Skip to main content

Gratitude from The Gardens

pepper plants

Gratitude from The Gardens

by Michelle Provaznik, Executive Director

 

To our Gardens friends and family - 

On behalf of the entire Gardens on Spring Creek team, thank you.  Your support over the last two months, and especially over the last two weeks during our Spring Plant Sale, has been simply amazing.  As I was loading plants into your cars, several of you asked how things were going so I wanted to update you on several things.


This year’s virtual Spring Plant Sale was the absolute best ever!  Here are some stats:

  • Total sales: $118,048
  • Total plants sold: 28,005
  • Total plants grown by The Gardens: 25,633 or 92%
  • Number of orders filled: 1,849

Pulling this event off without our beloved volunteers was no small feat.  The small, yet mighty Gardens staff did an outstanding job growing beautiful plants, tagging them, building the shopping website, fulfilling orders and developing a curbside pickup plan in six short weeks – all while keeping socially distant.  My deepest appreciation to everyone on our team for stepping up and leaning in to get it done – with fantastic results.


Thank you also to our partners at Colorado State University.  They did a beautiful job growing many of the annuals and all the hanging baskets available – without the help of their practicum students.  We are grateful for this long-standing partnership.

Our thanks to everyone who renewed or became Members in recent weeks.  Memberships are absolutely critical to organizations like ours and during this particular time as budgets continue to become more challenging.  We are grateful for your financial support and belief in our mission.

While our focus has been the Plant Sale, please know that we are working behind the scenes on a reopening plan.  I am in regular communication with public gardens around the state, region and country on best practices to re-open gardens.  In addition, we are making changes to align with CDC, State of Colorado and Larimer County guidelines so we can re-open as safely as possible.

Our gardens are filled with hope, healing, learning and inspiration. They are a place to connect with the beauty of nature – all things we need now more than ever.  We look forward to welcoming you back to The Gardens on Spring Creek soon.  When we have more information, you will be the first to know.


Popular posts from this blog

When Plants Fight Back

By Andrew Scott, Horticulturist for The Gardens on Spring Creek This is the second installment of a two-part feature on plant defenses. Read Part I online at North Forty News . Caffeine, nicotine, morphine, cocaine ... sounds like the ingredients label on an old-timey cold medicine, right? These molecules are actually all alkaloids, some of the most common chemical deterrents deployed by plants. As the adage goes, the dose makes the poison. While people can (and do) ingest these alkaloids for their psychoactive effects, they prove to be much more deadly to a small insect that weighs all but a few tenths of a milligram.  The sap of opium poppies ( Papaver somniferum ) contains morphine, a potent sedative (via Daniel Prudek , Hodder Education Magazines)   Still, alkaloids have a strongly bitter taste, which animals have learned to associate with the toxic effects they can have. Eating green potatoes isn’t likely to kill you, but solanine, the alkaloid that triggers this change...

Monarchs and Marigolds in Día de Muertos Celebrations

By Angie Fuentes The Gardens on Spring Creek Community Engagement Assistant  Monarchs Each year, right around Día de Muertos, millions of monarch butterflies arrive like clockwork to the misty mountains of central Mexico. Their appearance during this sacred time holds deep meaning for the communities of Michoacán and the State of Mexico, where the butterflies are seen as the returning souls of ancestors visiting the living. For generations, the Purépecha and Mazahua peoples, two Indigenous groups native to this region, have watched the skies fill with these migrating monarchs, their wings shimmering like a flowing river of orange and gold across the Sierra Madre hills. The butterflies’ arrival has been carefully observed since pre-Hispanic times, marking a spiritual moment when nature and the human spirit move in harmony. According to oral traditions, the spirits of the departed return on the butterflies’ delicate wings, joining their loved ones during Día de Muertos to celebra...

Blooming Blurbs: Fall Edition

  Blooming … Berries? By Ben Stickland, Seasonal Gardener By this time of year, many of us gardeners are already mourning the peak of summer when it felt like everything was vibrant and lush. Now, the warm colors of fall are taking over and most of our showiest bloomers are getting ready for winter. But if you peruse the garden on an October day, you will still see pops of color from a quintessential part of fall: fruits! This week, we are going to highlight some fruits that are taking over for the flowers and keeping the garden interesting and beautiful for autumn.   Callicarpa dichotoma  (beautyberry) The plant that inspired this article with just how beautiful its berries are (turns out they aren’t true berries), was the beautyberry. Callicarpa is a genus of plants native to many parts of the world, but this particular species comes from China, Korea and Japan. It is a compact shrub, typically growing 3-5 feet in height and spread, that has a slight weeping habit. It d...