Colorado Water Garden Society and Denver Botanic Gardens Host the 2024 Water Blossom Celebration
By: Kim Kimpton
Mark your calendars to visit and/or volunteer for the season’s top event.
Sunday, August 11th from 9:00 am – 1:00 pm
Come see the best of the best. Water lilies are at their peak and dazzle among gorgeous lotus and many marginal plants like taros, plantains, and cannas. On this day, excitement is everywhere water flows at the Gardens.
Tours of the ponds, free plants, and plant expertise will be shared with all visitors. Whether you are an amateur aquatics gardener or someone who is in need of trouble-shooting an established water garden - this event and the Society has your answers. Start your adventure at the CWGS exhibit near the Hive Restaurant beside the Monet Pond for information. Then take a tour or wander from pond to pond enjoying what nature (and one very skilled horticulturist and volunteers) can cultivate.
Take the plants and vistas in and don’t forget to take photos to remember the day by. Share them with your friends on social media. Like the photos you took? Enter them in the CWGS Photo Contest this year.
The Water Blossom Celebration is for everyone! Help spread the word about this event to friends and family. It happens but once a year and we want to see you all.
For more information about the Celebration and to express your interest in volunteering, please contact Kim at kimkimpton1@gmail.com.
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Volunteers Still Needed for 2024 Water Blossom Celebration
By: Kim Kimpton
On Sunday, August 11th the Colorado Water Garden Society and Denver Botanic Gardens will again co-sponsor the Annual Water Blossom Celebration. We love this wonderful event and so do the Gardens’ visitors!
Please consider volunteering to ensure this fabulous event is at its best. Volunteers are needed for:
Set-Up, Clean-Up, Promotion/Marketing, General Aquatics Plant Knowledge, Carnivorous Plants’ Education, In-pond Education, Tour Sign-ups, Tour Guides, and Photography. If there is another position not listed that you would like to do, please let the event coordinator Kim Kimpton know. Volunteer positions are flexible.
Volunteering is a team sport, so if you don’t have the answer, there will be others who do. If you would like to volunteer, please email Kim Kimpton at kimkimpton1@gmail.com with your preference of volunteer task(s) and what time period between 8:00 am and 2:00 pm you would be available.
Please call Kim with any questions at (303) 919-6112 and tell her which task(s) best suit you and when you can be available to volunteer. Specifics about volunteering will be sent to those that are interested.
Thank you!
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A Presentation on September 9th with Laura Bancroft of Ten Mile Creek Nursery
By: Dorothy Martinez
We will be bringing in a very special speaker for our September 9th meeting – Laura Bancroft from Ten Mile Creek Nursery will be flying in to talk everything lotus.
Per their website; Ten Mile Creek Nursery was started in 2004 by Bill Bancroft, a graduate of the Auburn University School of Horticulture. The nursery, located south of Hartford, Alabama (just north of the Florida pan handle), is crossed by a creek, fed by cool freshwater springs that have never been known to go dry, even in times of severe drought. Bill was mentored during the start-up process by his grandfather, J.P. Kennedy, who owned and operated Ten Mile Creek Fish Farms for more than 40 years. Mr. Kennedy was one of the first commercial growers of tilapia in the southeastern United States. Bill recently graduated from medical school.
The nursery now belongs to Ben Bancroft. Ben, also a graduate of Auburn University, holds degrees in Aquaculture and Electrical Engineering. Developing the edible lotus market is a passion for Ben.
Laura Bancroft is also a graduate of Auburn University (MS, Secondary Education, Biology) and the University of Alabama (MA in Secondary Education-Science). Laura helps manage ornamental production and is in charge of shipping for both wholesale and retail production.
Their goal is to provide customers with beautiful, quality lotus plants while being a good steward of land and water resources. Best management practices are studied and implemented in order to ensure that the land and water shepherded by the Kennedy family for generations will be preserved for many more generations to come.
To view some gorgeous photos of lotus and to get an idea how special this presentation is going to be, go to:
https://tenmilecreeknursery.com/
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Let’s Get Snapping!
By: Kim Kimpton
The best way to preserve beautiful aquatic plants forever is to photograph them. The best way to bring joy to other people with your same plant passion is to share them. And… the best way to accomplish that is to enter the 2024 CWGS Photo Contest!
