The club would like to ask all of you that travel around our state, country, or world please bring back fun, unique, and relative gifts for the club to use at future silent auctions.   These can make future fundraisers fun and different than some of the items normally seen. 

 

 

Please see link below for upcoming events concerning Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene.

 

 

                                                 

Brian Vogt grew up in Hoffman Heights and Littleton where his father was the Arapahoe County Sheriff and mother a treasurer.  He feels like Aurora has done an excellent job in striking a balance with diversity that has not always been seen in other cities.  One of their board chairs had a vision for the Gardens that it would be a place for all people.  When looking at the history botanic gardens their mission was to send ships all over the world to collect specimens for science.   As these gardens developed in the United States with the help of Thomas Jefferson, they began to take on aesthetic value along with the science and economics. 

The Gardens are located on a former first cemetery of Denver in the Congress Park area.  This has created some challenges over the years.  As they built their knew parking structure a few bodies were recovered that hadn't been removed in prior years.   The Gardens have more than 32,000 plants and 3000 volunteers.   They were the 2nd most visited Gardens this last year and in 2014 had 1.4 million visitors making it the most visited public garden on the continent.   They have a plethora of different events,  They have 4 locations.  The most known is the urban location on York Street, Mt. Evans alpine location which has been around since 1957, Chatfield Farms that includes 700 acres of native plant refuge and working farm, and most recently the Plains Conservation Center where they run the a partnership with the City of Aurora primarily focused on programs.   The Gardens four values are transformation, relevance, diversity, and sustainability.    These values have provided the opportunity for people to learn how plants and animals can impact the ecosystem to provide new and former species development.  He discussed how learning how these changes make an impact should give us confidence that even our own small efforts can make an impact on our communities.   Brian made a special announcement to the group concerning Stinky, their Corpse Flower.   Scientifically known as Amorphophallus titanum, the Gardens Corpse Flower bloomed on August 6th, 2016 and was one of the few that has bloomed in the US.  It takes approximately 7-10 years for a second bloom.   Well Stinky appears to be getting ready to make another run a blooming!!  Nothing is for sure with these plants, but stay tuned for the return of Stinky.