Desert Botanical Garden

One of the reasons we love spending our winters in Arizona is because we love the desert and the plants that grow here.  Saturday we visited the Phoenix Desert Botanical Garden.  In addition to the plants, we saw the art exhibit, Wild Rising, by Cracking Art.  The large plastic figures sure are colorful, but we weren't at all sure they enhanced the desert.  But here are a few photos of the displays.

Some coyotes, maybe?

Very large rabbits

Birds and their eggs

Penquins?

 Meerkats.  They are near the Chihuly glass plants from a previous year's art focus.

Frogs overhead

And, finally, what we came to see.  Many of the barrel cactus plants were blooming.

Look at this young cactus, maybe a saguaro, with babies.  This is how some cactus spread.

The patterns and textures of cactus plants is interesting.

This is a crested cactus.  The spreading growth at the top is attractive, but it is also something like a cancer growing on the plant.

Cholla cactus.  Some of these are referred to as teddy bear cactus.

Organ pipe cactus.  There is a national monument dedicated to this cactus in southwest Arizona.

I love the shape of agave plants.

This barrel cactus has had a baby.

Yellow squash blossoms are pretty.

We also saw how some of the native Americans--Apache and Akimel O'Odham--lived in this hostile environment.

This is one of their corrals, made with desert plants.