DESERT BOTANICAL GARDEN

By Lisa Van Loo

Desert Botanical Garden is more than a public garden. It leaned on its earthy roots as it navigated pandemic-related changes earlier this year. Since reopening in early July after closing in March, the Garden has offered a safe, outdoor experience for anyone encountering cabin fever, and in the coming weeks and months, it will bring additional programming back to patrons who are eager to experience it.

The Garden’s Music in the Garden series is the first to return, in a new, larger outdoor performance venue with reconfigured seating. They are switching from individual seating while now offering tables of four with 50 percent capacity.

“Now, they can come and stay in their own bubble,” Ken Schutz, the Dr. William Huizingh Executive Director of Desert Botanical Garden, says of those attending the music series.

Desert Botanical Garden plans to follow a similar formula this winter for the beloved Las Noches De Las Luminarias, where the Garden will limit guests to 50 percent capacity to manage the flow of people and ensure guests safety.

“It’s a really nice holiday tradition,” Schutz says of the 8,000 candles that light the garden each night. “This year there will be fewer people and fewer stages. It’ll be more about the lights and the essence of the holidays. It won’t be the same, but we’ve created a special luminaria.”

While the Garden has paused in-person classes, it decided against trying to offer them online since part of the draw was learning in the Garden. It has modified its popular bi-annual plant sale, extending it across three weekends in the fall and offering timed admissions to balance an ideal, socially distanced capacity.

“That will allow us to restock every week,” Schutz says of the extended sale. “We think we’ll do as well as we normally do, if not better.”