Getting a VIP tour of the new plants at the Boyce Thompson Arboretum, Superior, Arizona


If you live in the Phoenix area, and you like trees and plants, you really do need to go visit the Boyce Thompson Arboretum, which is near Superior, Arizona, east of the greater Phoenix area. If you've been there, you already know.

An arboretum is a garden of trees, and there's none better around Phoenix than the Boyce Thompson. In case you're wondering, it's been there since 1930, and is down in a canyon, and the water is supplied by wells. You can Google more about, and I recommend that you do. Better still, go visit it, and bring me along!

Potted cycads at the Boyce Thompson Arboretum.

Yesterday I got to go along on a VIP tour to see the new plants that are being installed. Of course, I'm not a VIP myself, but I have friends who are, who donate plants, and who are members. So I got to tag along.

To put it as briefly as I can, there was a gigantic garden in north Scottsdale that recently donated all of its plants when the owner of the property died. I'm told that the garden really couldn't be opened to the public up in this exclusive area, as the neighbors wouldn't much appreciate the traffic, so the plants had to be moved. And as someone who takes several hours to do the simplest tasks in my garden, it's amazing to see what can be done by the pros, which heavy equipment, and incredible knowledge.

Staging area "behind the scenes" at the Boyce Thompson Arboretum. One of many.

I got to see the "behind the scenes" stuff which is beyond amazing. I tried to take a couple of photos, but really it's impossible to photograph and show it the way I saw it in real life. Imagine the biggest nursery you've ever been to, with the biggest boxed plants imaginable, and then picture an area that seems to go on forever, and ever. And most of the plants are in a staging area, waiting to be planted.

I also got to see the new garden area with some of the plants in place. There's no nice path yet, no fancy labels, but it should be complete by this time next year (I'm writing this on April 8th of 2018). I'm hoping to get back and see it all in place. I will have a new appreciation for what they do!

I've been going to the Boyce Thompson Arboretum since the 1980s, when I was a student at ASU in Tempe. I liked the drive out there, and I would pack a sandwich and then go walk under the trees. I've always been a nervous, anxious person, and walking under trees, and being in gardens is the best thing for my high blood pressure. Highly recommended!

Image at the top of this post: a boxed crested saguaro in the staging area of the Boyce Thompson Arboretum yesterday.
The Boyce Thompson Arboretum is located at #37615 Arboretum Way, Superior, AZ, 85173, near Highway 60 Milepost #223 as you approach the historic copper mining town of Superior, about one hour's drive due east of Phoenix on the Superstition Freeway. Admission is $12.50.  https://cals.arizona.edu/bta/index.html
Become a PhD (Phoenix History Detective) with Brad today on Patreon!

Click here to become a Patron!
History Adventuring posts are shared there daily including "then and now" photos, billboards, aerials, videos, and super high-definition photos of historic Phoenix, Arizona. Discounts for seniors, students, teachers, and veterans.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me
Read more