During your visit to this Denver attraction, explore its conservatory, greenhouse complex and many gardens illustrating an ever-widening diversity of plants from all corners of the world including a collection of over 700 species that define and celebrate Colorado’s Western identity and unique high altitude climate and geography. Offshoots Café offers breakfast and lunch as well as a full service coffee bar. In the Denver Botanic Gardens Gift Shop, you can browse over 10,000 items personally selected by staff to reflect the garden’s core values of sustainability, transformation, diversity and relevance.
Highlights of the Denver Botanic Gardens
Boettcher Memorial Tropical Conservatory
The Boettcher Memorial Conservatory boasts a unique and compelling display of tropical plants with thousands of exotic specimens from tropical and sub-tropical regions of the world. Of special interest are food plants such as bananas, chocolate and coffee. A favorite among visitors of the Boettcher Memorial Conservatory is the banyan tree model which offers aerial view of the tropical forest.
Greenhouse Complex
The Denver Botanic Gardens’ 50,000-square-foot Greenhouse Complex includes 16,000 sq. ft. of state-of-the-art greenhouses including Marnie’s Pavilion and an Orangery. Leaving the Boettcher Memorial Conservatory to the west you will enter Marnie’s Pavilion, a two-story oasis featuring orchids, bromeliads, ferns and aquatic plants in rock crevices with water meandering about. Educational displays will provide you with information about tropical ecosystems, their diversity, functions and importance. Keeping with traditional French orangeries, the Denver Botanic Gardens’ Orangery is used as a place to overwinter citrus trees. Step inside the Orangery reminiscent of traditional European Renaissance garden displays with refreshing fruits hanging from citrus trees and other seasonal colorful plants. The Orangery features roll-up doors that remain open during seasonable weather allowing the plant displays to spill onto the terrace.
Herb Garden
Over 150 varieties of herbs can be found in the Herb Garden inspired by the monks of the Middle Ages. Delight in the soothing scents of lavender and rosemary and speak with volunteers, available throughout the Herb Garden to answer your questions about growing herbs at home.
Japanese Garden
At the core of the Japanese Garden is its bonsai collection with trees from the Rocky Mountain Region. Also included in the collection are traditional, tropical and subtropical bonsai. Additionally, visitors can marvel at the authentic Ella Mullen Weckbaugh Tea House shipped to Denver, Colorado from Japan and reassembled by skilled Japanese artisans.
Rock Alpine Garden
Delight in the art of rock gardening. The Rock Alpine Garden uses over 500 tons of rock providing habitats similar to more than 12 different environments based on slope, soil type, moisture and exposure.
South African Plaza
Journey to South Africa in the Denver Botanic Gardens’ South African Plaza. You will find plants and flowers such as calla lilies, Agapanthus, Delosperma, red hot pokers, asparagus fern and geraniums.
Victorian Secret Garden
Step into the golden age of plant exploration in the late 1800s in Europe. A time when it was fashionable to create opulent tropical gardens that displayed ones wealth and exotic plant collections. While tropical plants do not typically fare well in Colorado’s semi-arid, temperate climate, the botanical gardens’ Victorian Secret Garden is carefully designed with annuals and perennials that look and feel like tropical plants, but do well throughout Colorado’s hot, dry summers and cold winters.
Dining at Offshoots Café
Start or end your time at the Denver Botanic Gardens in Offshoots Café, located in the gardens’ main building. Offshoots Café’s breakfast menu includes freshly made breakfast burritos, pastries and stuffed breakfast croissants. Lunch options include salads, soups and sandwiches made with fresh, local ingredients. Additionally, Offshoots houses a full service coffee bar.
Shopping at the Denver Botanic Gardens Gift Shop
Be sure to stop by the Denver Botanic Gardens Gift Shop, located in Denver Botanic Gardens’ Bonfils-Stanton Visitor Center. More than 10,000 items personally selected by staff to reflect the Denver Botanic Gardens’ core values of sustainability, transformation, diversity and relevance are available to purchase and include all-natural gift items, plants and gardening supplies, books about gardening including titles written by Denver Botanic Garden staff, herbs and vinegars made by the Gardens Guild Members and other locally-made items.
- Visitors are welcome to take personal photos and videos at the Denver Botanic Gardens.
- Complimentary wheelchairs are available to check out from the Information Desk in the Bonfils-Stanton Visitor Center. Visitors who wish to check out a wheelchair must present a valid driver’s licence or identification card.