Desert Botanical Garden of Phoenix

The Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix combines the best attributes of the Southwestern landscape (fauna and flora) in an accessible package. Your can immerse yourself in it without ever being more than a few minutes from clean restrooms and fresh water. Some may feel this is a copout, but I tend to feel that the holder of a Medicare card ought to have a few chances to appreciate nature  without joining a survivalist  brigade's ten mile trek into the back country. 

I'll take just one feature of the garden to highlight.  It could have been the great docents and educational programs, the gift shop and restaurants,  or the art work interdispersed with the plantings, but I have chosen the magnificent variety and beauty of the cactus.  From the mighty Saguaro on down they're all here in all of their spiny splendor.  Enjoy but don't get too close.
   

Red rock formations of Papago Park visible from most of the garden.

How tall is a saguaro?  Pretty tall.

 

There are more than 20 varieties of Prickly Pears

 

 



Organ Pipes

Crested Saguaro

Octopus

 

Looks like a snake

 

 

Think these are Hedgehogs

Barrels

Mamalias

 

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Banana Yucca

Another barrel

 

On the left foreground a barrel, then some beavertail prickly pears, then some Cholla. On right is a cu of a Teddy Bear Cholla.  Definitely not to be cuddled however.

 

 Just like the light on these last two.