Cactus Blossoms at Boyce Thompson

A couple of days ago, I posted a short overview of our visit to Boyce Thompson Arboretum. Since Highway 60 has just been widened to four lanes most of the way, the Arboretum is an accessible day-trip from the Valley, and well worth the visit. It took up about 40 minutes to get there, making it closer than the Cerreta Candy factory, or most of the West Valley.

Here are some photos of the plants in the gardens that were taken last Saturday, at the end of April, with a temperature about 75 degrees and partly cloudy... a perfect day to visit.

The Palo Verde Trees are blooming all over the desert. I was talking to my sister (who lives back East). She said on a blog she read, one lady was lamenting the fact that there were no blooming trees in the desert. I think they were discussing the lovely forsythia and all the trees that bloom in cooler climates. Ummm... we have mesquite, palo verde, ironwood, and lots of others, including plenty of imports like citrus and apricots.




Palo Verde blossoms up close. See that pretty green bark?



Here is a beautiful plant. I accidentally had the camera on the wrong setting, so a section of my photos came out dark. With this tiny flower, the photo is stunning. These flowers are about as big as my pinky fingernail.



These are the staghorn cholla blossoms (Opuntia versicolor). There were yellow, orange, and red versions of these blossoms.


Here is a prickly pear which is just covered with blossoms and fruit.


And here is a close-up photo of the Prickly Pear Blossoms. These ones are yellow.



And these prickly pear blossoms are light orange.



The Mescal Bean bushes were covered with these pretty flowers. Not as spectacular as cactus blooms, but still really neat.



And here are some golden barrel cactuses. Which reminds me of a nice survival myth that has been circulating for many years. No, you cannot get water from a barrel cactus, or any cactus. The stored water is very acidic and will make you ill. They are not the desert's version of a watermelon.



Here is a funny flower. These are pretty white blossoms, right.



The funny thing about these, is that the flowers are bigger than my hand. Try looking through the viewfinder of a digital SLR camera while taking a photo of your own hand next to a cactus sometime. I am lucky I didn't stab myself on the spines.



This is a funny tree near the end of the highline trail. It grew in a crack, then sent its roots down the cliff face.



This is a cute little cactus with some other flowers mixed in.


Some more cactus blossoms. Color not photoshopped.


This little cactus was hiding behind a bench right next to a cliff wall, so I had to hold the camera down behind the bench and shoot random photos until I got a good shot.


Wow!


This cactus had petals that were as delicate as carnation petals.


Well, that's all for now. Where should we go next? Tucson or Flagstaff?

Changes

So, for whoever has my blog in a reader, I have a question. I made about five changes to the previous post. Does a new notice show up in your reader every time I found something to fix and re-published the post about the Boyce Thompson Arboretum? I sure hope not. I was trying to get the photos to look ok, and my spacing was really strange.

Boyce Thompson Arboretum

One of the best Springtime day trips in Arizona is a visit to the Boyce Thompson Arboretum. At this time of year, late April, all the cactuses are blooming, and so are many of the other plants. It is still cool enough to spend most of the day roaming over the well-built paths, through the beautiful gardens.

Colonel Boyce Thompson built his Picket Post home on the side of a hill overlooking the canyons that now are filled with the plants of the Arboretum. The house itself is pretty neat to see from below, with rather spectacular, hand-built retaining walls.

The gardens themselves are more spectacular, however. Boyce Thompson wanted to build a world-class botanical garden. 75 years later, he has certainly succeeded. The gardens are well-planned and the plants are mature and well-tended. There are huge Eucalyptus (gum) trees, cactuses, and thousands of other plants from all over the southwest and the world.

The setting for the gardens is a canyon with some cool rock formations. In fact, a small home was built onto an alcove in a canyon wall. Can you spot the house in the photo on the left?



I'll give you a hint. You can probably see the doorway in the lower left corner. The Clevenger House is only about nine feet tall, and completely covered with Honeysuckle vines. The vines were growing clear up the cliff.

This little house has an herb garden surrounding it, and we all had fun smelling the different herbs. Lemon Balm was my favorite, but lavender is a very close runner-up.

There was a neat old building with two greenhouses on each side. One of the greenhouses was full of cactus, and the other had succulents.



We sat and relaxed in the hummingbird garden for a while before the gardens closed, trying to get a photo of the elusive hummingbirds. We were not as successful as we have been other places, because these tiny birds were pretty skittish.

Can you even see the hummingbird in this photo? He is in the center, eating from the Aloe Vera blossoms.



Some of the paths were closed, but there was still plenty to see. The children's favorite was the singing bridge. The suspension bridge crossed Queen Creek, which was dry, and led to the highline trail.

What do most children (and many adults) do when they are presented with the opportunity to cross a hanging bridge? Bounce up and down halfway across, of course. Then run back and forth while jumping on the bridge to see what happens. This particular bridge had a very musical squeek as the children ran up and down, earning the nickname of "the singing bridge." Since there were no other visitors around, we let the children amuse themselves for a while, seeing if they could get a song from the three notes.

Overall, everyone had an enjoyable day, and the children were begging to come back next week. We probably won't be back soon, but only because we have a huge list of other places to visit.

I'll have to post some of the cactus flowers and plant photos later.

The Boyce Thompson Arboretum has different hours in the Summer, so check out their official Boyce Thompson website to help plan your visit.