The 2nd Annual CWGS Photo Contest is under way!
Besides the fun and pride of sharing your photos, the “Best of Show" photo will receive a $50 prize from the CWGS.
The 2024 categories are:
• Waterlilies
• Lotus
• Marginal Plants
• Whole Plant Collections/Gardens/Containers of Aquatic Plants
• It's Alive - Pollinators, Fish, & Birds
• Water Features/Fountains
• Artistic (black and white photographs, funny photos, up close, and anything else that doesn’t fit another category) - New this year!
For full and detailed rules click here https://www.colowatergardensociety.org/Category.cfm?CategoryID=189 and for the submission process click here https://forms.gle/MhwzhLHfkDMv7tyz9. The basic rules are: Photos submitted should be either new this year or never before submitted to this contest. Limit 3 photographs per category and 21 total. And also new this year, post production will be allowed (such as filters, color enhancements, etc.) to improve the quality of your photographs.
All submissions will be due by September 3, 2024.
Questions? Please contact Kim Kimpton at kimkimpton1@gmail.com. Please do not send your photo submissions to this address.
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2024 IWGS Symposium in England
By: Tamara Kilbane
Last month, I had the pleasure of attending the International Waterlily and Water Gardening Society’s symposium in England with fellow CWGS board members Vicki Aber and Dorothy Martinez as well as Dorothy’s husband, John, and my sister, Melissa. The conference included visits to public gardens and wholesale aquatic nurseries as well as a day of educational talks.
Here are some highlights and photos from our time across the pond!
The conference began with an optional pre-symposium tour day on July 16th to three gardens in the Cotswolds - Hidcote Manor Garden, Oxford Botanic Garden and Arboretum, and Sezincote House and Garden. These wonderfully diverse gardens gave us a great taste of what was in store for us on the trip.
Our first stop was to Hidcote, a National Trust garden that is celebrated for its Arts and Crafts style. Tall hedges create garden “rooms” on the 10.5 acre property with colorful perennials and beautiful vistas throughout. One of my favorite views in this garden was looking out onto rolling green fields dotted with sheep, which would turn out to be a common sight throughout our trip.
Oxford Botanic Garden and Arboretum was up next. It is the oldest botanic garden in Great Britain and was originally created as a medicinal plant research garden in 1621. The highlights of this garden for me were the glass house featuring a Victoria cruziana among other aquatic plants and an amazing collection of Nepenthes (tropical pitcher plants) in another greenhouse that were the largest specimens I had ever seen. It was well worth a visit for those two areas alone.
Our final stop on this day was to Sezincote House and Garden. The website gives a better description of this beautiful property than I think I can: “Sezincote is unique. At the heart of a traditional, family-run estate covering 3,500 acres of rolling Cotswold countryside stands a 200-year-old Mogul Indian palace, set in a romantic landscape of temples, grottoes, waterfalls and canals reminiscent of the Taj Mahal.” It was an inspiring garden to visit and we all agreed that it
had one of the best designed water gardens we had ever seen.
July 17th was the first day of the main symposium and our group grew from one busload to two as we toured RHS Gardens, Wisley and then the main event for many - RHS Gardens, Kew in London. Wisley was much larger than I was expecting and had the largest gift shop and garden
center I have ever seen at a public garden. Beyond the entry goodies, we were treated to 240 acres of amazing gardens. My favorite areas were the Glasshouse which housed their tender plant collection including a pond filled with tropical waterlilies, the Rock Alpine Garden which featured a series of small ponds and waterfalls planted with hardy waterlilies and marginal bog plants including some impressive carnivorous plants, and a hilltop area planted with hundreds of lavender plants that provided a beautiful (and fragrant) view of the surrounding gardens. Melissa and I also really enjoyed the World Food Garden and Wildlife Garden.
Next up was Kew - a highlight for so many at the symposium as it gave us a chance to see the newly named and described water platter species, Victoria boliviana, in person. This species can only be found at Kew or in its native habitat in Bolivia and the public garden there that helped to describe it. A moment a few of us laughed about afterward was when a little girl stood in front of this amazing display and asked her mom where the fish were. I think many of us could relate to answering this question in our own gardens although not while standing next to such a rare sight as Victoria boliviana!
