The Desert Botanical Garden at the Half- Century Mark

The Desert Botanical Garden

It's a glorious October day in Phoenix and a perfect time to visit the Desert Botanical Garden in Papago Park. If you first rambled through the Garden in the 1970s and it reminded you then of a dehydrated pincushion-an abundance of spiny plants and too little shade-you'll identify some impressive changes. And if you come back about this time next year, you may not recognize the Garden at all. At the outset of its second 50 years, it has begun an expansion program that will offer Valley of the Sun residents and visitors a firstrate living museum in which to learn about desert plants and desert habitation. The changes begin at the Garden's entrance, which last year was redesigned and its adjacent parking lots expanded and landscaped. In the next several years, a visitor center will rise across the driveway, with gates and courtyard, gift shop and restaurant as handsome and exciting as they will be cool and inviting. When the board of trustees commissioned the Garden's master plan in 1987, Scottsdale architect Vernon Swaback was selected to design the the buildings and other amenities. Swaback, who studied and taught at Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West for 21 years (see the November 1988 Arizona Highways), took along a streak of idealism when he left Taliesin to start his own firm 10 years ago. Dedicated to the concept that landscape and buildings should relate harmoniously, he integrated the strong lines of the desert Southwest into the visitor center, education building, and research and administrative facilities to be built along the entrance drive. And he incorporated trees and shrubs for shade, accent, and color in a bold statement about what the Desert Botanical Garden is and what it offers its visitors. "In a city as large as Phoenix," Swaback declares, "the Garden can no longer afford to be inconspicuous, especially if its mission is to take the lead in the Valley's conservation effort. We wanted an entrance that would cause a Valley resident who never thought of desert plants or water conservation as exciting to come here and say, 'Wow!' and leave with a lasting impression-perhaps even with a desire to do something similar." Something you won't see on your walk up the path toward Webster Auditorium, even now, are utility lines. They've been buried and will no longer intrude on your photographs of plant life and the stunning

Cactus and Native Flora Society; the society then leased acreage in what had been Papago Saguaroland Monument from the State Land Department and the Arizona Game and Fish Department. On February 12, 1939, after the first cacti had been planted, the society held a dedication ceremony at which Mrs. Webster stated the new garden's purposes: "We wish to make a compelling attraction for visitors...to establish scientific plantings for students and botanists ... [and] to conserve the rare desert plants, fast being destroyed." Exactly 50 years later, at a gala anniversary dinner, Dr. Breunig could say emphatically that the Garden's original purposes are even more meaningful today, especially in rareplant conservation.

"This is perhaps the most important challenge of all," he observed, "for if we fail in this task, no one will be able to come back and do the job. We have a fundamental task to pass on to future generations the genetic diversity of the desert regions."

Webster Auditorium was designed by Charles Gibbs Adams, architect of the William Randolph Hearst and Cecil B. DeMille estates, and funded primarily by Mrs. Webster. Dedicated in early 1940, it was an earth-colored adobe structure "with an Indian touch." Over the years, Richter Library and Earle Herbarium were added around a brick patio that has become a focal point for programs such as the delightful Sunday breakfast series, "Music in the Garden," featuring classical and folk music.

As the years passed, roofs began to leak, ceilings harbored scorpions, a lean-to office attached itself to an outside wall, and electric utilities deteriorated. Last spring the staff moved to temporary quarters, and the final portion of the Garden's "infrastructure phase" began. Webster Auditorium is being restored to its original charm, and its work spaces and utilities have been upgraded. Plans call for another landscaped patio to replaceperhaps by this time next year-the gravel driveway behind the building; there visitors will be able to enjoy lunches "with a desert twist." The addition of food service is part of the second, or "amenities phase" of the expansion, which includes the reworking of paths and the addition of "shade islands," new interpretive signs, and an improved gift shop.

Be sure to see the Garden's newest exhibit, a trail called "Plants and People of the Sonoran Desert." It shows some of the ways people lived and used plants during the thousands of years of human occupancy of the Sonoran Desert. Six habitats are represented: desert, desert oasis, native crop garden, mesquite bosque, semidesert grassland, and chaparral, all with typical shelters and implements.

Children love the new trail because they can do things: watch ducks at the desert oasis, pound mesquite beans and corn, make a yucca brush, and investigate a Piman house and an Apache wickiup built for the Garden by Native Americans.

