I have been on vacation the last week in Arizona and we visited the botanical gardens.
They have strange cacti from all over the southwest here. This first guy is the classic sajuaro cacti that grows mostly in Southwest Arizona.
Sajuaros tower over your head easily 10 to 20 feet tall.
For reference here is my wife standing nearby one. They only grow one inch per decade so they are ancient and live around 200 years. Some people pay thousands of dollars to relocate them off of developed land into their yard as an Arizona version of a tree.
Here is a strange looking one called spiral totem pole.
These guys grow in the baja peninsula between California and Mexico and a tiny bit of Arizona.
I love their lack of spines and strange sculpted appearance. They grow quite large but are easy to cultivate unlike the sajuaros.
Golden barrel cacti are also common here in the wild.
The cactus fruit is edible too, kind of startchy. I am not sure what tye tall fluffy guys in the back are...
Here are nopale cacti. Their pads are edible and they make a sweet prickly pear that is good raw or in juice or in a jam. The thorns can be burnt off with a flame or you could tediously cut them off. I like eating the pads in salsa and omelettes.
Here is some nasty cholla cactus. We call tyem jumping cactus because if you brush up against one thorn the whole branch will break off and stick to you. Picking them off is brutal. There are many varieties of cholla. I prefer the pencil cholla that is small with tiny sweet prickly pears.
Here is a cholla with a cactus wren nest embedded in it. The birds are smart to build in such a fortified spiny cactus. I have no idea how they don't get speared flying in and out of here.
They had quite a few succulents on display as well.
Now for a wall of succulents. That's all for now, thanks for looking :-)
Feathers are surprisingly good armor for the birds. They probably have no issues whatsoever with the cactus thorns.
I'm hoping to get a shot of a cactus wren hiding in thorns. I would worry about getting poked in the eye if I was a cactus wren.
Beautiful healthy plants! The tall guys could be Espostoa
I would not doubt espositos, or some close variant. They had plenty smaller ones too.
They are nice, I have a little one at home
Deceptive cacti that make you want to pet them lol.
Wall of succulents is excellent 😍 I think I have probably been to these gardens. My wife's aunt lives in Tucson plus I used to travel there for business some.
I bet this train track running through one of the areas might bring back some memories. That is the only thing I remembered from going there long ago as a kid lol.
