desert botanical gardens part one

One of the highlights from last weekend was a visit to the Desert Botanical Gardens. My sister and the two daughters got up really early in order to get to the Gardens when they opened. Opening hours? 7 a.m!

My sister had a great idea, actually, to get there when they opened, before it got too hot and also before we picked up the college boy at the airport.(9 a.m. arrival) The gardens are very close to the airport, so it made sense. And getting there before the temperature hit the triple digits was a good idea. So, we arrived at 7:15 a.m. By the time 9:oo rolled around we knew we would not have wanted to stay much later than that. It was already getting pretty warm/hot.

This sign caught our eye and gave us a little chuckle. It reads:

What is a Cactus?

A cactus is a plant that is a member of the cactus family.

Now that we have that question answered... here is a little sample of some of the cactus (and other things) that we saw during our early morning tour. It was pretty amazing really and I'm sure that earlier in the spring when they are in bloom, it would be pretty spectacular.

This one was pretty interesting as it grew in a spiral.

This one had one of it's arms cut off showing the inside. When a cactus dies, the skeleton is actually like the wood of a tree.

These were so tall and soared up to the sky.

This walkway was lined with these giants. Really grand! Cute sisters too.

We saw a few special creatures. Birds, bunnies, lizards and some pretty butterflies that cooperated for Rachel to get some beautiful pictures.

These little buds were rather cute.

A women tending to the gardens told us about a special area to walk around to see a flower that was still blooming on a cactus. This variety only blooms at night, but because it was still early we were lucky enough to see it blooming. She was so excited to tell us about it. We found out that the garden's have night visits that are flashlight guided, so you can see the flowers that bloom only at night. Look closely and you will see that the blossoms are on a vine like cactus. It grew along the ground and up and around the trees.

Here is one of the flowers close up. Really pretty. I wonder if they are very fragrant.

A nice photo of Rachel. Other than the picture's that she is in, she is responsible for taking all the photos. She loves my camera and I love the picture's that she captures with it.

See what I mean? Look at this butterfly. She captured it perfectly.

We have many great photos from our tour. I decided to split them up into different posts so that this isn't so long. And, because I accidentally deleted some that were at the end here. I can't figure out how to get them back. So...

to be continued.