August 13, 2026
Panayoti Kelaidis is an institution in the gardening world. A native Coloradan, PK (his preferred nickname to avoid mispronunciations) makes it his business to know everyone in horticulture, landscape design, and garden media and to foster connections among them.
For more than 40 years he’s been an instrumental part of Denver Botanic Gardens; currently he’s senior curator and director of outreach. He’s an international plant explorer and tour guide. He helped create Plant Select, which trials and markets garden-worthy drought-tolerant plants for the Rockies and High Plains regions.
He’s also a dinosaur blogger like me, still slinging botanical observations and photos at his blog Prairiebreak. He’s a man of indefatigable energy.
Amidst all this activity, he somehow made time to open his home garden in June for the Denver Open Days Tour. He and his partner Jan welcomed tour-goers all day. And in the late afternoon, they hosted a lovely happy-hour visit for a smaller group who’d registered in advance. Happily, that included me.
The front walk to PK’s hilltop brick home is clearly that of a plant obsessive. Plants spring from every crack in patios, steps, and walls.
In June, it was dominated by fuzzy spears of mullein, sunny discs of yarrow, silver-green clouds of artemisia, and a confetti of larkspur. Dark-leaved mangaves made fleshy, freckled focal points in patio containers.
Hypertufa crevice containers, a mainstay of Colorado gardens (I’ll be working on mine soon)
Larkspur, mangave, and mullein
If you turn away from the front porch, a skinny gravel path plunges you into a sloping dry garden. Spiky yucca heads warily watch you pass by. Upright mullein and foxtail lilies observe you like alert prairie dogs on their mounds.
A mid-path look around
Mullein, larkspur, and foxtail lily
Spiny thistles, which remind me of Sleeping Beauty’s perilous spinning wheel. Touch the spindle. Touch it, I say!
Prickly pear in bloom
At the bottom of the path, cactus troughs on pedestals look like an armada of battleships sailing for the strait.
Another thistle holds its spiny flowers close like a clutch of eggs in a nest.
A bee is diving into this thistle flower. See its striped hiney poking out?
The path bends and meanders back uphill, past a yellow and blue meadow…
…with living bouquets of mullein and larkspur…
…and candelabras of giant mullein.
The house comes back into view, framed by a small lawn.
A pot of carnivorous pitcher plants holds a volunteer larkspur.
Other pots show off PK’s collection of succulents and alpine plants.
Sweet autumn clematis in fragrant bloom
A delicate clematis twines its way up a rain chain.
A layered wall of sandstone is bisected by a small stream and frosted with crevice-loving plants.
Climb another hilly path and you find yourself topside again, where a sunny rock garden shows off more of PK’s alpine collection.
A neighbor’s house appears to float between a trio of tall pines.
Looking up
Other conifers find a home among the rocks too.
Here’s a table setting of dinner plate aeoniums.
Meadow geranium against a piney backdrop
View from the top of the waterfall, with a distant glimpse of city and mountains
The low light was backlighting the meadow garden by the lawn.
As the others followed PK on his personal tour, I played hooky in search of golden-hour photos.
Larkspur and sea holly
Here’s PK talking with his guests at a table of tasty appetizers. It was a lovely garden gathering at the end of a fun day of touring. Thanks, PK and Jan!
This concludes my coverage of Denver’s Open Days Tour in June. But there’s another Open Days Tour coming up in September, featuring three gardens in the Denver area, so get your tickets for that soon!
For a look back at Mike Kintgen’s garden with an unusual serpentine crevice garden, click here. Stay tuned for my recap of the June Open Days Tour in Boulder.
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