This quirky, endearing garden is one of the last remnants of old Palm Springs, when there was time to watch little birds flit fearlessly among the thorns, marvel at a palm that grows sideways about 8 feet before it grows up and listen spellbound to Moorten’s wonderful and seemingly endless stories.
The garden itself is small — roughly an acre of mature, artfully arranged cactuses and desert plants along shady dirt paths with hand-lettered signs, decaying desert artifacts and the famous “cactarium,” a word invented by Moorten’s mother, Patricia, who with his father, Chester “Slim” Moorten, began expanding the garden, established in 1938, after they bought the property in 1955.
The cactarium, by the way, is a small weathered Quonset hut stuffed with weird and rare cactuses — some of which wind along the ground like snakes or grow upside down from their pot like a prickly stalactite.
There’s a nursery here too, for people who want to take some plants home. This is a garden visitors can easily traverse in a few minutes, but honestly you’ll want to give yourself time to sit on a bench, browse in the nursery, and, if he’s around, listen to at least a few of Moorten’s stories about old Palm Springs and his remarkable parents. His father, for instance, was a logger as a teenager, who hitchhiked to Hollywood in the 1920s to become a Keystone Kop, then moved to the desert to fight off tuberculosis where he discovered that raising cactus paid better than gold mining — especially when Walt Disney asked him to suggest plants for “a little amusement park” he was creating in Anaheim, and he ended up supplying the plants for Frontier Land.
Moorten, 82, was an only child, and he still talks about his parents as though they’ll walk around the corner at any moment. “I was born with stickers in my butt,” he says on the website, and enough memories and stories to make this endearing garden glow.
Hours: Depends on the season. Between Oct. 1 and May 31, the garden is open every day but Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. In the summer, June 1-Sept. 30, when the heat is at its fiercest, the garden is open Fridays through Sundays only, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Admission: $7 adults and seniors; $5 veterans, $3 children 5-12. Children under 5 enter free.
Food: No food is sold at the garden, but there is a drinking fountain and they sell bottled water at the entrance. There are tables where visitors can bring prepared food into the garden to eat.
Other: There are restrooms at the back of the garden. The garden trails are compact dirt and wide enough to accommodate wheel chairs, but the cactarium’s narrow aisles and steps are not wheelchair-accessible.