Animals & Gardens

Find yourself immersed in the unique landscape of Baja California when you step into this garden. Inside, you’ll find yourself surrounded by the peninsula’s unique and sarcocaulescent plant species such as the whimsical Boojum tree and the gnarled Baja elephant tree.

Within this garden, native northern Chihuahuan desert plants thrive and showcase their resilience in the arid landscape. Prickly pear cacti, towering yuccas, and majestic sotols adorn the sandy terrain, creating a picturesque scene that truly captures the essence of North America’s largest hot desert.

Explore plants from the Horn of Africa and the thorn forests of southwest Madagascar. Acacia, Commiphora, and Boswellia (frankincense) are typical trees found in East Africa and with 150 million years of separation from Africa, the island of Madagascar has many plant species that occur nowhere else on Earth.

Explore the Foothills of Sonora Garden where the Sonoran Desert and tropical deciduous forest meet. This unique environment is where plants co-exist at either their southern limits or northern limits due to rainfall and/or temperature, comingling in a mosaic of succulents and arborescent cacti and short tree forest. Also, the home of our jaguar habitat.

These two gardens represent our own local desert environs and the opportunity to discover more about what’s in your own backyard. The Mojave Desert Garden replicates our high desert with the iconic Joshua tree and its cohabitants including desert tortoises. And the Upper Colorado Desert Garden replicates the western edge of our subdivision of the Sonoran Desert near the Santa Rosa Mountains and along the eastern slopes of the Peninsular Ranges where chaparral transitions into desert.