Desert Botanical Garden Mission Statement:
The Garden's commitment to the community is to advance excellence in education, research, exhibition, and conservation of desert plants of the world with emphasis on the Southwestern United States. We will ensure that the Garden is always a compelling attraction that brings to life the many wonders of the desert.

About Them:
Nestled amid the red buttes of Papago Park, the Desert Botanical Garden hosts one of the world's finest collections of desert plants. One of only 44 botanical gardens accredited by the American Association of Museums, this one-of-a-kind museum showcases 50 acres of beautiful outdoor exhibits. Home to 139 rare, threatened and endangered plant species from around the world, the Garden offers interesting and inspiring experiences to more than 300,000 visitors each year.

A charter member of the Museum Association of Arizona and National Center for Plant Conservation, the Garden is fully accredited with the American Association of Museums and American Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta. It continues to build on its 63-year legacy of environmental stewardship, and has become nationally and internationally renowned for its plant collections, research and educational programs.

Sprouting and Growing a Youth Garden

You've decided you want to begin a youth gardening program?. What's next? Thoughtful planning is critical to sustaining your program over time. In this month's Teachers' Room, we share some tried-and-true advice for launching and maintaining a youth garden program in hopes of inspiring the growth of gardens across the country during the 2008-2009 school year. Let's get kids and teens gardening in every community! SummerWinds Nursery can help.

As Mountain States Wholesale Nursery celebrates over 37 years, they extend their gratitude to all of their customers and friends who have supported and encouraged them through the years. There are many ways to measure progress, and to them the most meaningful sign is the presence of previously unused desert plants in thoughtful landscapes throughout the Southwest. These landscapes range from large-scale projects to simple private gardens, each quietly recognizing our deserts as places of great beauty, diversity and well-springs of life.

The use of desert-adapted plants as landscape materials has evolved from the selection of our durable natives, which served to anchor difficult and demanding re-vegetation sites, to an ongoing and continuous search for beauty, color, and variety. In today's landscapes, our plant choices have broadened to include hues and forms which far surpass the earlier hopes of adding texture, refinement, brilliance-pizzazz, if you will-to already proven durability.

This evolution and refinement has progressed on many fronts in step with education and, much like a partnership, together they have established a foundation for greater appreciation and acceptance of desert-adapted plants across the southwestern United States.

Without the educational programs sponsored by so many organizations and institutions, and without the contributions of enthusiastic writers, the knowledge and pleasure of landscaping with this diverse palette would have remained limited to isolated pockets of enthusiasts. Instead, the combined efforts of many individuals have resulted in a unique plant palette that provides a distinct sense of place.

To assist you in your selection process, Mountain States Wholesale Nursery offers over 450 types of desert-adapted trees, shrubs, ornamental grasses, accents, flowering perennials, groundcovers and vines. They specialize in providing landscape plants that combine beauty and water economy. It is their goal to provide quality plant material to allow the fulfillment of design concepts that reflect the spirit and the beauty of the desert.

Arizona Desert Guide for Watering

There are a number of ways to save water in your landscape, and there are some very good reasons to do so. Over half of household water goes into our landscapes, which makes watering efficiently one of the best and easiest ways to save water. Proper watering will also keep your landscape plants healthy and beautiful through the year.

This link will provide you with a guide designed for conditions in the Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale metro area, and should also work well for other low desert regions of Arizona.