This was a beautiful place to visit. It's just over an hour away from Casa Grande, but well worth the drive. The Arboretum is the oldest and largest botanical garden in Arizona. It was established by William Boyce Thompson who made his money in mining. He came to Arizona to inspect a mine he had acquired and fell in love with the area. He found nearly 400 acres that was available to be purchased, and he bought the land with the purpose of creating a plant research facility. (He also built a house for himself and a couple of cottages for his two initial researchers, all of which now belong to Arizona State Parks and there are still researchers from the University of Arizona who work out there.)
While we were there we saw (and heard!) several types of birds, toured the cactus garden, the reservoir that was dug to provide water for the animals that live in the garden, the butterfly & hummingbird garden, and enjoyed the cool weather. (It was in the upper 60s when we were there...absolutely perfect!) We will definitely go back again and again. We saw just a small part of what is there, and there are miles of trails for hiking as well as gardens we didn't tour.
My camera battery died after just a few pictures, but David took some photos too. Unfortunately, I can't find where they are on the computer, so you're stuck with the few I took until I can figure out how to get his pictures uploaded here!
More adventures to come!
3 comments:
The 2 girl pictures crack me up.
Also what is that bright red flower/ring? Those look really neat.
It was a dried up bean pod of some kind. (I didn't see a marker for this one.) They have a whole garden devoted to legumes that grow in this area.
Ahhh yes I can see it is a bean pod now. Really cool lookng pod.
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