Category: Archived Articles

 

 

City Park Friends and Neighbors invite you to join us on Wednesday, Sept. 8 at the Pavilion at 6 pm to meet with Julie Lehman, Manager of the Greenhouse and Horticulture program for the City of Denver and the Citywide Median Renovation team, and Adam Smith, Superintendent of the East District that includes City Park for a presentation on current and future projects in City Park. Julie will expand on her vision for City Park’s flowerbeds and Adam will describe City Park’s current irrigation system and discuss the new irrigation plan (as recommended in the 2018 City Park Master Plan Update) that is in the works sometime in the future.

Julie currently manages the Greenhouse & Horticulture program for the City of Denver and the Citywide Median Renovation team. She has a passion for promoting sustainable, local Colorado plant material through her work.  Julie focuses on redesigning spaces by creating plant palettes that are resilient, water-wise, functional, and attractive, whether it is a planting bed in a park, green infrastructure, or one of the 30+ miles of medians throughout Denver. Julie has developed the City Park Greenhouse as a horticultural hub for both internal staff and external partners and is committed to using this venue to promote continuing education.  Partnerships with other organizations such as Plant Select,  CSU Extension, and Denver Botanic Gardens help grow this educational core.

Adam Smith manages the East Operations District for the City of Denver. He received his degree in Horticulture at the University of Arkansas. Prior to his career at Denver Parks and Recreation, Adam served as horticulturist for the University of Chicago Botanic Garden and assistant horticulturist at the Chicago Botanic Garden. With the City of Denver, he is focused on developing a parks operation program that meets the demands of the highly engaged Denver park user. With over 50 park sites comprising 900 irrigated acres and 400 acres of open space, finding operational efficiency and best management practices is the key to the team’s success. When not at work Adam loves playing tennis, grill season, road trips through the southwestern deserts, and spending time with his family.

Wednesday, Sept. 8 at the Pavilion at 6 pm is the time and place for this unique program. Bring a snack and a beverage as you get to know Julie and Adam and drink in the beauty of City Park. A question and answer period will follow the presentations. We look forward to seeing you there.

 

Several teams are weeding away at the Sopris Garden, located to the west of the Pavilion where many weddings take place throughout the summer and fall. This garden is named in honor of Mayor Richard Sopris, one of the enterprising pioneers who came to Denver seeking a fortune in the gold fields and ended up returning to Denver to establish a city of beauty and culture, rivalling in their minds Paris, NYC and beyond. After serving as mayor, Sopris became Denver’s  parks commissioner in 1881. He was devoted to City Park and spent much of his own money to plant trees and discover varieties of trees that would thrive on the plains. The Sopris memorial, a stone seat and a statue of a boy at whose feet is a bronze sundial, stands before the Sopris Garden. There was a pool beneath the statue that is no longer functioning. The statue and fountain were donated by Sopris’ son, Simpson T. Sopris in honor of his mother, Elizabeth Sopris. The sandstone Sopris Gateway on 17th Avenue and Steele St. was designed by Frank E. Edbrooke and donated by Simpson Sopris in honor of his father in 1912.

Did you ever wonder why there are cannons circling the Burns Garden? The three cannons were donated to Denver by the Grand Army of the Republic in 1897 to commemorate the Colorado volunteer armed forces who fought for the Union. The cannons are a 13-inch Seacoast Mortar, an 11-inch Navy Duhlgren and a 6.4-inch (100 pounder) Navy Parrott Rifle. These cannons provided a good setting for military floral displays (an elaborate one celebrated the return of veterans of the Spanish American War) and military gatherings and parades until the Caledonian Society donated the statue of the Scottish poet, Robert Burns for the central spot among the cannons in 1909.

Famous for the lyrics to songs like Auld Lang Syne, and poems such as To a Mouse and A Red, Red Rose, Burns was also an abolitionist who famously said, “…man to man, the warld o’er, Shall brithers be for ‘a that.” The Chieftan of the St. Andrew’s Society of Colorado, Jean Hess, feels it appropriate that the statues of Martin Luther  King, Jr. and Robert Burns are across from each other in City Park. She relates that both Abraham Lincoln and his Scottish wife, Mary Todd and also Frederick Douglass were among those who visited Scotland and paid tribute to their fellow abolitionist and writer. Both Lincoln and Douglass were inspired by Burns’ philosophy of egalitarianism and the worth of all men – a philosophy shared by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Julie Lehman, Greenhouse/Horticulture Manager for the City and County of Denver, paid a visit to Ida’s Rock Garden to introduce herself and chat with volunteers. All the flowers grown for parks in Denver are grown in the City Park greenhouses – all 250,00 of them. Julie also affirms that next year, unlike in post-pandemic 2021, the flowerbeds will be filled 100%. She talked with the group about City Park’s irrigation system. Ida’s has its own sprinkler system that can be adjusted for the low-water needs of a native garden like this native plant-based area. Sopris and Burns Gardens receive water from the sprinklers that water the lawns, so these gardens receive more water than a native garden could tolerate. If more native or pollinator gardens are desired, establishing separate irrigation systems for Sopris and Burns might be a good, though expensive place to start.

Julie thanked the In The Weeds Team for their weeding efforts and affirmed that the Adopt-A-Bed volunteers are making a difference in City Park!