Parting the Water: Phoenix Botanical Garden, April-11-10

On April 11 Karen and I had the opportunity to visit the Phoenix Botanical gardens. I have been to dozens of botanical gardens over the past forty years or so and I can say that this was on of the really good ones. Having grown up in the Midwest by experience with cactus and and succulents has been limited to prickly pear that usually looks like someone has driven over it and a few varieties of sedum and yucca. At this garden the collection of plants and their arrangement was really well displayed. An added feature of this particular visit was that we were there while pretty much everything was in bloom. We hit it just about right on the money, timing wise.

for the most part the pictures that follow are in the order in which we encountered them as we spent several hours walking though the gardens. As I mentioned above even the cactus were in full bloom.

These prickly Pear were robust relative to the same plant that sort of exists in Indiana.

Although there were lots of varieties of cactus there were plenty of wild flows and flowering shrubs as well.

The flowers on cactus were spectacular

Above is a sculpture of the native American Indian image of the Mountain spirit

The garden had several sculpture mainly in bronze these were depicting two women

A couple of rather dynamic yuccas in full bloom.

Here are a couple of "poke you eye out" photos

Some plants were soft and subtle and others kind of nasty looking

Karen really liked these kind of cactus

Yucca and Lantana

These almost look like watermelons

These giant Saguaro were pretty much everywhere

Every so often we would take a "we were here" picture or two. In the picture below is a humming bird in flight that is a bit difficult to see because of the blending colors.

Every once in a while we would come across a grouping of cactus that look like they were out of some horror movie about giant worms.

We did see several lizards. Here are a couple that sat still long enough for me to shoot.

Again the wide varieties of plant was remarkable.

The patterns and shapes of plants were amazing.

Flowers on even the most bristley plants

The grape looking flowers above were on a yucca and the plant below was prehaps the most unusual I saw.

Some plants like the one above seem to have an attitude of leave me alone, while the one below almost looks like a bouchet.

More creepy crawlie plants

More big yucca and giant cactus

the cactus behind me had a nest of for a turtle dove. Not exactly the most friendly nursery.

More blooming and really strange looking cactus.

Near the end of our time at the gardens we encountered this groupling of giant cactus and noted that even these big guys were in bloom. We were told that the flowers on these only open for one day and then shrivel up and dry out.