Jennifer Jewell Photography by Frank Meeker

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Watch a slide show of web exclusive photos from this story. For the full story and more pictures please pick up this mont's Colorado Homes & Lifestyle magazine.

I love to visit gardens—small, large, public, private—they all make me happy. Going with an open mind, a sharp eye and notebook and pencil in hand is one of the best ways I know to learn more about designs and techniques.

I have visited gardens around the world since I was a child and nearly every one has given me fresh ideas for my own. While most organized tours are scheduled at the height of summer, Centennial Gardens, a satellite Denver Botanic Gardens (DBG) site, is worth visiting any time of year.

Centennial Gardens is a five-acre formal parterre tucked just northeast of Six Flags Elitch Gardens on Little Raven Street. The gardens were born when former Denver mayor Wellington Webb and his wife, First Lady Wilma Webb, vacationed in Europe.

They returned to Denver inspired by French gardens such as Versailles and Villandry, and they proposed a small plot of that style as part of Denver’s urban renewal.

The city teamed with the world-class DBG and award-winning local landscape architecture firm Civitas, for a mini, formal French-style garden including all of the essential elements such as a sense of enclosure, strong geometric order, water features, and even bosquets, or ornamental groves of trees representing “wilderness” surrounding the garden’s “cultivation.”

(clockwise from left) Each subsection of the gardens is rich in the color and ­texture of the dryland plantings: blue-green Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia ‘Hidcote’) plays counterpoint to a fresh spring-green ice plant (Delosperma cooperi). Wheat-colored grass is set off nicely by the rust red of Dragons Blood Sedum (Sedum spurium ‘Dragons Blood’). Bright yellow Rocky Mountain Zinnias glow along walkways. (opposite page) The grace and serenity of the gardens’ traditional formal design is well seen from above—this vantage point is from the overpass to the south.

The DBG and Civitas went one step further with the traditional formal-garden-formula, however, by adding a “Colorado twist” and using only plants native to the state or similar arid regions.

“This garden is living proof that drought tolerant and water-wise can be whatever you want it to be: colorful, lush, formal, full of movement and vitality,” says Garden Manager, Maria Bumgarner.

Centennial Gardens is open to the public, free of charge, from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. seven days a week year-round (closed Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years’ Day).

Inside, wide crushed-gravel paths and central “lawn” areas divide the garden into four distinct quadrants planted around specific color themes including a silver-blue and yellow quadrant, a purple and orange quadrant, a red and bronze quadrant, and a yellow, red and chartreuse quadrant.

The entire space is flanked by “groves” of greenspire linden trees (Tilia cordata ‘Greenspire’) to the north and south, and crabapple trees to the west. A row of water features punctuates the north-south axis of the design.

The gardens have been open to the public since 2002. Having worked as an assistant to the previous manager, Margaret Foderaro, Bumgarner and her assistant Ellen Heiss have had the fun and challenge of seeing which plantings from the original design have and have not worked. Bumgarner has a degree in forestry from Colorado State University and under her management, many of the trees have received special attention and pruning, and four drought-tolerant and color-appropriate shade trees are now planted in the center of each quadrant.

Learn How, Where & When

Centennial Gardens features hundreds of interesting trees, shrubs, perennials and bulbs. To learn more, consider one of the early-spring classes hosted by Bumgarner: Learn how, where and when to plant bulbs, design considerations for interplantings, resources for bulbs, and more during “37,000 Bulbs.” Classes are held 11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. on Sundays. March 18th: Grape Hyacinth, Glory of the Snow, Fosteriana Tulips and Daffodils April 15th: Tulips, Daffodils, Crabapple Trees, Hyacinth, Juno Iris and Star Flower May 6th: Lily Flowering Tulips, Foxtail Lilies, Ornamental Onion, Dichelostemma and Gladiolus For directions to Centennial Gardens: botanicgardens.org/ourgardensnew/centennial.cfm To register for classes: botanicgardens.org/pageinpage/education.cfm

“The original scheme was horizontally oriented and flat. The idea with these  trees was to provide some shade in the central area as well as to increase the vertical interest,” she explains.

The crisp shapes of clipped curl leaf mountain mahogany (Cercocarpus ledifolius), fern bush (Chamaebatiaria millefolium) and  lavender (Lavandula angustifolia ‘Munstead’) hedges show in sharp relief against the deep red rosehips and the orange leaves of iris plants.

Just blocks from Union Station, the historic industrial beginnings of the city, and nestled into a curve of the South Platte River, Centennial Gardens is one of the many improvements to this area in the last decade. But it is also one of the least known.

Bumgarner has worked hard to increase the number of scheduled events and marketing materials available to increase public awareness of the site as both a leisure and educational destination.

Like any garden, this one is a metaphor for life and the constant need to balance order with chaos, but it is also a small encyclopedia of dry-land plant choices, (including one of the best spring bulb displays in the state), and interesting design ideas for our region. Go, take a pencil and paper and your powers of observation.

Garden visiting is a perfect day out, and this one will send you home with fresh air and fresh perspectives.