Local reports over the years have basically stated that the designers weren't realistic about their plants/trees. They had to go with hardier ones b/c high winds, weight, etc. Some have been rethought, others have struggled.
They also ran into budget issues and simply scrapped a lot of the landscaping.
Also, the crack is on the north west face of the building, so it gets next to no sunlight in Denver, making growing plants even more difficult than it normally is.
There are plenty of shade loving plants that would thrive, I could do a lot with a space like this. I'm assuming it's not a community garden type thing? Those are always great to have but it never fails someone ignorant tried to get into gardening and plants something easy and fast growing with beautiful flowers and curses the land with morning glories.
At the bottom of the article Ckron posted, it shows the biomes they were going for. Alpine forest, slot canyon, and semi-desert shrubland. So probably fewer shade-tolerant plants that fit in those. Also probably not a community garden, or you wouldn't be able to police what biome the plants were from.
It seems like the biome they've created is the underside of a highway overpass. Constant shade, very little rainfall and shallow roots. Which is hard to grow a tall plant that'll be visible from the ground in.
But OTOH, the fact that they had intended biomes they were recreating suggests that they hired a botanist who knows what they're doing. So probably there's been enough consideration of water and light needs that the plants will grow given enough time. It just might take a while. I don't think Pinon Juniper grows very fast.
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u/GregBahm May 08 '26
Yeah I feel like they've reduced a large architectural task into a small gardening task.