If you’re looking for a place where you can enjoy nature and explore old buildings, head to Denver Botanic Gardens Chatfield Farms. Spanning 700 acres, this plant refuge and working farm sits along the banks of Deer Creek, and it’s known for incredible bird watching. Other things you can see and do near Retreat at Park Meadows include:
Lavender Garden – This is the newest garden at Chatfield Farms and it features fourteen varieties of lavender under cultivation to demonstrate growing lavender as a crop. The garden also includes a labyrinth, rock garden, and stone patio.
Janice Ford Memorial Dye Garden – Planted in 2014, the Dye Garden features fifteen types of dye plants used to color fabrics. They are collected by the Natural Dye Study Group of the Rocky Mountain Weavers Guild, that occasionally offers classes to teach people how to grow and use dye plants.
Butterflies at Chatfield – At the butterfly house, you will see hundreds of native butterflies flitting from flower to flower in search of nectar. Butterflies include painted ladies, monarchs, and mourning cloaks.
Hildebrand Ranch – In the early 1860s, pioneering settlers built a log cabin next to Deer Creek. A few years later, Frank Hildebrand bought the property, and after he married in 1873, he and his wife constructed barns and other structures for their ranching business. Today many of the buildings still stand including the house, blacksmith shop, summer kitchen, milking barn, and school house. The ranch is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
If you would like to call the Retreat at Park Meadows home, please contact us. We’re less than twenty minutes from this great attraction and so much more.