Gardens on Spring Creek- Fort Collins,Colorado

Wow!  First day of summer and we are still seeing spring flowers here in Fort Collins.  However, we are certainly getting summer temperatures- as you can see from the sign above, the average temp should be in the low eighties for June, but they have been closer to ninety degrees since we arrived Wednesday.  Yesterday, Thursday, we toured the Gardens on Spring Creek before checking out the historic area of Fort Collins.  The sidewalk sign pictured above is one of 12 which can be found in the gardens, one for each month of the year.  I did not realize so many names had been applied to moons-  for June it is a strawberry moon and, if I remember correctly, March's moon is the worm moon.  Maybe more information on the moon names can be found in the Farmers Almanac.  The Gardens on Spring Creek are interesting on several levels, first that they are easily accessed by the Spring Creek Bike Trail.  Secondly, The Children's Garden is an interesting place with many fun interactive things for kids to do.  A day camp was there when we visited the gardens and it seemed that many of the children were enjoying the watering can pictured below- it requires someone pumping the water up out of a well  before the water flow out of the sculpture.

The third most interesting thing about the park is that it gives its produce to a local food pantry.  A section of the gardens is called "Good Eatin'".  It is a three-quarter garden which promotes sustainable methods of edible gardening.  I was especially impressed that in this area there is a strawberry bed, as well as raspberry, gooseberry and elderberry bushes.  The latter shrub is blooming now, and is pictured below.  The shrub has such a wonderful fragrance and I assumed it was a lilac bush, but a garden intern working in the area informed me that it was an elderberry bush.

The rock garden features native and adapted plants as well as dwarf conifers native to the Rocky Mountains.  Plants are displayed among quarried rock formations which are arranged to reflect the natural rock formations of Northern Colorado.  That part of the garden is pictured below, it is quite beautiful at present with blooming columbine and penstemons.  The next area which we toured on Thursday was the historic part of Fort Collins, more on that later.