Tucson Botanical Gardens

Tucson Botanical Gardens is a collection of sixteen residentially scaled gardens located at 2150 North Alvernon Way, Tucson, Arizona, USA.

A five-and-a-half-acre urban garden, Tucson Botanical Gardens is a lush and tranquil oasis in the heart of the city.

Built from the historic nursery and home of the Porter Family, the shaded Historic Gardens and the Porter House Gallery offer visitors the opportunity to enjoy eleven rotating exhibits annual. These focus on emerging and established local and regional artists whose themes interpret the flora, fauna, and landscape of desert regions.

Paths lead through a diverse selection of residentially scaled specialty gardens, including a Zen Garden, Prehistoric Garden, Barrio Garden, Butterfly Garden and Children’s Garden. The Stonewall Foundation Tropical Exhibit is home to orchids, bromeliads and jungle vegetation. During the months of October to April, the Exhibit hosts Butterfly Magic, a display of live tropical butterflies with species representation from five continents.

Low-water gardening is featured in the Xeriscape Garden, and the nearby Aloe Alley fills the early winter months with flowers. The Cactus and Succulent Garden presents hundreds of cacti and arid plants, geographically arranged to represent desert regions. This garden is embellished with exotic stones and minerals collected by the Gardens’ founder, Harrison Yocum. Life in the desert is explored in the Native Crops Garden, which illustrates the prehistoric agricultural practices in Central and Southern Arizona. The Tohono O’odham Path winds among edible and utilitarian plants of the Sonoran Desert.^[1]

History

On March 31, 1975, an article in the Tucson Daily Citizen stated, “A dream of 10 years is about to be realized when Tucson Botanical Gardens is officially established at a permanent site of North Alvernon Way.”

The entity known as “Tucson Botanical Gardens” was originally founded in 1964, by horticulturist and collector Harrison G. Yocum. The gardens at his home on North Jefferson Street contained an extensive collection of cacti and palms and were open to the public. Memberships became available in 1968 and the group became chartered as a non-profit corporation the next year.

As the organization grew to 100 charter members, it found a new temporary home at Randolph Park, utilizing available greenhouse display space. Dr. Leland Burkhart, UA professor of Horticulture, was president of the Tuscan Botanical Gardens at the time. The society began formulating a dream for its future and a permanent home was envisioned. Friends of TBG and local garden clubs organized fund-raising activities to further this purpose.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Bernice Porter was looking for a way to preserve her house and gardens and by the early 70s, the union of Tucson Botanical Gardens with the Porter property became a reality. In 1974, the Tucson City Council passed Resolution 9384 which stated that the property would be used for the development of a botanical garden to serve as a horticultural center, a sanctuary for wild birds, and as a center for education.

Boyd Allen, president of TBG at the time, had the responsibility of melding the existing gardens with TBG’s dreams of the future. For Mrs. Porter, the arrangement meant saving the house and grounds. “We just didn’t want to see this place go down under a bulldozer,” she mused in the 1975 article, “Now it will continue to offer as much pleasure to others as we have enjoyed in the past.”

The sturdy roots from which the Tucson Botanical Gardens sprouted, started with a family and a dream. The dream had at its core, a beautiful old house and gardens which today are called the Historical Gardens. Originally, the house was the longtime home of Rutger and Bernice Porter who raised a family, ran a nursery, and participated fully in the life of Tucson.

The story of their life together began in different parts of the country. Bernice Walkley was born in New Haven, Connecticut. Her father, Raymond, worked for a lumber company and her mother, Sarah, was an art teacher and supervisor. Bernice was an only child, well schooled, who graduated from Vassar in 1923.

After Bernice’s mother died, she cared for her arthritic father for several years until his condition prompted their move to Tucson in 1930. He must have found it salubrious, for he soon built a house in the El Encanto neighborhood. Tucson at that time was an up-and-coming town of about 35,000 people.

Rutger Bleeker Porter, born in Hollywood, California, was the son of Angus Porter, an Episcopal rector, and Sophia Jewett. Angus Porter died when Rutger was a teenager. Soon after, he moved to New York City to live with his mother’s brother and studied agriculture at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

After suffering several bouts of pneumonia in New York, Rutger decided to move to Tucson in 1927. He lived with an acquaintance of his uncle’s and did landscape work for Alfred and Anna Erickson. (The Ericksons founded the Desert Sanatorium, later Tucson Medical Center.) She nicknamed Rutger “the Kactus Kid,” because he was keenly interested in the local plants. He was commissioned to do the original landscape work for the Desert Sanatorium, an institution dedicated to treating people with tuberculosis.

Eventually, news of Rutger Porter’s landscape services made its way around the small town. Raymond Walkley hired Rutger to do some landscaping at his El Encanto home, where he met Bernice. They were married on April 22, 1931.

The young couple started Desert Gardens Nursery on the property Rutger had purchased on the corner of Grant and Maple Boulevard (now Alvernon Way). The grounds came to be called “Porterville” as it accommodated the arrival of Rutger’s brother, Angus from New Hampshire, as well as the births of the Porters’ three daughters, Grace, Sophie, and Cornelia. Rutger’s mother, Sophia, was a frequent winter visitor along with many friends and family who visited or stayed.

The property also had a corral and two horses (where the TBG Sensory Garden now stands). In an interview several years ago, daughter Cornelia “Nina” recalled, “It was wonderful. We would cross Grant—of course there was little traffic—and then ride straight up to the foothills.”

In 1947, Edna Johnson, both housekeeper and old friend of Rutger’s parents, came to live on the property until her death in 1974. She participated fully in the development of the garden, planting many fruit trees in the 1950s. The short-lived stone-fruits have not survived, but citrus and pomegranates have.

The Porters’ garden developed from many planting experiments with a mixture of natives and Mediterranean plants. The overall goal was to shade the living spaces, and create color and interest for each season. Over the years, the original garden began to reflect the sturdier choices for the Tucson climate. A wonderful landscape of winding walks, low adobe walls, fountains, and lovely greenery evolved around the home.

The Porters stayed active in the community, raising their children, and joined clubs and boards, including Junior League of Tucson, Tucson Medical Center, and Tucson Symphony Orchestra. As Desert Gardens Nursery grew, it moved to 3105 East Speedway in 1936, where it was operated until Rutger retired in 1958.

Rutger Porter died of Melanoma in 1964, at the age of 59. The newspaper described him as a “prominent clubman, patron of the arts, social figure, and one time nursery operator.” A few years later, Bernice opened her home to various garden clubs and environmentally related groups. In 1974, the grounds became the permanent headquarters of the Tucson Botanical Gardens. Bernice continued to live in an apartment created out of the east side of the house until she died in 1983 at the age of 81.

The house has undergone extensive remodeling to allow it to be more suitable for the library and the administrative offices of the Tucson Botanical Gardens. Many rooms, including Porter Hall, retain the original look and charm of the warm home nurtured by the Porter family. Tucson Botanical Gardens says, "Their dream lives on with the great gift they gave us all."

Vision

The Tucson Botanical Gardens, a tranquil oasis in the heart of Tucson, strives to be recognized and respected as the best small public garden in America.

Mission

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Coordinates: 32°13′18″N 110°55′35″W / 32.22167°N 110.92639°W / 32.22167; -110.92639The Tucson Botanical Gardens promotes responsible and appropriate use of plants and water in a desert environment through education and demonstration and provides a place of beauty and tranquility for Tucson residents and visitors.

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