The Desert Botanical garden is an incredible aesthetic and gently educational experience. As I traveled through various natural landmarks in Arizona, I had a lot of questions in my mind. How does the saguaro hold water/how does it grow? Why does the biological environment change so starkly and quickly in Arizona as you change altitude? How did the native people survive here and live off the land? All these questions and more were answered in the Desert Botanical Garden, partly by a knowledgeable warm guide who has been growing saguaro since World War II. Overall, the botanical garden is superbly organized by topic without seeming like a boring ecology course. This is more than I can say for the MoMA, whose ham-fisted chronological organization feels like Art History 101.
The trails are pleasingly and creatively landscaped and also point out different factors of the desert and some have cool modern sculptures by Dale Chihuly and Carolina Escobar.
The Desert Discovery Loop/Sonoran Desert Loop demonstrates a bouquet of cacti native to various parts of the Sonoran desert and their origins such as large organ pipe cactus, saguaro, ocotillo, cholla, prickly pear, and barrel cactus as well as plant life like the palo verde and creosote. Informative and non-invasive plaques explain the origins, significance, and interdependence of various species.
I really do like aloe so going through the succulents trail was interesting for me because I learned that, while agave and aloe are related, they grow miles apart. Agave is native to the Sonoran Desert and aloe (of which aloe vera is the only edible one) is native to Africa. I also have a problem with wanting to eat succulents all the time, but that's another story. I'm guilty of standing around licking part of an aloe plant I tore off a side highway in Mexico much like that dog who hated a lime.)
It was an incredible day for animal sighting. The park is a very attractive place for animals. I saw and took pictures of a veritable swarm of Monarch butterflies on red flowers in the Wildflower garden, one rabbit who didn't feel like leaving when I sat watching it in the tall grasses, a fatter chipmunk who also sat around, family of partridges, some birds like the Cactus Wren, and my favorite smallest bird I had never seen, the Anna's hummingbird. A plaque helped me learn the hummingbird call so I chased them around the succulents (they should have had a path running through them!) desperate to get a picture of when their green wings reflect. Lucky for me, I had most of my questions answered by the end of my Arizona trip, I saw a fallen saguaro cactus in a garden in a Franciscan church in PHX and lightly scraped it, it does have the texture of a cucumber! And, like a child, I wanted to taste it, but the grassy smell and respect for a church garden with a fallen saguaro made me keep my distance.
I think my favorite trail was the Plants and People of the Sonoran Desert which winds through five "habitats" (that's what they're called! Not biomes!) as the altitude changes, the habitats being the Desert, Desert Oasis, Mesquite Bosque, Semi-desert Grassland, and Chaparral. (Helping me answer my friends' questions about whether Arizona is all desert.) It also explains how the native people that lived there, the Tonoho O'odham, Western Apache and Hispanic people, survived and thrived based on their knowledge and use of the medicinal plant life. Basically, in each biome, I mean habitat, they demonstrate a dwelling that exemplifies how the people lived and what they ate.
The marriage of beautiful and natural landscaping and coaxingly informative set ups is perfect in this botanical garden. It's definitely one of the more intelligently done botanical gardens I've been to, a very satisfying experience.