Another highlight (literally, so high - 18 meters/59 feet above the ground to be precise) was the Treetop Walkway which we got to a mere five minutes before it was scheduled to close. I am notoriously scared of heights so Melissa was very impressed that I braved the entire walkway and took photos of the view of London from this vantage point without needing to crawl back to the stairway.
We also enjoyed exploring the Waterlily House which is home to additional tropical waterlilies in the summer months, including the red form of Victoria boliviana (named for its red outer leaf rims while the “white” form has much paler leaf rims) and a collection of tropical and Australian waterlily cultivars. The Palm House, Temperate House, and the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art were also impressive. There is so much to see at Kew that you really need a full day to take it all in!
The following day, July 18th, we were treated to more amazing sights as we visited Longstock Park Water Gardens in the Hampshire countryside and Bennett’s Water Gardens in Dorset. Longstock is a beautiful and serene garden with large ponds and streams planted with
over 40 different varieties of waterlilies and some of the most impressive marginal plants I saw on the trip including Astilbe, Primrose, Bee Balm, Iris and Gunnera.
Jaws dropped as we entered Bennett’s Water Gardens that afternoon, an 8 acre property that houses the National Plant Collection of Waterlilies. Planted in eight large, earth bottom ponds, the hardy waterlilies in this collection are not fertilized according to owner James Bennett yet had the largest blooms most of us had ever seen. Hundreds of flowers covered the plants and were truly a sight to see. James was one of the organizers of the symposium and timed our visit perfectly to hit peak bloom for the season! We were treated to a traditional fish and chips dinner on site that evening before heading back to our host hotel in Reading.
July 19th was the education day of the symposium, with talks given by renowned hybridizer Zijun Li from China about trends in waterlily hybridizing (he is beginning to focus on creating smaller cultivars that can be grown in small waterbowls), a panel of growers from the U.S., France and England, and talks by natural swimming pool designers and a scientist studying the impact of ponds on wildlife diversity in urban habitats. Carlos Magdalena, Collections Horticulturist at Kew, also gave a talk on his work with waterlilies and gathering the evidence with other experts to prove that Victoria boliviana is in fact a new and separate species. Carlos was then inducted into the IWGS Hall of Fame, a very well-deserved honor!
Our symposium experience came to a conclusion on July 20th with a day of post-symposium tours to two wholesale aquatic plant growers, Anglo Aquatic Plants and Beaver Plants Ltd. as well as Wakehurst - Kew Gardens' wild botanic garden in Sussex that is home to the Millennium Seed Bank. Both nurseries showcased creative ways of growing their plants on an impressive scale. I know a few of us were wishing we could order from them. Wakehurst covers over 500 acres and had some nice wooded areas and ponds that made for a good workout as we sped back to the entrance to meetup with the group.
Next year’s IWGS Symposium will be in New York City. Stay tuned to the IWGS website and this newsletter for additional information as it becomes available. I’m sure it will be well worth attending and I for one will be excited to see the water gardens at New York Botanic Garden since they were under construction when I visited years ago.
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Upcoming CWGS Meetings for Fall and Winter 2024
By: Dorothy Martinez
I wanted to get the following dates and times out there so you can be sure to add these dates to your calendar:
Monday, September 9th
Freyer-Newman Center, Denver Botanic Gardens
Photo Contest Winners Announced at 6:00 pm
Presentation from Laura Bancroft, Owner of Ten Mile Creek Nursery at 7:00 pm
Laura is an expert in everything lotus and her presentation promises to be well worth your time.
Monday, October 14th
2024 Season Wrap Up and 2025 Planning
Pot Luck at 6:00 pm, Meeting at 7:00 pm
Please join us and bring your ideas for what you would like to learn at future CWGS Meetings and Events. If you have any ideas as to what you would like to see, hear, or learn at future CWGS Meetings and Events, you can also call me at (303) 279-3137 or email at dam@johnfunk.com.
Monday, December 9th
Annual Holiday Party, Banquet, and Gift Exchange
Join us for hors d’oeuvres at 6:00 pm, Dinner at 7:00 pm, & Gift Exchange at 8:00 pm
Join us for a fun evening with your fellow water gardeners. The gift exchange is definitely a highlight of the evening.
For more details about all of the above events, go to the website Events Calendar at:
https://www.colowatergardensociety.org/Category.cfm?CategoryID=3
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