Quinces are iconic trees in the Garden, numerous and prominently featured throughout the Spanish Colonial Fruit Trees Orchard. For many Hispanic visitors with roots in this region, the sweet autumnal aromas of ripening membrillos elicit poignant memories, often of nanas (grandmothers) making quince bars or quince marmalade. Although membrillo trees were once common in Tucson backyards, if it had not been for Mission Garden’s work to revive them, they may have slipped entirely into oblivion.

The quintessential taste of the Mediterranean embraces visitors as they walk through the main gates flanked by heritage fig trees planted in honor of two of Tucson’s most beloved matriarchs, Cele Peterson and Esther Tang. Throughout the Garden, there are seven different cultivars and four different varieties of figs: Black Mission, White, Calimyrna and Brown Turkey.

Pomegranate trees are the first thing you see when you walk through the gate. They are the first trees to leaf out at the end of our short winters, and by May they are donning showy red blossoms. In high summer the branches are bowing down laden with fruit, and in fall their bright yellow foliage affords the most brilliant splashes of color. We have 45 pomegranate trees, with 11 different cultivars.

Once numerous and prolific in Spanish Colonial orchards and backyard gardens throughout the region, Mission Garden’s apricot trees—some of which are struggling or have died—are a sobering reminder of climate change. Nevertheless, the Garden contains ten apricot trees, with five different cultivars. The Adelina Aros cultivar is the most numerous, producing small yet flavorful apricots from mid-April to mid-May.

The large leathery leaves of this evergreen fruit tree grace the orchard with exotic exuberance. They especially stand out in winter when all the deciduous trees are defoliated. The loquats’ aromatic bunched white blossoms are a delight right in the heart of the cold month of February, providing pollinators with some of their first sweet nectar. The tender, simultaneously tart and sweet fruit is also the first to ripen in the spring, just as the citrus season is ending.

It is an unmistakable sign of spring when clouds of citrus blossom perfume waft through the orchard, where buzzing bees and other pollinating insects dance around the flowers. The abundant fruit of the Garden’s numerous signature Mexican sweet lime trees afford most visitors their first taste of this uniquely aromatic and sweet variety of lime. West of the Spanish vegetable garden, the Seville oranges stand stalwart and tall, their dense dark foliage offering welcoming patches of deep shade for humans, as well as inviting shelter for paper wasps and white-winged doves.

In Mission Garden There is a small grove of clingstone peach trees in the expansion, or westernmost section, of the Spanish orchard, where they were planted in the fall of 2016. A few years later they had already became so productive that the fruit had to be thinned significantly in the spring to prevent the branches from succumbing to the weight. In Your Garden Peaches are relatively short-lived deciduous trees that grow between 10 and 20 ft tall, depending on how they are pruned. Their pink flowers appear in early spring before the leaves. Peaches are stone fruits, with corrugated seed shells that are more likely to germinate if planted fresh (not dried). The seeds also need to be exposed to cold for proper germination, and the trees need to be exposed to a minimum number of chill hours for fruit set. This particular heirloom variety is very well adapted to our climate and soil conditions. If planted from seed, it can begin producing fruit within four years.