Tag Archives: Papago Park

Desert Botanical Garden

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The Desert Botanical Garden is located at 1201 N Galvin Pkwy, Phoenix, AZ. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Botanical_Garden, it

is a 140 acres…botanical garden located in Papago Park

Founded by the Arizona Cactus and Native Flora Society in 1937[1] and established at this site in 1939, the garden now has more than 21,000 plants, in more than 4000 taxa, one-third of which are native to the area, including 139 species which are rare, threatened or endangered.

…It focuses on plants adapted to desert conditions, including an Australian collection, a Baja California collection and a South American collection. Several ecosystems are represented: a mesquite bosque, semidesert grassland, and upland chaparral.

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This 20 foot tall saguaro sculpture on display at the Desert Botanical Garden was created by Jeff Hebets in honor of his cousin, Phil. The saguaro is made from pick heads used to salvage native plants.

Admission to the Desert Botanical Garden is a bit pricey: $22 for adults 18-59, with only a $2 discount to seniors. I am fortunate to have a friend with a membership to the Garden. Not only does she get in for free, but one guest can get in for free with her. My friend treated me to a morning in the Garden.

There are five trails in the Garden: the Desert Discovery Loop Trail, the Plants & People of the Sonoran Desert Loop Trail, the Sonoran Desert Nature Loop Trail, the Center for Desert Living Trail, and the Harriet K. Maxwell Desert Wildflower Loop Trail.

My friend and I were only at the Botanical Garden for a couple of hours, so by no means did we see it all. My favorite part of the visit was seeing cacti that were new to me, ones that I hadn’t already seen hundreds of times in far south Arizona.

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The cactus on the far left of this photo is an old man of the Andes (scientific name: Oreocereus celsianus).

One new variety I saw was the Old Man of the Andes (scientific name: Oreocereus celsianus). According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreocereus_celsianus,

Oreocereus celsianus, or the “old man of the mountain” is a member of the family Cactaceae native to the high lands of the Andes in South America, and is named for its fluffy white hair, which may protect it from intense sunlight and extreme temperatures.

The Learn 2 Grow website says,

Old Man of the Andes is a striking cylindrical cactus due to its coat of dirty blond coarse hairs that covers its entire length. These hairs help protect and shade its green skin from both intense high altitude sunlight and the occasional cold snap. The species is native to Bolivia, Peru and northern Argentina where it is found on rocky cliffs at high elevations of the Andes and other mountain ranges.

While the Old Man of the Andes looks rather fluffy and huggable (at least to me), Learn 2 Grow warns,

This cactus is well armed. Spines are stout, thick, and dirty yellow to reddish brown in color. They occur in groups from one to four heavier spines surrounded by 7 to 9 very sharp radial spines. These sit nestled deeply into the hairy cloak.

No hugs for you, Old Man!

Another new variety I saw was the Bishop’s Hat (scientific name: Astrophytum myriostigma). This cactus looks as if it were made from cloth!

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This photo shows a Bishop’s Hat cactus (scientific name: Astrophytum myriostigma).

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrophytum_myriostigma,

Astrophytum myriostigma (common names: Bishop’s Cap Cactus, Bishop’s Hat or Bishop’s Miter Cactus) is a species of cactus native to the highlands of northeastern and central Mexico.

The Plants Rescue website says,

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More Bishop’s Hat cacti.

The basically green stem has no spine but is covered with tiny tufts of silvery hair (appearing like scales or spots). These give the plant a greyish cast.

It wasn’t quite spring when I went on this visit, so there weren’t many cacti in bloom. The few early bloomers I did see were quite lovely.

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I bet hummingbirds are attracted to these vivid purple flowers.

I had a nice time at the Desert Botanical Garden. Since my friend and I went early in the day, we didn’t have to fight any crowds. Thankfully, there were no groups of screaming school kids. Being near these various plants seemed very tranquil to me. However, as I write this post, I realize I didn’t take nearly enough photos. (What about the boojum trees? Why didn’t I get any pictures of the boojum trees?) Maybe my friend will treat me to another visit.

