The 10th annual Bisbee Bloomers’ Garden Tour will be held in the southernmost Arizona town from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. September 10, 2011. Road Trips Gardeners can stroll through a variety of gardens in Historic Bisbee: old and new gardens, traditional and drought-tolerant. Winter rains are scant here, and, once, Bisbee endured a night of zero degrees in February (hence: “The Big Freeze Tour”).

The post monsoon season gardens typically produce an abundance of colors, scents and foliage in Bisbee, once known as the “Queen of the Copper Camps”. Located in the overlap of the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts, differing elevations provide disparate growing conditions throughout the town resulting in some of the most intriguing gardening areas in the high desert.

Tour admission is $10. On the day of the tour, tickets will be available in Grassy Park near the Bisbee Mining & Historical Museum downtown. The tour is self-guided.

Bisbee is located 90 miles southeast of Tucson. If you’re headed that way, consider a stop in Tombstone to see what’s claimed to be the world’s largest rose tree: a “Lady Banksia” rose, planted in 1886, now covers some 9000 square feet.