For thousands of years, humans have studied trees to learn how they too can provide suitable housing for squirrels and grow lemons from their fingertips. Join the pursuit of leafy progress with today’s Groupon: for $30, you get one ticket to the Moonlight Masquerade at the Desert Botanical Garden on Friday, September 30 (up to a $60 value). The event is held rain or shine.

Desert Botanical Garden nurtures more than 50 acres of desert plants and welcomes more than 600,000 patrons to explore the botanical ranch and attend special exhibits and events throughout the year. The garden's first outdoor event of the season, the Moonlight Masquerade celebrates the arrival of David Rogers’ Big Bugs, massive sculptures of buggy luminaries constructed from natural materials, including found wood, cut saplings, and Spider-Man’s discarded web canisters. Guests 21 and older can wander the grounds between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m., basking in moonlight as they sip a masquerade cocktail served in a take-home glowing glass shaped like a stately cactus. Eleven all-you-can-eat gourmet catering stations pepper the garden, lighting up palates with tastes of pulled-chicken sandwiches, crab cakes with rémoulade, and sonoran napalitos salad. As guests sample the dishes and partake of a full cash bar, feather fan dancers and chair acrobats slice through the air, and fire acts heat up the atmosphere in time for live bands, a DJ, and a disco ball that can predict the outcome of football games.