While the weather in Mesa this year hasn’t been as warm as we have experienced in the past, it has not kept us from being active. We haven’t hiked as much as would have liked this year but we are still here for another month or so. We expect this weather to break and normalcy to arrive soon.
In the meantime we have been simply enjoying our resort park. However, we did make time to visit the Phoenix Desert Botanical Gardens. We have visited the garden before and enjoyed it so much we had to return..
As before we went the one day a month when entrance to the park is free. On the second Tuesday of each month access is free for visitors but the requirement is to obtain a ticket online so as to manage the crowd. With parking always free it makes this a fun and frugal day trip.
Upon arrival we spent the better part of an afternoon strolling around the gardens which are nestled amongst the red rocks of the Papago Buttes.There are several loop trails within the campus representing different types of natural gardens. The varieties of cacti are as numerous as anywhere we have ever visited.
It is stated that the garden currently has more than 50,000 plants from more than 4,000 different taxa. Additionally about one-third of these plants are native to the area, including 379 species, which are rare, threatened or endangered.
The last time we visited several years ago we spent a good deal of time enjoying the variety of butterflies in the butterfly sanctuary. However, to our dismay it was closed until spring this year. Oh well we plan to go again in March and are hopeful it will be open then.
We noticed there were also lots of plants just starting to flower offering small splashes of color here and there.With the backdrop of the red rocks there were plenty of photo ops which of course we took advantage of.
We spent several hours enjoying the plants, butterflies and birds in the gardens. Upon leaving we decided to go to go to Four Peaks Brewing for happy hour in Tempe AZ. . They have some tasty craft brews making for the perfect ending to a great day.
Is that monster crested saguaro in the gardens? That's a beauty! And then there's the picture of the saguaro skeleton, beautiful as it stands.
ReplyDeleteYes the crested one is in the gardens. Also the skeleton, if you look closer, is actually a scupture!
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