Grand Mesa Native Plant Garden

     Grand Mesa Visitor’s Center in the Grand Mesa National Forest, at an elevation of 10,200 feet, offers educational and informational services to the public.  The Visitor’s Center is located at the intersection of Highway 65 and Forest Service Road 121, just across from Cobbett Lake.

    To familiarize visitors with the variety of native wildflowers, and plants, the US Forest Service began a demonstration garden at the site in 1999.  Forest Service partners include: Colorado State University TriRiver Extension Service Master Gardener Program, Colorado Native Plant Society, Grand Mesa Scenic and Historic Byway and the University of Colorado Center for Community Development.

    The hardscape was constructed in the summer of 2000.  The design includes a wide wheelchair-accessible path through the garden.  The first major planting occurred in early summer of 2001.  Additional plant materials have been added at the beginning of each growing season since that time.

    A natural garden pleasing to the senses and instructive to the public is evolving at the site.  The plants continue to fill in and flourish under the tender care of volunteers who started the garden.  The garden provides onlookers with an abundant view of the type of beauty to be found the meadows of Grand Mesa.  As this garden flourishes, so does the visitor’s appreciation of the Grand Mesa.

    Please remember to take only pictures of nature’s blanket of floral beauty, leaving the plants to continue to decorate our mountain meadows.
Books on the plants and animals that can be found on the Grand Mesa can be found at the Visitor Centers located in Cedaredge, Eckert, on Grand Mesa and in the Town of Mesa.

 

One of Grand Mesa’s Highlighted Native Plants:
The Colorado Columbine

Our state flower, the beautiful Colorado Columbine, occurs from our foothill canyons up to about 12,000 feet elevation. It may also be found from  Montana southward to New Mexico and Arizona, although the deep blue color may become pale or even whitish. The blossoms of our Columbine, like those of most flowers, consist of four parts: the supporting sepals (usually green), the colorful petals to attract pollinators, the pollen bearing stamens, and the pistil or ovary with its future seeds. And one of the basic ways of looking at flowers is to consider if they are regular (all petals the same size and shape) or irregular. But because of the color difference of white and blue, most folks see the Columbine’s flowers as irregular. Look again and you will find that the five uppermost white petals are elongated into whitish or purplish spurs that extend below the darker blue-purple sepals.