The Western Colorado Botanical Gardens and Butterfly House is located at cite on the bank of
Colorado River
The Colorado River ( es, Río Colorado) is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The river drains an expansive, arid drainage basin, watershed that encompasses parts of ...
at the southern end of 7th Street in
Grand Junction, Colorado
Grand Junction is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Mesa County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 65,560 at the 2020 United States Census, making Grand Junction the 17th mos ...
,
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. Garden is connected with ''Colorado River Trails system'' via walkways. Western Colorado Botanical Gardens and Butterfly House
Frommer's
Frommer's is a travel guide book series created by Arthur Frommer in 1957. Frommer's has since expanded to include more than 350 guidebooks in 14 series, as well as other media including an eponymous radio show and a website. In 2017, the company ...
History
The Gardens was developed on reclaimed site previously filled with thousands of used tires, junk car parts, and dead batteries. Founded in 1994, The Gardens have been increasing in size of the facility since 2003.
It is managed by a non profit organization known as STRIVE.
The Gardens now have butterfly house and adjacent
greenhouse
A greenhouse (also called a glasshouse, or, if with sufficient heating, a hothouse) is a structure with walls and roof made chiefly of Transparent ceramics, transparent material, such as glass, in which plants requiring regulated climatic condit ...
orchid
Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant.
Along with the Asteraceae, they are one of the two largest families of flowering ...
s and other tropical plants from around the world.
A variety of outdoor gardens have been developed and/or planned, including a ''Cactus and Succulent Garden'', ''Children's Secret Garden'', ''Harmony In Color Garden'', ''International Garden'', ''Native Garden'', ''Seasonal Xeric Garden'', and ''Sensory Garden''.
''Native Garden''
The ''Native Garden'' is a miniature replica of
Colorado
Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...
Grand Mesa
The Grand Mesa is a large mesa in western Colorado in the United States. It is the largest flat-topped mountain in the world. It has an area of about and stretches for about east of Grand Junction between the Colorado River and the Gunniso ...
, the
Colorado National Monument
Colorado National Monument is a National Park Service unit near the city of Grand Junction, Colorado. Sheer-walled canyons cut deep into sandstone and granite–gneiss–schist rock formations. This is an area of desert land high on the Colorado ...
and Mount Garfield, with plantings related to the 13 geological zones of Western Colorado.
''Cactus and Succulent Garden''
The ''Cactus and Succulent Garden'' displays native
cactus
A cactus (, or less commonly, cactus) is a member of the plant family Cactaceae, a family comprising about 127 genera with some 1750 known species of the order Caryophyllales. The word ''cactus'' derives, through Latin, from the Ancient Greek ...
species, as well as other cold-hardy cactus and
succulent
In botany, succulent plants, also known as succulents, are plants with parts that are thickened, fleshy, and engorged, usually to retain water in arid climates or soil conditions. The word ''succulent'' comes from the Latin word ''sucus'', meani ...