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I took all of the photographs in this post.

Papago Park, Tempe, Arizona

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I went to Tempe to visit a friend who was in town briefly before she caught a plane. We ate free breakfast at her hotel and gabbed for a couple of hours before she had to check out of her room and head for the airport. As I was driving away from our visit, I decided to stop at Papago Park.

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Papago Park is on the corner of East Curry Road and Collage Drive. It is actually on two corners of East Curry Road and Collage Drive. East Curry Road splits the park in two. I visited the side of the park with the pond and the large playground. I could see the other side of the park from across the street, and it has a much smaller playground, but larger open areas.

The park has a good size parking lot with spaces for many cars, so finding a place to leave the van was not a hassle.

I needed to use the restroom, so I headed over to the restroom building.

The restroom building.

The restroom building.

The building housing the restrooms is near the parking lot and NOT in the middle of all the park action. It’s closest to Curry Road, away from the places people in the park congregate. The women’s room is on the left.

As I walked into the women’s room, someone in the men’s room (a man, I presume) took a half step from behind the partition which keeps people from looking into the men’s room. (I think the partition blocks the view of the urinals.) The guy stood there and watched me walk into the women’s restroom. I’m not usually nervous about using public restrooms, but this guy freaked me out. I didn’t know what to do. I really needed to pee. I should have gone back to the van and used my pee bucket, but I didn’t have that idea until later. I decided that if the guy followed me into the toilet stall, I would start screaming and carrying on. Thankfully, he didn’t follow me.

What was he looking for? I don’t think it’s normal behavior to hang out just inside the doorway of a men’s room. I suspect he was either waiting for his drug dealer or he was waiting for another dude, someone with whom he could have some public restroom-gay sex-afternoon delight.

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Unfortunately, the park was littered with trash the day that I visited. I don’t know if a bunch of trash had blown out of a can that morning, or if people had recently thrown a whole picnic’s worth of paper plates and bottles onto the ground, but there was a lot of rubbish on the grass and in the pond. Yuck! There were several trashcans around the park; I don’t know why people didn’t used them. (Don’t look for pictures of the trash here, because I didn’t spend my time taking any.)

IMG_1902     The pond was cool, although a pond in a desert is a little weird to me. I guess Papago Park is supposed to be an oasis. My favorite features of the pond were the ducks IMG_1916     IMG_1918     IMG_1917

and the No Swimming signs. IMG_1932     (Who decided that a bald, gender nonspecific person with his/her hands in the air would communicate a ban on swimming?)

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Papago Park has a large playground for kids. IMG_1923

There are also two sand volleyball courts and a dog run. IMG_1929

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Trash is visible in the grass on the right side of this picnic area.

I counted twelve picnic tables under ramadas which protect from sun and rain (mostly sun, I’m guessing). There were several other tables scattered around, not under protective covers. This park also has wide open spaces for running around and/or tossing or kicking balls.

I was in the park at midday on a weekday, so there wasn’t a lot of action. Some office types were using picnic tables for their lunch break, and an older man and his physical therapist were exercising with a large ball.

Papago Park is also the trail head for at least two trails. I didn’t hike either of the trails (too hot, no water, wrong clothes, wrong shoes), but I did see this rock formation when I stood at the trail head. IMG_1909

While trying to review Tempe’s Papago Park for TripAdvisor, I discovered that there is another Papago Park in Phoenix, at 625 North Galvin Parkway. (Lord knows why they didn’t give these two parks different names.) It looks like that Papago Park is near the Desert Botanical Gardens, and photos show that park also has a (apparently much larger) pond. An attraction of that Papago Park is Hole-in-the-Rock, which looks to me more like a hole in a mountain.

By the way, I searched “Papago” and found on https://www.google.com/search?q=definition+papago&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 that it means:

1. a member of an American Indian people of southern Arizona and northern Sonora.

2. a dialect of the Uto-Aztecan Pima-Papago language.