High Plains Horticulture: A History

12: Horticulture and Community

227 p T he Lower Downtown Development District, affectionately known as LoDo, is a vital, attractive, and trendy part of contemporary Denver. Created in the late 1980s, the district has spurred a highly successful voluntary effort to balance economic growth and historic preservation. Amid the district’s chic restaurants, sports bars, elegant boutiques, and loft apartments , the Rocky Mountain Seed Company building looks pretty much as it did when founded in 1920. Sales now depend mainly on wholesale and corporate buyers; until the summer of 2007, the home gardener or, more precisely, the weekend horticulturist could still purchase seeds by the packet off the racks or by weight out of the oak drawers and bins that lined the walls of this vestige of Denver’s preeminence as the agricultural and horticultural center of the Rocky Mountain Empire. (Because of limited loading space downtown, new owners moved the company to north Denver.) Some might attribute the decline in retail sales at Rocky Mountain Seed to the advent of regional upscale firms such as Seeds of Change and Seeds 12 Horticulture and Community 228 Horticulture and Community Trust/High Altitude Gardens. Kenneth Vetting, the founder’s grandson and recent owner-manager, offers another explanation: the growth of suburbia with smaller residential lots and thus less space for planting. Gone are the fruit orchards, and traditional home vegetable gardens are seldom seen. And although sometimes hidden by the maze of unattractive highways and real estate developments, there has been a deliberate effort, through landscaping, to ameliorate the conditions for healthful living in the cities and suburbs of the Front Range. Leadership of this effort has come from local government , local voluntary groups, and the Cooperative Extension Service (CES) in partnership with the “green” industry. The “green” industry includes nurseries , greenhouses, sod farms, and retail garden centers as well as landscape architects, arborists, and landscape and other plant-care professionals. Between 1950 and 1980, the population of the six metro Denver counties increased 263 percent, from 615,635 to 1,618,461. In view of these statistics, combined with the ever-present scarcity of water and the fact that nearly half of all domestic water consumption went for irrigating lawns, it is not surprising that the initiative for water-conserving landscaping came from the Denver Board of Water Commissioners. The immediate cause for action was an especially severe drought in the summer of 1977. After much conversation, Bill Miller, manager of Denver Water, as the board became popularly known, and Jim Grabow, president of the Associated Landscape Contractors of Colorado, established a joint committee on water conservation in early 1981. Its task was twofold: to create a demonstration garden, showing that by careful selection of plants using small amounts of water, one could have a successful and attractive yard; and to carry out a public education program that would stimulate and engage broad public support for “water-smart” landscaping. Notable members of the initial committee were John Wilder, conservation manager for Denver Water; Donald H. Godi, landscape architect; Larry Keesen, irrigation systems designer; Larry Watson, nurseryman; Gene Eyerly, horticulture consultant ; and James R. Feucht, extension professor of horticulture at Colorado State University. With financial contributions from local landscape contractors, the committee established a demonstration garden on one-third acre along the southwest side of Denver Water’s administration building (between Eighth and Twelfth avenues, just east of I-25). Dedicated in spring 1982, the garden now surrounds the building and displays more than 200 varieties including trees, shrubs, ornamental perennials, and test plots of water-wise turf grasses. To describe the landscaping approach used in the demonstration garden and to define that approach through an educational program, the commit- Horticulture and Community 229 Denver Water’s demonstration xeriscape garden. Courtesy, Colorado WaterWise Council. tee invented the word “xeriscape.” Trademarked by Denver Water, xeriscape comes from “xeric,” derived from the classical Greek word for arid conditions . The committee defined xeriscaping as “water conservation through creative landscaping” and adopted seven principles of xeriscaping that are still in 230 Horticulture and Community use: plan and design from the start, create practical turf areas using drought-­ resistant grasses, select low-water-requiring plants, use soil amendments such as compost or manure, use mulches such as woodchips to reduce evaporation and keep the soil cool, irrigate efficiently, and properly maintain the landscape.1 Since the early 1980s, xeriscaping has spread rapidly. In Colorado, for example, demonstration gardens...