Botanical Garden, Albuquerque

Even on a 100 degree day this garden is a cool place to be.  Only 15 years old this 36 acre botanical garden was built in the site of a city park which had fallen into disrepair.  As a result mature cottonwood and elm trees provide shade all throughout the garden.  The entry courtyard is spacious and decorative. You enter the garden through beautifully ornate bronze gates....   Continue Reading

AZ Gardening

Back in my own little garden I have been working steadily to prepare for the intense heat of summer.  One lucky bit of gardening is sharing geraniums with my friend Josephine.  She and husband Steve have a wonderful mountain retreat north of Happy Jack, AZ.  This is the second year that I have loaded up a truck full of my favorite peppermint twist geraniums and moved them up to her high altitude garden.  Fortunately deer aren’t particularly fond of this plant and Josephine enjoys my geraniums for several months.  The plants appreciate the cooler temperatures.  In October I bring them back to the low desert for another growing season. This trip, after we delivered the plants we continued on to Winslow to spend a night at the La Posada resort and gardens....   Continue Reading

Flagstaff Arboretum

Today it was to be 111 degrees in Phoenix.  We hoped it would be cooler in Flagstaff.  It was 90.

The arboretum was dry, the plants are struggling to thrive.  Not yet recovered from winter some have a look of dry frosted leaves.  Aspen trees have their fresh green leaves rattling in the breeze.  Chimpmunks and song birds scamper about.  If the rain comes the penstemon garden and the wildflowers will be beautiful in another month.  Right now the lake is low, the paths are dusty and I sit on the bench and wonder what will we do if the rain doesn’t come?...   Continue Reading

Late in the day

We arrived late to the garden, about 3 p.m.  I was anxious to arrive earlier but our day was busy and we couldn’t get there any sooner.  Yet when I realized the garden was open until 8 p.m. I suddenly relaxed.  Late in the day is a great time in a garden.  The visitors are fewer, there are quite spots to sit and relax.  Then to my great delight, a roadrunner sauntered out and began walking across the sidewalk.  The wildlife likes late in the day as well....   Continue Reading

Desert Botanical Luminaria

We wandered about the Desert Botanical garden last night.  We bundled up and enjoyed the cool night for several hours.  It had been a few years since we went to the Luminaria, our last time was in the rain and the chill remained keeping us away for a few years.  It was a wonderful night this visit.  Plus the garden has expanded and improved the venue.  More lights on trees in addition to the luminaria.  The musical groups have a larger staging area with chairs for listeners to stay awhile and enjoy the very talented groups that are playing....   Continue Reading

Boyce Thompson Arboretum

Fall foliage is such a spectacular show of color creating a magical glow of light under the trees.  The honey locust trees are the color of gold,  the Chinese Pistachio leaves turn red.  The cottonwoods were just beginning to change color. The sky a bright blue with patches of white puffy clouds.

A perfect temperature in the mid sixties provide great weather for wandering through the garden.  The contrast in colors from an April visit to November is fun to experience.  The spring blooms of aloes and wildflowers that grow at knee level  are gone.  The color now is up in the air.  The leaves command the attention.  Sitting under the Pistachio trees enjoying the changing light as the sun moves in out of the clouds.  The leaves in shades of light green, yellow green, gold, peach, orange and red all backed by the bright blue sky make a momentary masterpiece not to be captured but only to be enjoyed at this moment....   Continue Reading

Barbara’s Garden

Public gardens are a wonderful place to visit but now and then you have the opportunity to see a beautiful private garden.

Barbara invited me out to see her hollyhocks in full glory.  Beautiful shades of pink and white were indeed glorious and scattered around her acre of Eden in the East Valley.  A transplanted “Alabama Rose” Barbara has transplanted herself and her favorite plants from her childhood home....   Continue Reading

Desert Botanical Gardens


February arrived with winds and freezing temperatures.  A low temperature in my garden of 23 degrees! Out of state relatives also arrived fleeing even more severe weather of ice storms and below zero temperatures in Indiana. Even as the weather seemed unseasonably cold to us locals the sunshine and mid day temperatures here found my brother and sister-in-law wanting to be outside. In particular they wanted to visit the DBG to get a chance to see desert plants. As a first time visitor to the garden nearly everything was new, including the idea that palo verde trees had naturally green trunks and that a garden would try to protect tender plants with yards and yards of frost cloth....   Continue Reading

Our view of nature

A Sense of Place

When our neighborhood was new a family relocating from Virginia moved in next door and quickly put in lawn for their entire landscape.  Another family relocated from MN and installed a pool and planted pine trees all around it. Longtime desert gardeners cringe at these home garden stories.  Today a strong campaign for regionally appropriate plants fills the garden news.  Advocates raise a chorus of voices that sing, “If we live in a desert it is only common sense that we live with desert plants.”  Einstein said, “common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18.”  Our common experience of  “place” isn’t so common....   Continue Reading