Is Denver really brown? (Colorado Springs, Lakewood: neighborhoods, live, suburbs)

[Maroon197]

I'm a Phoenix native looking for someplace a little greener, but i've heard Denver is extremely brown for the better part of the year. Some have even said that Phoenix seems like the greener town since the "trees" we have typically don't die during the winter.

In my experience, Boulder seems pretty good all year long, but you pay for it. Just wondering about the rest of Denver Metro in this regard.

[Katarina Witt]

The cities are green from watering all summer. The countryside usually gets brown by mid-summer, stays that way till the following spring. There are not a lot of naturally growing trees.

[Maroon197]

So basically Denver is painted green like Phoenix? I would think water would be a major issue in the coming years...

[Katarina Witt]

It doesn't look like Phoenix, it looks like Denver! The city itself has lots of large old trees, as do the older suburbs. Trees and bushes grow well here with a little watering. Denver gets more rain than Phoenix, an average of 16" per year. There is a thread about the water issue on the Colorado forum. This summer actually looks pretty good, with no restrictions planned by most of the water districts, to the best of my knowledge.

[denverian]

Denver is "brown" in winter when most trees lose their leaves, but in Spring/Summer/Fall, I'd say it's greener than Phoenix. Lots of large trees form a canopy over the older neighborhoods, and you don't see rock and sand yards here!

[ryanek9freak]

I like the rock yards.

[WhereTheSidewalkEnds]

I think what people mean by brown during the summer is when it gets really hot and we don't get the rain, the foothills turn brown from the grasses just drying up. In the spring, from the rain we normally get, they the natural grasses on the foothills are green and it's quite beautiful, especially when there is still a lot of snow on the mountains.

[cowboyxjon]

In a word -- yes. I grew up on the east coast and lived in California for two years before I moved to Denver. One thing I appreciate about the east coast (even more since I moved) is the fact that compared to most places in the west, it's generally VERY green with lots of natural trees, etc.

That isn't to say that Denver is awful. I love it here. But most of the metro area definitely has a brown/dry landscape for most of the year.

[COflower]

Originally Posted by Maroon197

I'm a Phoenix native looking for someplace a little greener, but i've heard Denver is extremely brown for the better part of the year. Some have even said that Phoenix seems like the greener town since the "trees" we have typically don't die during the winter.

In my experience, Boulder seems pretty good all year long, but you pay for it. Just wondering about the rest of Denver Metro in this regard.

We are in a semi-arrid climate for most of Colorado as well as that we actually do have winters...yes, Denver, Colorado Springs, Pueblo, Durango, Grand Junction and well Colorado major areas are typically brown through Oct. to end of March or mid April. Even many native trees go brown like aspens. It's the cycle of life.

I am not sure what "extremely" brown means but we don't have palm tress and don't artificially plant them (they wouldn't survive anyway) like Phoenix does.

Boulder and surrounding areas are no more "green" than Denver except maybe the skies and that would be blue, of course.

[tfox]

Originally Posted by Maroon197

I'm a Phoenix native looking for someplace a little greener, but i've heard Denver is extremely brown for the better part of the year. Some have even said that Phoenix seems like the greener town since the "trees" we have typically don't die during the winter.

The native grasses on the plains and foothills are actually not green for very long. They start to get green in early April, but by about now, mid-June, they start to fade to a blonde sort of color, which they remain until about November, where frost causes them to go completely dormant, until they show up again in late march-early april again. In the metro area we have a hill west of Lakewood called "Green Mountain," but it's only truly green from MAYBE four months, if that. By high summer it's yellowish-brown again. The native vegetation of Denver is a semi-arid shortgrass prairie, which, while not a true desert like Phoenix, is considered a dryland ecosystem. There are similar landscapes in extreme SE Arizona and parts of New Mexico as well that you might be familiar with. To anyone raised east of the Mississippi, Denver is a desert for sure.

The city of Denver is an artificial landscape planted and maintained for 100-150 years. In the older neighborhoods, parks, and parkways, there is a mature old-growth tree canopy that makes Denver look a lot like an eastern city. (Not unlike some of the old oaks in north Central Phoenix, but of course on a scale many times larger).