The Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona
Whenever I travel, I always try to fit in a visit to a garden, where I can learn more about landscaping and horticulture.
Last week, during my trip to Arizona for Super Bowl LVII, I stopped at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix. Situated on 140-acres in Papago Park, the Desert Botanical Garden features cactus, agave, and other desert plants of the Sonoran Desert and the world. Founded by the Arizona Cactus and Native Flora Society in 1937, the garden has more than 50-thousand plants - one-third of which are native to the area, including 519 species, which are rare, threatened, or endangered. Please visit the Desert Botanical Garden the next time you’re in the area.
Here are some photos.
-
- We visited on such a beautiful day. This is the Ottosen Entry Garden at the Desert Botanical Garden. This space is divided into three different gardens featuring a selection of Sonoran desert plants.
-
- Among them, these barrel cacti – a group of barrel-shaped cacti native to North and South America. Most of these cactus plants grow up to two feet tall and about a foot in diameter.
-
- Here is a closer look at a barrel cactus with its strong, stiff spines and prominent ribs.
-
- The barrel cacti in the foreground is Ferocactus pottsii – a species from Mexico. This rare and distinctive barrel cactus has relatively delicate spines and a lighter green color.
-
- Echinocactus grusonii, popularly known as the golden barrel cactus, golden ball or mother-in-law’s cushion, is a well known species of cactus, and is endemic to east-central Mexico. It is rare and endangered in the wild. It forms a pale green, barrel-shaped stem with prominent ribs adorned with areoles and bright golden spines.
-
- Nearby is a bed of Opuntia engelmannii, prickly pear cactus. This is a bushy succulent shrub with light green or bluish-green, egg-shaped, fleshy pads that grow up to 12-inches across. It is common across the south-central and Southwestern United States and northern Mexico.
-
- All prickly pear cactus plants have flat, fleshy pads that look like large leaves. The pads are actually modified branches or stems that store water, help with photosynthesis, and produce flowers.
-
- This is a Boojum tree, Fouquieria columnaris. The plant’s English name, Boojum, was given by Godfrey Sykes of the Desert Laboratory in Tucson, Arizona and is taken from Lewis Carroll’s poem “The Hunting of the Snark”. The trunk is up to 10 inches thick, with branches sticking out at right angles, all covered with small leaves.
-
- Pachycereus pringlei, Cardon Cactus, also known as Mexican giant cardon or elephant cactus, is the tallest cactus in the world native to northwestern Mexico in the states of Baja California, Baja California Sur, and Sonora. It’s part of the columnar cacti family which also includes the giant Saguaro.
-
- Here is a view looking up. It is slow growing, and grows up to an average 30-feet when mature, but there are some that are known to be as tall as 60-feet.
-
- The cardon cactus has grayish-green stems each featuring 10 to 15 ribs.
-
- The Carnegia gigantea, Saguaro Cactus, is an arborescent or tree-like cactus species in the monotypic genus Carnegiea. Saguaros are found exclusively in the Sonoran Desert and can grow to be more than 40 feet tall.
-
- This iconic cactus has an average life span of about 150 to 175 years. However, biologists believe that some plants may live more than 200 years.
-
- Here is a stunning specimen of a crested saguaro. Saguaros sometimes grow in odd or misshapen forms. This one has a fan-like form at the top. These crested saguaros are rare and biologists are unsure why it develops. Some speculate it is some kind of a genetic mutation, while others say it is the result of a lightning strike or freeze damage.
-
- Along with the saguaro, the Stenocereus thurberi, Organ Pipe Cactus, is one of Arizona’s most distinctive cacti, forming large clusters of 30-foot high stems, branching from the base.
-
- This is Cephalocereus senilis, or Old Man Cactus. It has fluffy white tufts of hair over the surface of the cactus body. The long hair is used to keep itself cool in its natural habitat. As an outdoor plant, these can grow to 45-feet tall, but are generally slow growing as potted specimens. I also have some old man cacti – they’re potted up and growing in my greenhouse.
-
- I love agaves and have many in my personal collection. Agave macroacantha, the Black-Spined Agave is a very distinctive small to medium-sized agave with leaf rosettes that grow on very short stems. The grayish-green leaves grow to more than a foot long ending in sharp black spines.
-
- Agave paryii truncata, Artichoke Agave is an evergreen, perennial succulent forming tight rosettes of broad, short, thick, silvery-blue leaves with conspicuous reddish-brown teeth and terminal spines.
-
- And, while they may also look like rare and beautiful cacti, the bright green plants are desert sculptures by glass artist and entrepreneur, Dale Chihuly. These florescent glass pieces look so similar in shape to the yuccas growing next to them.
-
- Surrounding the garden is Papago Park. This is one of the buttes of Papago Park. The word “butte” comes from a French word meaning “small hill” – not to be confused with mesas or plateaus, which typically have top surfaces that are larger than their vertical faces, while a butte is taller than it is wide.
-
- And here I am with my friend Jane Heller, and Christine Colaco – both from Bank of America. Jane and I go to the Big Game together every year and try to catch some other interesting sites during the weekend. It was great to visit the Desert Botanical Garden. I hope you can make it a stop on your next trip to Arizona.
Martha Pins
Martha Tweets
