Cacti – RDZ Photography

Superior, Arizona – April 2023 – Spring Bloom at the Arboretum

The Boyce Thompson Arboretum is the oldest and largest arboretum in Arizona, covering almost 400 acres. A picture perfect, 75 degree Sunday in April was a great chance to check out the spring blooms.

A Texas Mountain Laurel (according to Google Images – which educate me each time I do a posting like this)

An unusual pairing, a barrel cactus and daisies.

The blooms of an aloe plant.

An Organ Pipe cactus

A Yucca in bloom.

The Clevenger House was built in the early 1900s, using the canyon as one of the walls for the house.

The Palm Grove

A mountain aloe

It is amazing what can grow on the rocks of a cliff, with as little rainfall as this area gets.

We ended our tour with this hummingbird doing it’s thing.

Tucson – May 2022 – A Close Look at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum

Museum, Nature

The Arizona Sonora Desert Museum was established in 1952 as a zoo, botanical garden, natural history museum and art gallery.

While there are a few animals in enclosures there, the highlight of the grounds is the botanical gardens. Most of the shots here were taken with a 400mm Canon lens, showing the amazing detail of the blooms of the desert vegetation, as well as close ups of the birds and butterflies.

Tucson – March 2022 – Tohono Chul Arboretum Part 2 – Flora

Museum, Nature

Part 2 of our visit to the Tohono Chul Arboretum focuses on the plants, most of which are native to Southern Arizona.

Langtry, Texas – May 2019 – Judge Roy Bean and a Cactus Garden

Architecture, History, Nature

In West Texas the story goes there are 3 types of people: Those who know Judge Roy Bean from a 1970s movie, those who know Judge Roy Bean from their Texas schoolbooks, and those who are ignorant to the most important person in the history of West Texas. I come from the first group.

Roy Bean was born in Kentucky in 1825, and lived an adventuresome life that eventually lead him to a small Texas town which he renamed after his favorite actress, Lily Langtry – and became the Justice of the Peace for the ‘Law West of the Pecos’

Today there isn’t much in Langtry except a visitor center with a fantastic cactus garden, as well as the original buildings the Judge built in the 1800s.