Moorten Botanical Garden, Palm Springs, California

Posted on

Jan 23, 2014

The Moorten Botanical Garden in Palm Springs is not terribly big. Fortunately, admission reflects this:

–

Its collection consists mostly of succulents, many of them prickly or spikey in nature. Sarah’s son went through the garden repeating our warnings again and again.

“No touch.”

–

“Spikey.”

Fact: Ferocactus Wizlizini Fishook is on the short list of names we’ve picked out, should we ever have a little girl.

–

Which was a good reminder for all of us, because we are, when it comes down to it, rather tactile people. We like to touch things. And when you find yourself surrounded by things that aren’t really touchable, you tend to turn to the few things that are.

And you touch the heck outta those things.

Sometimes, the things we touched were the few non-spikey plants in the mix. Here is Sarah, petting a palm.

She was strumming the leaves like it was a harp.

–

But most of the time, we just rammed our faces against those of our loved ones.

–

Sometimes, the best way to show someone how much you care about them is to hold them so closely that it knocks their glasses askew.

–

Though the weather in Palm Springs is rather conducive to cactus-growing, there was a greenhouse or two on the grounds as well, home to a cluster of plants that each looked the love child of an avocado and a porcupine.

–

Deep in the back of one of the greenhouses, we found this sign. Its location was rather hilarious, because it almost seemed to imply that touching the plants, up until then, had been an option.