Tohono Chul Park

Yesterday we visited Tohono Chul Park. They advertise they are one of the world’s 10 great botanical gardens.

It was a beautiful park with many paths, but everything looked pretty much the same, namely lots of cactus. Of course, we are in the desert and cactus is what grows here. We haven’t visited that many botanical gardens, but I didn’t think it was so great as to be one of the top 10 in the entire world. Maybe if we visited in spring when the cactus are in bloom, it would have been much nicer.

There was a saguaro section at the garden with informational signs explaining how they grow. What an amazing plant. Their root system lies about 3 inches below the surface and stretch as far from the trunk as the plant is tall. These roots can soak up as much as 200 gallons of water in a single rainfall, enough to last the plant for a year.

The saguaro seed is the size of a pinhead. One cactus produces tens of thousands of seeds in a year, as many as 40 million in a lifetime. Out of those millions of seeds, only a few grow to adulthood. Many of the young plants grow under nurse trees to protect them from intense sun, cold and animals. Do you see the young saguaro under the nurse plant?

 

While the cause is not known, sometimes damage occurs to the top of a saguaro, causing a fanlike growth. This is thought to occur once in every 200,000 plants.

 

 

 

 

 

I thought this one had an interesting shape. It looks like an elephant’s trunk and tusks.

There were a number of metal sculptures scattered throughout the park. Supposedly, there are many wild javelina in the Tucson area. This may be the only one I see. I feel like I did last year when I was trying to find the elusive Big Horn Sheep.

 

We’ve seen these beautiful Azurite and Malachite rocks in several of the places we’ve visited.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once again, the sunset was beautiful last night.

Our campground has entertainment two or three nights a week. Last night the group Mariachi de Atzlan performed. They’re a high school group that took 2nd place at the National competition last year. What a talented group of young people. They play and sing, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching them.

Don’t wish upon a star – Reach for one!