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.