Sunny, sandy, and cactus-y! Current immigration politics aside, Tuscon is a mecca for those interested in C + S, and I was finally able to visit and see some incredible plants. We stayed at the new, beautiful, and running-ridiculously-cheap-specials-on-room-rates Ritz Carlton Dove Mountain Resort Hotel (before you judge, we booked the flights and rooms before the AZ legislation debacle became national news).
I was prompted by Bobb Webb's recent guest lectureship at Chicago's Gethsemane Gardens (see earlier posts) to pay my own visit to the man's famous Tuscon greenhouse, Arid Lands. I may have dragged an unsuspecting participant ("It will only take a minute, I promise") through three large silos of beautiful succulent plants in the 100-degree Sonoran desert heat in the process, but at least it was a dry heat. :-)
Soooo many beautiful pictures to come. Stay tuned for my next post, once I have made sense of the close to 300 pics I took of Arid Lands, the Sonoran Desert Museum, Sabino Canyon, and Saguaro National Park!
As for the window garden, the Streptocarpus are exploding with blooms and probably are deserving a post of their own (I've put it off too long). A mealy bug infestation has been rearing its nasty and multitudinous head. I suspect the introduction of my beautiful and thriving Huernia confusa brought in the vicious sap-suckers. I've been religiously incinerating them with rubbing alcohol and am starting to add Imidaclopromid to the soil.
So much to blog about!
What a wondrous place! I would have gone crazy in there trying to buy as much as possible then trying to get it home in one piece. 300 pictures! Wooo can't wait to see more!
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