It’s easy to miss the modest entrance to Tohono Chul, which is tucked into the Casas Adobes community on the north side of Tucson. But for four decades, the park — whose name is a Tohono O’odham phrase that translates to “desert corner” — has been teaching visitors about the beauty and fragility of desert life.
“Tohono Chul has been a part of Tucsonans’ lives and a treasure in the state of Arizona since 1985,” says Jamie Maslyn Larson, the park’s executive director. “Besides the beauty of our gardens, we have an origin story that is relevant to contemporary issues around community, climate change and celebrating the Sonoran Desert’s heritage.”
That origin story began in 1966, when benefactors Richard and Jean Wilson began piecing together patches of the desert that would form the park’s initial 37 acres. In 1968, they purchased the section containing the hacienda-style West House (now the park’s Garden Bistro), where they lived for eight years. As the area, which abuts Oro Valley, began to boom, the couple was approached several times by developers but refused to cash out, instead seeking to preserve it. And when saguaro cactuses were displaced by Pima County’s widening of Ina Road, the Wilsons had them replanted on their adjacent property.
The park opened in 1985, and later additions brought Tohono Chul to its current size of 49 acres. And as commercial development has gobbled up the suburban landscape, the Wilsons’ foresight has taken on new value. As visitors walk the braided trails deeper into Tohono Chul, the thrum of traffic falls away and the park’s rural character emerges. “We’re creating a mosaic experience,” Maslyn Larson says. “We want to be representative of all things in the Sonoran Desert.”
The park is located in an affluent, retiree-heavy area, but in recent years, an effort at more diverse programming has attracted visitors from all over town. The Children’s Museum Oro Valley, located on park grounds, offers nature-based activities aimed at fostering appreciation for the Sonoran Desert, and it also hosts school trips and a summer STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) camp. “We play a huge role in closing the ‘nature deficit’ gap by letting kids be wild explorers of our gardens,” Maslyn Larson says.
For visitors of all ages, there are events such as Chillin’ at the Chul, a summer after-hours series that gives visitors a chance to experience the garden in cooler nighttime temperatures. Live music and refreshments add to the ambience, and seating areas under shady acacias, mesquites and palms encourage folks to linger.
Annual events such as the Chiles, Chocolate and Day of the Dead Festival, in autumn, and Holiday Nights, in December, draw crowds. But the garden manages to maintain a serene vibe. Perhaps the best-known event, the summer Bloom Night, is an opportunity to walk illuminated trails and breathe in the enchanting perfume of the night-blooming cereus (Peniocereus greggii), a cactus that blooms just one night per year. For weeks ahead of the spectacle, the park’s staff closely monitors the impending bloom.
Tohono Chul’s art galleries host revolving exhibitions, and the park also is home to dance performances, lectures, movie nights, plant sales, workshops and yoga classes. Three well-curated gift shops are stocked with unique artwork, books and souvenirs, and the bodega boasts cactus chips, jams, paletas and more. Brunch at the Garden Bistro features specialties such as huevos rancheros and mesquite flour pancakes.
But the heart of Tohono Chul is its more than 200 volunteers and docents. Janel Feierabend is in her 10th year as a volunteer after moving to Tucson and “discovering the park in my backyard.” Some weeks, she’s there every day. “Our goal is to have our guests feel a sense of place in the bliss of Tohono Chul,” she says. “We don’t work off a script. We read the people we’re interacting with and what they are interested in.”
Those interests might spur the staff to invite visitors to cup and breathe on tiny creosote leaves to release their distinctive petrichor. Or to listen to the tapping of a nearby Gila woodpecker. Or to spot a shiny kingsnake or identify a skittering zebra-tailed lizard.
“Familiarity with the unique traits of our desert plants and animals helps all of us appreciate the need to preserve the health of our deserts and our one-of-a-kind planet,” Feierabend says. “We like to think that the guests return home filled with renewed inspiration to practice quality stewardship, no matter what part of the world they inhabit.”
The approach is working. Maslyn Larson says before the pandemic, annual visitation topped out at 52,000; in 2023, the park welcomed 92,000 visitors. “The Wilsons had a vision,” she says. “They saw the direction of growth then, and today, two generations later, we enjoy it. And it will be here for the next generations as well.”
TUCSON AREA Tohono Chul, 7366 N. Paseo del Norte, 520-742-6455, tohonochul.org