I’ve wanted to get back to the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix for some time now. My last visit was when Chihuly had work on display. The weather was just right for a couple hours of exploring a well groomed garden of desert plants.
One of the things that threw me off was The Wild Rising plastic sculpture exhibit throughout the park representing the unnatural presence of plastic in the world. You can’t miss it, which is what I believe is the point of the exhibit. Humans have disposed of so much plastic that it has become apart of land and ocean space as much or more so than the presence of the natural world in some cases. It’s a gaudy display to raise awareness of what humans have done and continue to do to the environment.
Ok moving on. So fall isn’t the best time to see wild flowers in the desert as I walked along concrete and manicured dirt trails there were only a few species in bloom. As one volunteer informed me some species bloom twice, but if you want to see a plethora of flowers come back in March.
Monarch Exhibit
There is also another exhibit that holds one of natures alarms. Monarchs migrate across North America to specific locations in Mexico and California every year as temperatures start dropping up north. We don’t see a massive migration in Phoenix, so this exhibit is an opportunity to observe stages in the Monarch life cycle and behavior. There are several species on exhibit including Gulf Fritillary , Giant Swallow Tail, and Hackberry Emperor to name a few.
Stapelia
Then there’s the rest of the walk with strange and beautiful species from around the world. The volunteers were marveling over Stapelia in its tiger stripe red on light yellow pattern with a putrid smell. “Worse than a dead cat!”, as one person described it. Fortunately you have to stick your nose almost in the flower to smell it.
Plants and People
The history and culture of the Sonoran Desert for the most part has been lost to time. I’ve heard people say Phoenix has no culture, but that is untrue. We just built over it. Buried below our homes and workplaces is a valley of ancient artifacts of the indigenous inhabitants that have been swallowed by tribal and European conquest.
Employees, Visitors, and Volunteers
This trip was also an opportunity to talk with people outside of a work environment. Everyone I talked to had genuine interest in talking about the garden. I even received some great tips on where to find good prices on expensive camera gear.
Random Gallery of Trip
