October, 2011 – Chile: From Desert to Forest
This Pacific Horticulture Tour will be escorted by Kathy Musial, Curator of Living Collections, Huntington Botanical Gardens, and board member, Pacific Horticulture Society in October 2011. Join her as she visits central Chile and “Norte Chico” to see spring wildflowers and magnificent forests. You will begin in Chile’s capital, Santiago, where you’ll see the new Chagual Botanic Garden and visit private gardens featuring native plants, including those of Juan Grimm, Chile’s leading landscape architect. You then head north to the edge of the Atacama Desert, where, if the rains have been good, you’ll be treated to the spectacular “Desierto Florido” (the Flowering Desert), with carpets of bulbs and annuals. Traveling southward, you’ll explore the Mediterranean climate vegetation of central Chile, similar to California’s chaparral but sprinkled with puyas and cacti. South of Santiago, you’ll visit forests with vegetation transitioning from Mediterranean to rain forest, ending up at magnificent stands of monkey puzzle trees (Araucaria araucana – image below from www.redwoodgardenbridges.com), one of Chile’s signature plants. For more information please contact: Hidden Treasures Botanical Tours at (573) 881-6316, or log on to http://www.hiddentreasuresbotanicaltours.com/pacific.html. Please note that prior trips organized for Pacific Horticulture had been managed by a different tour operator, and some potential travelers (including me!) had difficulty communicating with the other company. Hidden Treasures promises to be much more responsive.
