Today I have to share with you one of the greatest moments of the Denver trip. We usually go to the Botanic Gardens, which is one of the best in the country (that’s according to surveys, travel magazines, and my own personal opinion). The gardens have been going through a major growth spurt over the past ten years and have remodeled existing structures, designed new ones, and extended the gardens. Some years ago, the main building was expanded and remodeled to include the main greeting area, conference rooms, art galleries, cafe, and the tropical greenhouse. It was in the conference room a few years ago that we visited a rose show at the end of the judging and they invited us to take as many roses home with us as we wanted. Ohh… that was the best gift.. and a complete surprise. We dried them in the hotel room and made potpourri. One of the more elusive features of the new welcome building was the botanic library. This has tantalized me no end, but everytime we’ve been there, it’s been closed…… until this trip. Oh glory and hallelujah, the library was open when we were at the gardens!!! We entered with a sort of reverence – how often are you in a library dedicated to every facet of gardening you can think of?
We found the published master plan of the gardens – it was a huge volume full of history and future plans for our beloved garden. After perusing it for a while, we migrated to the alpine gardening section (the alpine garden is my favorite at the garden). I thought I’m in heaven (I’m still convinced that I was). Rows and rows of beautiful old books all about plants and gardening. Some were very old- published in the 1800s and loved by previous owners who left their name and gardening lists within the books pages. It was like touching something sacred. And look at these book covers! They don’t make them like this anymore.
It was all going great and was most enjoyable…. and then we found the mushroom and fern section. Yep, they were right together and the whole experienced ratcheted up several more levels. I could barely contain myself!! I wish I could accurately explain what it was like to hold these old volumes filled with hand-tipped botanical illustrations. And there were so many – they just kept coming!! Oh, the lucky people who can access them whenever they like!!
It was such a special experience to enter the library for the first time. I’m so happy to have been able to visit and adore all those special collections of beautiful books. They even had a card catalog – the ones handwritten on index cards – in this lovely chest.
Oh I loved everything about it. If you ever have the chance, you must go visit and plan to spend some time in the library. I know I will do so again on next trip.
Blessings to you,
Sarah
anordinarymiracleday 