Tucson Botanical Garden

Happy Mother’s Day! Here’s a post for those of you moms who like garden pictures! For the rest of you, I tried to make a few clever comments here and there, but mostly it’s gonna be a yawner, lol.

As you’ve probably noticed, John and I both really enjoy botanical gardens. We wisely went last weekend before Mother’s Day, to beat the Mother’s Day crowds and to give me time to put together this post for Mother’s Day.

OK – I’m joking! We just happened to go last weekend, lol. It would be a lovely place to spend Mother’s Day and now you can imagine you are there.

We were particularly excited about our trip to the Tucson Botanical Garden because it showcases all the different plants we could grow at our new house.

First up; blooming cactus!

Then things briefly got weird:

This next one I’ve named, “Juxtaposition”.

Now that’s what’s called thriving in a tight spot.

I took more pictures of signage than usual, because in this case I am looking for ideas for my own garden (unlike when we visited the Miami Botanical Garden in February – I didn’t bother to try to learn the names of those plants because I’ll never be able to grow those)! These I can grow. In theory at least!

Years ago Laura bought me a star jasmine, which I kept in a pot and moved all over the country for several years, bringing it inside in the winter and putting it back outside in the summer. It always wanted to wind itself around nearby objects and get established. Every year I had to remove the twining vines to accommodate our wandering lifestyle. Finally, I’m going to plant some star jasmine in the ground and it can climb and twine all it wants.

I probably will not be incorporating large artworks into my own garden, unless I suddenly become an amazing artist myself.

Hey, I could practice creating murals on our freshly painted garden walls!

It’s going to be a very long time before our garden looks anything like what I’m imagining. That sad bougainvillea nearly died in a container before we finally got it planted. John hastily put a short drip line in before his most recent trip to Albuquerque. I’m looking forward to having a good drip system across the whole yard. The cycad (sago palm) on the left got badly frosted in Albuquerque right before we left last fall, and spent all winter a depressing dead-gold color. It’s since rebounded.

Speaking of walls, maybe I could do this!

Ok, maybe I shouldn’t paint the wall, or it will look like we released 3-year-olds with finger paints. This is one incredible wall though.

The artistic signs also include helpful hints about desert gardening:

I didn’t take pictures of the herbs; they aren’t showy and I already know which ones I want to plant.

The shady garden section of the botanical garden is a favorite of mine. I wish my yard already had big beautiful trees. If a tree gets planted in 2021, will it someday get big and beautiful even if Kristina’s not still there to see it? Maybe not but nonetheless, I plan to plant trees.

A couple of times I took pictures of the signs and didn’t even bother to take a picture of the tree. Seedless grapefruit! And it was big and healthy. I don’t care what it looks like, we’re getting one of those!

I also failed to get a picture of this Jujube, but anything called a Ziziphus jujuba sounds good to me!

Everything and their brother is called “myrtle”, but I liked this one; the leaves and branches grow in unusually distinctive patterns.

Here’s a whole bunch of shady garden shots:

Nasturtiums! I’ll never have that much shade – or water.

And Columbine! Also a shade loving flower that does well in cold climates. I’m not going to even try to grow it in my yard. Look at that massive tree over it!

And lastly, a riot of color at the end:

Oh, and me with an incredible artichoke! Totally adding artichokes to my list for my garden! Except that one plant would take up a large percentage of my growing space.

This final picture wasn’t taken at the botanical garden, it was in a park near the university where I had lunch with a new friend the following day.

It looks like a desert willow…? We have those in Albuquerque – nice sized bushes, slow to leaf out in the spring, with cheerful pink flowers for the birds & bees. This plant looks the same, except this is no bush! Is this huge, gorgeous tree really a desert willow? Wow!

To send Kristina a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com