Desert Botanical Garden

On Sunday we went to the Desert Botanical Garden. It was 88°F (31°C) so it was pretty warm but we soldiered on. Mom pushed her wheeled walker around, with one of us ahead of her and one of us behind. It worked pretty well but we all got tired fast. It was the Flower Festival last weekend, although there weren't a lot of wildflowers to see. Usually, Phoenix gets winter rains that really get the wildflowers growing; however, this year, we hardly got any rain at all. We also had several very heavy frosts in January that did some significant damage. Since they don't do any supplemental watering, the flowers were rather sparse. Anyway, here are some pictures I took so you can see what it's like in the Valley of the Sun.

Here's some golden poppies with just a few owl clover blossoms peaking through:


Here are some penstomen, verbena and a couple others I don't know yet (sorry) snuggled up against a huge agave:


Here is a saguaro cactus with it's "nurse" palo verde tree:

Many times, in the desert, saguaros begin growing in the protective shade of palo verde trees, and after many years they tower over their "nurse's."

We also walked through the Butterfly Pavilion. It was alive with butterflies of many species and these two (a Zebra Longwing and a Julia butterfly) posed nicely together for a picture:


We got to see the Patrick Doughrty sculpture. I should have taken a picture with someone standing nearby so you can get a good idea of the scale. These wondrous things are large enough for several people to stand inside!


Here is what it looked like from the inside looking out and up:


I hope you enjoyed the tour and that this wasn't too picture heavy for dial-up users! More pictures can be seen on
my flickr site .

Quilting content in a day or two!