Present-day research into plants of the past goes on at Dr. Howard Scott Gentry's "minifarm" near McDowell Road. The Gentry Agroecology Project, founded by Dr. Gentry as his last contribution to the Garden before he retired, is dedicated to developing economical and ecological methods of agriculture for small-scale farms in the arid Southwest and Mexico. Under the supervision of the Garden's associate director, Gary Nabhan, researchers raise wild chilis, several species of Mexican oregano, grain amaranth, agaves, tepary beans, and other drought-hardy native plants.

Today's residents of the Valley of the Sun must begin to face a fact of life in the desert: scarcity of water. So far, we've not been too concerned, often preferring broad Bermuda grass lawns and astronomical air-conditioning bills to Piman shade ramadas and other, older styles of desert living. The Desert Botanical Garden is part of a group determined to change Arizona's attitudes about water and energy use. With the University of Arizona College of Architecture, the Salt River Project (a major utility), the City of Phoenix, and Valley Partnership (a consortium of development and related organizations in the Phoenix area), the Botanical Garden will build "Desert House" on Garden property. It has been designed as a 2,000-squarefoot single-family home that will incorporate water conservation and energyefficient features without inconveniencing the family that lives in it.

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UofA architect Rocky Brittain says the designers are aiming for reduced energy requirements and a 41 percent reduction in water use, from the average Phoenix consumption of 180 gallons per person per day to 107 gallons. They'll do this with desert plantings and efficient irrigation systems, roof rainwater storage, solarheated hot water, efficient heat pumps for cooling and heating, double-glazed windows and doors, sun screens, optimum insulation, and cost-effective and energyefficient appliances.

The "Plants and People of the Sonoran Desert" exhibit features (LEFT) gourds, striped squash, baskets, and reed matting of the Pima Indians.

(FAR LEFT) An early Piman round house, bere viewed from a shade ramada, complete with water olla. Laid out in front of the house is an outdoor kitchen. DAVID H. SMITH (BELOW) Pima Dorothy Lewis delights visitors by preparing "coal bread" in the outdoor kitchen.

The group believes that the Desert House prototype will appeal to builders, because available materials and current technology can be used throughout. The house should appeal to home buyers, too, because it includes elegant design ideas contributed by Paragon Design Source and landscaping by Steve Martino and Associates.

Is there anything else to see? Yes, the cactus and succulent lath houses are still here, looking much as they did in the 1970s. But they too will soon be replaced; although they were innovative in the 1950s, researchers have discovered they actually provide too much shade for many plants, and not enough frost protection.

Accordingly, Vern Swaback is designing a 16,000-square-foot cactus and succulent pavilion that can accommodate plants ranging from the tall saguaro to the tiny Lithops (stone plant). Research botanist Allan Zimmerman is busy drawing plant illustrations to scale, in order to fit all of these under the pavilion's canopy. He worries about the wide range of climatic differences to be included in one large area and the compromises that may have to be made between the plants' ecological needs and the public's demand for understandable interpretive arrangements.

The most perplexing puzzle to be solved is that of the canopy's material. Should it be cloth or glass? Should it be permeable to summer rains? Will it protect against catastrophic freezing? Neither Swaback nor Zimmerman knows the answers to these questions yet. But an innovation in the housing of cacti and succulents is sure to result from their planning, and the structure that risesmore than 50 feet, to clear the tops of mature saguaros-will insure that the Desert Botanical Garden will no longer be an inconspicuous patch of plants in Papago Park.

Conspicuousness might be viewed by some as a disadvantage, but Bob Breunig doesn't think so. "We're deeply committed to the goals Gertrude Webster spoke of 50 years ago," he says. "We're a research institution of international importance. We're a part of the Center for Plant Conservation, and we're monitoring and growing populations of rare and endangered plants. And we are a compelling attraction.

"Times have changed, though," he muses. "In the 1930s, Mrs. Webster never had to deal with the need for strict water and energy conservation. In the 1980s, we find ourselves in a position unique among botanical gardens: we must have an active community presence, not only to incorporate desert plants into our lives, but also to conserve land and water and genetic resources."

It is a challenging mission, but one the Desert Botanical Garden accepts with enthusiasm and a determination to succeed.