and contort myself near enough to capture him in this rose bush. Such a showy dude!

Walking offers a terrific way to see some other garden friends, the bees. Whenever I come across purple or blue flowers, I know there’ll be somebody in there either drinking the nectar or scooping up pollen.

Tucked into a corner of a pie shaped sliver of a garden on the way to the library, I came across a beautiful little oasis complete with mini Stonehenge water feature.

This garden contains lovely flowers including this lovely rose and Heuchera (Coral Bells) where one can stop and meditate for a few moments while the sky grew moody, suggesting a storm. It was just too lovely not to linger, even if I did get wet.

Smiling inside and out as I left this beautiful area, lo and behold another beauty  screamed out at me. Ice plants are very common around here but I’d never seen this color combination before. It was definitely worth the wait!

Arriving back home after my wanderings and being contemplative after seeing such beautiful sights, I stopped and took in my own front garden. It gave me yet another opportunity to savor everything Mother Nature offered this week.

As I walked up the front walk, I began to notice the jungle, otherwise known as an arm-shredding rose bush near the front door. I had been planning to move it but the weather didn’t cooperate and I feared transplanting it after the late snow storms might kill it. Now it’s spread like a virus and is covered in buds (along with those prickly thorns). But now, it has the first delicate blooms.

Have you taken time to appreciate Mother Nature this week? I sure hope so. Enjoy the  weekend and don’t forget to “stop and smell the roses” along your way.

Live, love, bark! 🐾