Anyone Else Get Depressed Here By Lack of Flowers/Plant Life in Spring? (Denver: rental car, apartment)

[StealthRabbit]

Take a $40 flight to a GREEN area (Seattle / Portland), even the bay area is green through end of May.
week before Mother's day is a gem for Rhodies and Azaleas. Early Fruit trees have already bloomed on left coast,

Poppy fields look good near LA.

It's Bluebonnet season in TX Hill Country.
We take frequent flights from the gray to CO to get a glimpse of sun / moon / and even stars in the winter!

[alloo66]

Growing up in Hawaii, I haven't noticed. Maybe because I have lived in Phoenix, SF Bay Area, Portland, San Antonio, and Albuquerque. This has been a long winter. I would visit the https://www.botanicgardens.org/ I think that you will enjoy it. One year is not a measure of a city. No where is going to be like someplace else. Every place is unique. Phoenix was brown, but I didn't realize it until I visited Hawaii. Things will change. Just remember that California has had so much rain that it's no longer in a drought after 8 years. Hang in there.

[NW Crow]

So Stealth Rabbit do you spend more of March & April in Texas or Washington? Or just a bit everywhere?

[BarryK123]

Rotse - it's clear from your recent posts that you aren't happy here. You can fix that. Move back to where it's always temperate and raining.

I lived in the Phila area most of my life. The early Spring bulbs such as crocuses and daffofils would come up early April. I'm enjoying Spring skiing now. For me, it beats seeing a few flowers. Take a trip to the Botanic Gardens.

[davebarnes]

“Anyone Else Get Depressed Here By Lack of Flowers/Plant Life in [early] Spring?”
No.

[orngkat]

The persistent brown-ness of everything here can be oppressive if you come from a wetter, greener place. This will be my third spring/summer here and it amazes me how everything can look so absolutely dead for so long and yet come back to life when the temperature finally warms. But yes, I do miss spring and green-ness a lot. Right now, I have all sorts of seedlings started inside patiently waiting for Mother's Day when I am told it is safe to put them in the ground.

[DoodlemomCoS]

Hey OP,
I like Colorado for many reasons but the lack of true spring and fall really bums me out. To be fair, the posters on city data warned me of this pre-move bu we needed to move here anyway (and for many good reasons). Been here three years now and the first “non-spring” spring was the worst. But I still love spring and flowers so I grow tulips inside. Not really the same but I’m trying. Folks told me not to plant until Mother’s Day and they were right. Sorry you are dealing with this.
We are from New Mexico and although it was drier there, we did have spring. However, the summers baked our brains out and I hated that season. Here I love summer and love going to our little tiny lakes to help the kids fish or to kayak.

[Dreaming of Hawaii]

I grew up in the very green Eastern Seaboard, and although I loved my many years living and skiing in gorgeous Colorado, my heart needed more green. And, yes, especially in the Spring (which doesn't really exist in Colorado). When we retired, we moved to Hawaii where it is green year round.

[RotseCherut]

Wow, so many responses and I didn't expect others to be able to identify with me on the issue.

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

At higher altitudes, like much of Colorado, harsh environmental conditions generally prevail, and a treeless alpine vegetation exists in many places. Lack of water also leads to less greenery and lushness. The term Alpine Desert applies to parts of the state.

Take some time off work and visit the Denver Botanical Garden. They also have some yoga classes there where you could meet potential dates....

Hahaha.. Well, Mike I have to appreciate this advice.. Maybe, I will kill two birds with one stone.. Actually three birds, because my back has been killing me from the long hours on the machine. I can finally get to experience some Spring vegetation, fall in love and help remedy my back issues with some yoga all at the same time. Haha.. Thanks for this golden advice Oh yeah, do they have a beer garden? You know a person gets thirsty after all that yoga


Many people here have suggested visiting the Botanical Gardens and the next day free I get, i will be certainly taking a visit to them. It's tough as my workload is hitting 80 hrs/week right now, but I will get some free time..

