Horticulturist Nick Daniel arrives at the Denver Botanic Gardens at 7 a.m. and checks on the succulents and the cacti, which he admires for innumerable reasons, not the least of which is the unexpected beauty of their flowers. Little rivals the sight of hummingbirds dancing among those bright blooms in the early morning sunlight.
Those flowers have come and gone now. Some of the cacti are awakening from a summer dormancy to take in more water just as the reds are starting to show in the little bluestem grass. The switchgrass seeds are taking on their fall blush, but the poppy mallow’s purple- flowered days are numbered now.
Daniel removes some prairie cornflower and a few clumps of bluestem threatening to steal a yucca’s thunder. He’s been working here three years, since he graduated from Colorado State University. There’s not much turnover. “We’re all pretty stoked about our offices,” he says, looking out over the garden.
Standing back, he appraises the beds, seeking to guide the visitors’ eyes back past the swamp milkweed and the sage up to the cottonwood trees and into the blue September sky. The palette is changing.
Let others have their Mays and Junes. Give me September and October.
“September is really the beginning of the change,” Daniel says. “Everything starts to evolve almost into what seems like another plant. The smells are this dry smell of things beginning to go to rest. I really look forward to the color of the grasses and the tree leaves. All the reds and oranges and yellows seem to warm you for the winter ahead.”
You did not know of the poetry of horticulturists, did you?
“It’s like a little switch is turned on. It’s September. You don’t even have to have a calendar,” Daniel’s fellow horticulturist, Loddie Dolinski, says. “The nights are cooler. The light is different, gentler. The sky seems bluer.”
Dolinski works the Romantic, Scripture and Herb Gardens. They could not be more different than Daniel’s native perennials. Here the roses have gathered themselves for their September bloom, which is not as big and bright as their first in June, but roses do not easily give up the spotlight. Dolinski will guide them into dormancy. Already she has reduced their watering days and stopped pruning all except those that have the temerity to drop their thorny branches near passersby and their fragile scalps. Some rose bushes have traded their spent flowers for rosehips, orange-red and reminiscent of persimmons.
In the herb garden, the harvesting of the basil, thyme, rosemary, flat and curly parsley will continue this week. The fennel is almost ready and the seeds taste of black licorice. There will likely be no grapes to harvest this year. The birds and squirrels have been gorging, and what the four-footed creatures do not take, Dolinski observes, the two-footed will.
Elsewhere, the asters have popped, bright and purple and prepared to bask in the admiration of all until the first hard freeze hits. The Maximilian sunflowers are at their peak, yellow blossoms racing each other up the stem.
May and June bring the traditional awakening of much of the gardens. Late October and November begin the hunkering down. But September is the transition, the moment of equilibrium.
“In September and October, you get to enjoy everything,” says Dan Johnson, curator of native plants and associate director of horticulture. “The annuals are cruising along. The grasses are starting to go brown, turning purplish. The crabapples are starting to take on color. Everything is working.”
Monday is bright and warm. The garden paths hum with walkers and schoolchildren and mothers pushing strollers. A trio of visitors, inspired by the change in the air, strolls the path near Daniel’s handiwork.
“To spend time here lifts your spirits,” says Leonor Cuervo de Rojas. “We come for the soul and the eyes,” adds her friend, Lois Pedersen. The third in the trio, Nelly Bosina, offers a few words in Russian and beams.
It is September in Colorado and songs must be sung to its glory.
Tina Griego writes Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Reach her at 303-954-2699 or tgriego@denverpost.com.
