The Denver Botanic Gardens is a public botanical garden located in Denver, Colorado in the Cheesman Park neighborhood. The 23-acre (93,000 m2) park contains a conservatory, a variety of theme gardens and a sunken amphitheater, which hosts various concerts in the summer. Woody Allen's 1973 movie Sleeper filmed some scenes at the gardens.
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There are three diverse locations that are part of the Denver Botanic Gardens as a whole. The main location, and the formal garden, is the York Street location in east-central Denver. Denver Botanic Gardens at Chatfield (near Chatfield State Park) features natural meadow and riparian areas, as well as a historic farm and homestead.[1] Mt. Goliath, on the route to Mount Evans, is an alpine wildflower garden (along hiking trails).[2]
The Denver Botanic Gardens, along with nearby Cheesman Park and Congress Park, sit atop what used to be Mount Prospect cemetery. Although the majority of bodies were removed in 1893, the interred continued to be removed as late as the 1950s. As recently as 2010, graves were uncovered during renovation of the park's irrigation and sprinkler systems.[3][4]
Denver Botanic Gardens features North America's largest collection of plants from cold temperate climates around the world, as well as 7 diverse gardens that mostly include plants from Colorado and neighboring states.[5]
The world's first Xeriscape Demonstration Garden was created at the Gardens in 1986, and 2 years later its name was changed to Dryland Mesa. It was based on the "7 Principles" of Xeriscape, and includes drought-tolerant plants from the arid West and Mediterranean areas.[6]
The Japanese Garden is called Shofu-en—the Garden of Wind and Pines.[7] It was designed by Koichi Kawana[8] in collaboration with Kai Kwahara.[9]
The York Street location of the Botanic Gardens opened Denver's 1st publicly accessible green roof.[10]