Tucson Botanical Gardens

Saturday, March 28, 2015

Today is supposed to be 91 degrees.  That is hot.  However this morning it is about 60 degrees at 7am, so we decided to get up and go early to the Botanical Garden. We enjoy botanical gardens.  The Tucson Botanical Garden was great.  We took so many pictures that I am going to make 3 posts of today's trip. There is a special bonsai display today, along with a butterfly house which includes poisonous frogs and then the gardens itself.  That is how I will divide this trip into 3 posts.

These 2 horses greeted us as we drove into the parking lot.

These beautiful flowers were just outside the admissions office. First we went through the bonsai area.  That will be in a different post.

This fountain and beds was just outside the restrooms, which Dusty had to stop and inspect. :-)

As you can see, this area was as you entered the herb garden area.

There were several displays like this.  The park was beautifully laid out.

This is a great perspective on a large Red Gum tree near the butterfly house entrance.

This picture shows the top part of the tree.  See the bird's nest near the top?

We have not seen this cactus anywhere here before.  The stalk is very prickly then the thin leaves are at the top only. Unique!

We liked this sculpture.

This cactus is called Spiral Totem Pole.

This cactus did not have any spines but had unique coloring to blend with the rocks.

Isn't this succulent dramatic?

Look at this beautiful Bougainvillea. It is directly across from the cactus water fountain below.

Isn't this pretty.  All the cactus in the water are made of metal.  Beautiful!
There are cactus of all kinds as you will see below.

There were so many kinds of cactus I did not get all the names. This one many look like cotton balls but it is very prickly.

The flower is half the size of the little cactus.

 This cactus has the cutest little flowers.  Tic got a good picture of them.

 Here are several different kinds of cactus.  Look at the size of the pads on the prickly pear cactus.

There are 2 kinds of succulents in this bowl.  The light colored one is truly a cactus with little red flowers circling the top.  It looks just like a man's sock however it was definitely prickly.

These look like something we might see back in Texas.  

Look at the blooms on these yucca!!  And several different kinds of cactus on the ground.  The weather has been so warm that all the plants and trees are blooming all over town.

This is a pretty little garden!

This is another cactus garden and sitting area.  

This large flowering plant had interesting flowers.  See closeup below.

It turned out to be Mexican Honeysuckle.

Each of these cute little cactus had a pretty flower.

Then we rounded a corner and there was a large miniature train display.  See pics below.

The children were enjoying the different scenes and trains running.

This is a large white rose bush.

The flower on this plant are the white little flower.  The orangish part are the seeds.  

Towards the exit was an iris area with lots of colorful irises.

I have not put all the pictures of irises we took because there were so many!  But I'll stop.

This flower was about the size of a golf ball. You can see how many little fine "peddles" there are.  I cannot remember what it was called.

Look at this group of flowers with a plant of only a few leaves.

This plant caught our eyes.  The leaves are so deep green and bright orange flowers.

These white roses with bright pink edges were so beautiful.

This is a closeup of one of the individual roses.  Beautiful!

As we were leaving we saw these 2 trees and one had cactus growing on it.  Actually only one was a tree and the other was a cactus so old that the bottom looked like a tree trunk.

We saw this sign by the trees and realized it was actually two plants.

This was the decoration on the wall.  We think it was painted with some kind of paint that was bright and shiny.

We really enjoyed our visit!!!  I will make 2 more posts one each on the bonsai and butterfly areas in this garden.