Nestled at the base of the Front Range, the upper Rocky Mountain Steppe is a ecologically diverse system in which to cultivate high desert restoration sites along urban corridors. Denver is located on the traditional lands of the Ute, Arapaho & Cheyenne and served as a crossroads for over 50 additional tribes who traversed the region. Today it is experiencing massive urbanization despite water scarcity. Our work here promotes dryland cultivation of native foodways and medicine paths and looks at the historical migration of plants that have arrived with waves of immigrants who have settled in the west.
The Stiles African American Heritage Gardens
In December 2022, the City of Denver’s Art & Venues program awarded us a PS You Are Here grant to establish the Stiles African American Heritage Gardens in the hell-strip surrounding the center. The project consists of sculpting a crevice garden of native flagstone and cultivating plants associated with historical entrepreneurs who found early Denver a platform to thrive. In this way, we intend to bring the intentions of the center into the public sphere, expanding on the physical installation with an online component.
MIGRATIONS: Explore the lasting cultural, political, and societal impact of the Great Migration through the life and work of artist Jacob Lawrence online through the Phillips Collection. Then create representations of the birds who migrate these paths every year.
Featured Historical Figures & Associated Plant Collections
Aunt Clara Brown | Medicine Paths
This collection includes plants that were used as food & medicine on the Underground Railroad and the native medicinal plants of the west she learned upon her arrival here.
April 15th, 2023: TEA
Honoring Aunt Clara Brown & Plant Medicine
Breaking Ground in the Hell Strip
August 19th, 2023: TEA
Honoring Bessie Coleman & Jacqueline Withers
Transforming the ‘hell strip’ to the Health Strip
Madam CJ Walker | Beautification
Five Points was testing grounds for the beauty products that ultimately made Madam CJ Walker the first self-made woman millionaire. She used ingredients from plants like rose and violet, the native species of which play an important role in local ecologies.
May 13th, 2023: Mother’s Day TEA
Honoring Madam CJ Walker & Mother/Daughter relationships
Barney Ford | Local Foodways
The great entrepreneur who founded the People’s restaurant elevated culinary arts in the west by utilizing game like venison and prairie dog from the local landscape in his People’s Restaurant.
November 4th, 2023: HARVEST TEA
Featuring Barney Ford & Culinary Traditions
TBA 2024 – Upcoming: In collaboration with the Rocky Mountain Land Library – Book signing with Camille Dungy & her new book, Soil, The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden
The ‘Den’ on Historic Dollhouse Row
The SEED den on historic Dollhouse Row in central Denver is a nursery garden for native plants and herbs, providing seeds and thinnings to neighborhood gardens and local land-based initiatives. The den also acts as a creative incubator, exploring ways to engage community in creative acts of land restoration.
Garden Timeline
2021 commences the process of removing turf grass and starting a nursery garden.
2022: HugelCULTURE
2023: Maturation
Congress Park News Native Plant column
Spring
Getting Started with Native Plants
Steppe Communities
Summer
Garden Edits: Weeding
CLAY
VOICES 