Palm Springs: The Pulchritude of Prickly Plants

Beautiful yet dangerous cactus plants

One little gem of a place we visited in Palm Springs is for anyone interested in desert plants. The Moorten Botannical Garden has over 3,000 varieties, making it the world's largest cactarium, consisting mostly of cacti, but also succulents, and a few animals in between.

It was established in 1938 by Chester "Cactus Slim" Moorten and his wife Patricia. Moorten was an actor,  one of the original Keystone Cops and a stand-in for Howard Hughes. Moorten has a star on the walk of fame in Palm Springs.

Cactus buds may flower soon in the garden

In any event, according to the garden's website, he developed tuberculosis on a film set and recovered in Cottonwood Springs, near Joshua Tree. Moorten tried to make a living panning for gold and selling cacti and did a better job with the latter.

He moved to Palm Springs in 1938 and met his future wife Patricia who also had a green thumb, and they set up this garden at their home, which was called Cactus Castle.

Today their son Clark looks after the Moorten Botanical Garden and while it's quite small, it's still a nice little space packed with greenery -- of the prickly kind.

Admission is US$5 for adults and seniors, and you just wander around the garden admiring the numerous cacti species growing there. "Take your time like a turtle... and you will see more!" a small painted sign on a flat rock says. 

I had never before seen braided cholla 

There are so many different kinds of cacti, mostly know by the generic name of prickly pear cactus, but what's impressive is their size, having grown there for over eight decades! One interesting one for me was the braided cholla, and the catcus branches really look like they have been braided together.

Other kinds include barrel cactus, and opuntia or "snow white" cacti -- they have wisps of white hairs growing all over it so from a distance it looks fuzzy and cute!

The garden also has agave, bombax, and South African aloe plants, as well as a hutch with doves flying around in it, and a handful of tortoises, mostly sleeping.

On the website it claims the garden receives some 200 guests per day. Perhaps it's possible, as when we went there was a small, steady stream of people coming in, but the garden didn't feel packed at all.

Agave plants are also in the 84-year-old garden

The open-air gift shop not only sells small cactus plants, but also some ceramic tortoises with shells on their backs, and ants made of metal work.

Moorten Botanical Garden

1701 South Palm Canyon Drive

Palm Springs

(760) 327 6555

Palm Springs: Night Photography at Joshua Tree National Park

Capturing the night sky at Joshua Tree National Park

My friend and I stayed on in Joshua Tree National Park after the sun went down, waiting for the sky to turn pitch black before attempting some night photography. When it finally did turn really dark we looked up above us and saw a whole sky filled with stars. 

He said it was the Milky Way and got really excited.

We waited for the sky to get pitch dark

We headed to the two other points the park ranger had told us about, White Tank and Jumbo Rocks, which we did in about 20 minutes and found the two places, but 1) there were lots of people camping in these two places during the Thanksgiving long weekend 2) they had fires going to cook and keep themselves warm.

That meant there would be too much manmade light from people's flashlights and the campfires, not to mention noise (a dog was barking at us). The smell of the smoke from the fires was unbearable too. So my friend decided we should go back to where we were earlier -- Cholla Cactus Garden.

By the time we got there before 7pm, hardly anyone was around. We walked back to the area we were at earlier and set up the tripod and started to experiment, and with 15-second exposures he was able to take pictures of the night sky.

A few experiments with lighting and timing

It was amazing to see him able to take pictures of the stars, though there were lots of airplanes up there too,  with their flashing lights. In his pictures they look like red or white lines due to the long exposure.

We did many experiments, using our mobile phone lights at different brightness and length of time until we finally settled on a formula. One time he used my mobile phone shining my home screen of a pink flower, which resulted in the cactus in the foreground looking reddish-pink. We finally settled on using a white screen for a quick second.

While we were taking pictures there was a group of people wearing headlights and walking around where we were... strange of them to do that while it was so dark -- and surrounded by cacti! Not exactly the safest thing to do late at night. 

But they finally got out of our way and left us alone.

A marvellous sight to see the Milky Way

After a slew of pictures, my friend was very satisfied with what he was able to achieve on his first attempt and I was thrilled to hang out and see the Milky Way shining above us, uninterrupted by any kind of light pollution. It was stunning, amazing and profound to witness it.

Palm Springs: Joshua Tree National Park at Sunset

A gorgeous sunset over the mountains at Cholla Cactus Garden

I've been in Palm Springs for a few days and am enjoying the sun and blue skies, slow-paced lifestyle, not much traffic and friendly people. I'm still trying to get used to the massive American portions which are shocking and overwhelming. We've been taking home a lot of doggie bags.

An ex-colleague who happened to be in Los Angeles asked if I had visited Joshua Tree National Park and I hadn't. He was keen to do some night photography there so we gave it a shot. 

Around 4pm the sun started setting

From Palm Springs we went east on Highway 10 for about an hour before arriving at the south entrance of the park around 3pm. It took us another 20 minutes to get to the Cottonwood Visitor Center to pay the admission fee (US$30).

We asked the park ranger where to take pictures. He suggested Cholla Cactus Garden for sunset (at 4.38pm), and then two other places for night photos White Tank and Jumbo Rocks. If there was time he said we should check out Barker Dam.

But it was already around 3pm, and since there is only one main road through the park, we decided to head to the first stop, the cactus garden. The ranger warned us to be careful about standing too close to the cactus as the needles are not pleasant. He said they are called jumping cactus, but really it can be easy to stand too close to them.

Not many people were there to watch the sun set

It took us about half an hour to get to the destination where we saw lots of people parked along the roadside. And yes -- lots of cacti. We were so excited to take pictures that my friend howled in pain -- he mistakenly stepped on an old cactus ball and it was stuck to the bottom of his shoe. 

He had to take his shoe off and manually pick out the needles which was tedious to say the least. 

Then a few minutes later he yelped again -- stepping on another cactus ball that had fallen off a branch. 

Across the street was a mountain range where the sun was starting to set around 4pm. This place was safer -- there was a purposely cleared path to walk around in to ensure we would not encounter anymore prickly balls.

People were starting to leave then, but they were missing out on the real sunset across the valley, where the sky was starting to turn into a dusty pink glow. We couldn't stop taking pictures as the sky kept changing colours.

The sky constantly changed colours

It was a glorious sight being in an open space and watching the sky gradually become night.