Also on my Palm Springs weekend wish list: a visit to the Moorten Botanical Garden, a privately owned garden with over 3,000 cactus species. This garden is everything. I never thought I’d enjoy a botanical garden without flowers.

There is a small fee to enter garden, and you can spend however long you want strolling the grounds. The garden is organized by region, and most of the plants are labeled.

There are so many kinds of cactus varieties that I’ve never seen before. One of my faves were these Giant Golden Barrel Cacti.

Another special treat – the garden’s cactarium (the first of it’s kind) which houses rare cactus varietals. We weren’t allowed to touch any of them. I wouldn’t want to anyway; look at these spikes.

The Moorten residence is on the garden grounds…

And look! Garden crafts – natural dye!

You can take a piece of the garden home with you, too. They had lots of plants for sale. Hubby and I brought home four mini cactuses. Super cute! We hope the Bay Area weather will be ok for these desert plants.

Do you love the desert plants, too?