Date night at the Desert Botanical Garden, Phoenix, AZ, March 24, 2025

March 15, the Desert Botanical Garden opened a new exhibit hall with an event called Orchid Fever.  When I was at the DBG on my regular shift, there were long lines to get into Orchid Fever.  I made reservations for us on March 24 which turned out to be a great time to go - very quiet at the Garden on a warm Monday afternoon.  On our way to the orchid exhibit, we walked through the new Desert Oasis.

We discovered a plant that was new to us, weltwitschia - it is from the Namib desert in Africa.

Both the new exhibit hall and the Orchid Fever exhibit were great.

After the orchids, we strolled through the Garden and stopped at Webster Hall to see the Leaf Connection exhibit.  Using iNaturalist, people take photos of leaves and then a clay model of the leaf is mounted on the city map on the wall to show where the plant had been found in the Metro Phoenix area.

Then we wandered out to Sunset Plaza to explore the maze with thousands of hand made flags at the Towards 2050 exhibit - the project is to emphasize the challenge of taking care of our environment.

 

We had dinner reservations at Gertrude's restaurant for 6:00 p.m. and had a lovely dinner with wine.

 

 

After sunset, we wandered the garden for about an hour, and enjoyed the Hybycozo light sculptures before they are removed on April 1.

 

We had a delightful time together at the DBG.