10/18/10

Palm Springs, Part 2: Moorten Botanical Garden

This thrilling, old garden (est. 1938) exudes heart and soul: a family operation with hand-painted signs, well-aged, arborescent plant specimens, antique gold mining artifacts, collectible rocks and unusual pieces of old wood, a nursery with plants for sale, and a cute family of desert tortoises--all for a mere $3. It's suddenly one of my favorite gardens anywhere.

The Moorten Botanical Garden was closed the last time we came to Palm Springs so I was especially glad to see it this time. I don't see any information online about how large it is--an acre or two? I walked through the whole garden twice and took 352 pictures. It's at the very top of my list of things to see and do in Palm Springs. If you're a garden-lover you must come here; the rest of the town's gardening is a horticultural war crime.

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Stapeliads as ground cover!

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Note pollinator.

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Welcome to the Cactarium.

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Welwitschia mirabilis, one of planet Earth's more unusual plants.

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They have two of them.

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Amazing.

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For sale!

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

352 pictures is impressive - I've taken about that many on some trips, but it sure doesn't happen often.

I'm having trouble appreciating most of these properly so far, because I have a very severe aversion to spiky, painful-looking desert plants. But I do like the tortoises.

danger garden said...

I think I want to move in. Surely they wouldn't mind?

Your pictures are fabulous! Will you be sharing more?

Les said...

Wow, these shots could have just as easily been taken on another planet. Beautiful!

ryan said...

The place looks awesome. If they could just get rid of all those golf courses, Palm Springs could maybe be saved. 352 photos is impressively excessive; the Ruth Bancroft did something similar to me. Something about succulents and other desert plants makes me want to take a photo every two feet.

Megan said...

Wholly crap! They even have tortoises wandering around? I never thought I wanted to go to Palm Springs until now.