I guess there are others here who also came from more green and lush environments and can identify the shock you will have when its April and you still haven't seen a single flower or bud on a tree. Yes, it is early Spring for COlorado, but by April in Portland, OR the fruit trees are all full of blossoms and there are hordes of flowers. April is not early Spring from where I cam from, but I can understand that it is not even really Spring in Colorado. It sounds like Spring starts in May and ends in June. Then Summer and being here in the Summer it is very hot and dry I noticed. At least the last Summer I was here. Looks like we got some more snowstorms coming this week, so I don't think we will be seeing much in the way of flowers this week.


It sounds like some people here have resorted to gardening.. I am surprised there are not more greenhouses here, as I saw when I was in Holland. You would think in a desert environment you would see more of them. I do smell lot of pot factories around town, but that is obviously a cash crop and not a place where you can go strolling through the day Seattle and Portland had tons of community gardens, but I haven't seen those here. That's why I was thinking they could have had some kind of community greenhouses, but I would assume those would cost money to operate, so would not be possible. There is no way I can garden with my shoebox sized backyard in my condo complex.. Not that I would have the time anyway, right now.

As far as those who just cannot understand why I am here, well let me fill you in on something. I am bound to a lease until the end of August. After that time I have decided I will be moving back to North Carolina, probably Charlotte. So, you won't have to deal with any more of my depression or negative posts of living in Denver. SO just relax, I will be out of your hair shortly. Colorado definitely is not for me. I am just trying to get by for the next 5 months I will be living here the best I can. I'm glad I could finally experience Colorado though and know it is a place I may come back to visit one day, but definitely not live.

I am a water person and I need greenery, flowers, lush vegetation and living in a very dry high desert is not for me. Some people will love it. I don't need to live on a beach , but I do need some moisture, lakes, rivers and streams. I sure miss being able to go walk up to a stream or river at one of the local parks in the various cities I lived The South Platte River in Denver just looks really polluted, not that interesting and there isn't any real nice walk ways or parks adjoining the river that I have seen. I'm assuming Denver doesn't have any greenbelt area with a large roaring river running through it like Boise had? Boise's scenery left a lot to be desired, but its one redeeming value was some beautiful parks and the river did produce quite a bit of nice vegetation. I grew up in Ashland, Oregon and sure miss being able to go down to Lithia Park and hike Lithia Creek all the way back to the mountains.

What shocks me is that people from New Mexico and Arizona are telling me how even there they have Spring . Wow, I would have not thought people from New Mexico or Arizona would have consider COlorado dry and barren. Well, then they can only imagine how it feels being someone who grew up in Oregon and lived on the Oregon Coast for 6 years in a rain forest that got over 100 inches of rain some years.

I have another question that I wonder if some may be able to answer. Does Denver have any Japanese gardens or any other type of natural attractions in the city? Portland and Seattle had pretty awesome Japanese gardens, but I would assume with the environment here it would be pretty arduous task to have something like that in Denver. But, I thought it would be interesting to know. When I google Japanese garden all that pops up is the Denver Botanic Garden. Would pretty much all gardens in the city be isolated to this one Botanical Garden? The Japanese Garden in Portland is a huge attraction all on its own and completely separate from the several botanical gardens throughout the city of Portland.

[TCHP]

Confirmation bias works in both positive and negative ways.

You are not the first person to come to CO with a dream of what it should be and have it rattle by the reality of what it is. I'm too lazy to go far enough back to review your inquiring posts, but I'm fairly confident you were advised of a number of these items about CO that you now don't like. Perhaps you did not weight that advise properly, perhaps you overlooked it, whatever the case, you are unhappy here and will continue to magnify those items that contribute to your dis-satisfaction while overlooking or at least underplaying things that aren't so bad. That's human nature.

Life is too short to deal with continued unhappiness if it doesn't lead to larger goals for ones self. I wish you the best in your next move and hope that your experience here will help you develop more in-depth questioning and review of things in that next move.

FWIW, my front yard has numerous tulips, daffodils, and lilies starting to come up. A couple are starting to bloom and put nice purple splotches in my otherwise brown and leaf covered flower bed. A uniquely CO experience is snow during Easter services with these flowers standing tall through a snow bank. I personally dig it. Your mileage may vary.