Gold mining, the movies and the story behind 'the most Instagrammed greenhouse in the world'

“This must be the most Instagrammed greenhouse in the world”, Clark Moorten, the 74-year-old owner of Moorten Botanical Garden says, leading me to a rather ramshackle structure with the sign: “World’s first cactarium”.

It’s difficult to know if either proclamation is true: there are hundreds, perhaps tens of hundreds of photographs of the greenhouse on Instagram. There are also arid houses in botanical gardens across Europe that were established decades before Moorten’s father brought him and his mother to this plot of land in South Palm Springs. But cactaria? That’s a different matter. As for Instagram, as if to prove a point, three glammed-up waifs in lace trousers and ankle-skimming skirts glide past as Moorten and I chat. They all wield that tell-tale combination of powerful SLR camera and iPhone: they are here to take portraits to put on the Internet in search of social media likes and follows.

The garden is a rare patch of controlled chaos in Palm Springs, where each manicured, mid-century house comes with a gardener and a pool boy and bright green lawns positively glow under the palms that line the long roads dissecting the desert city into a grid system. Moorten Botanical Garden may have some of the most unusual varieties of plants in Palm Springs – there are more than 3,000 grouped in nine different geographical regions – but it seeps into the dramatic backdrop of the surrounding mountains far better than most plots here, which are held in thrall to a kind of competitive artificiality.  

Clark, whose eyes match the clear skies above, didn’t intend to be a horticulturalist. But after focusing his attention on “girls and beer” at college, rather than his studies, he found himself back on the land his parents had tended, in the city where he was born. It was his father, Chester, who brought cacti to Palm Springs - earning himself the moniker Cactus Slim in the process.

Cactus Slim’s story reads like a film script. And to understand it properly, it’s worth knowing that cacti aren’t native to Palm Springs, which was, until a few hundred years ago, a lake. The California fan palm is native here, but the cacti prefer to grow at a higher altitude.

Cactus Slim was a railroad worker from the woods of Washington who ended up working in the Joshua Tree region of the Little San Bernadino Mountains in the mid-Twenties. He was fascinated by the plants he found in the Mojave and Colorado desert regions, and dug a few up to take to Los Angeles, with the intention of selling them. While there, the Hollywood studios caught wind of Slim’s ability to “blow stuff up”, and gave him work as a stuntman as part of the Keystone Cops troupe whose buffoonery entertained silent movie-goers.

Since the turn of the century, Palm Springs had been considered a retreat for “health tourists”: the dry desert air and attractive surrounds were thought to provide comfort, especially for those with tuberculosis. Slim was diagnosed with the disease in the early Thirties, but he didn’t find the city until five years later, after expanding his line in gold-mining and selling cacti. He suspected Palm Springs might provide a good base for a permanent business, and was correct: with Hollywood stars flocking to the desert for privacy and partying, Slim kept celebrities from Walt Disney to Frank Sinatra stocked in spines. In 1938, Slim set up his cactus museum. The one we’re currently standing in is its third, expanded, site, which opened in 1955.

“The garden is a vision of my parents’, both my mom and my dad,” Moorten says. “It was originally built as a house collection to share and show what could be done with desert plants.” As their only child, Moorten says he was “part of all the decisions”.

Nearly 80 years later, the museum maintains much of its gung-ho spirit. The signs are hand-written (these days etched, and then painted, into stone, as the wooden ones “kept going missing”), and the whole plot surrounds the “Cactus Castle”, the Mediterranean-style 1920s villa that housed Slim, his wife Patricia and Clark. Patricia lived there until her death in 2010, and Moorten has lived there with his wife since, after taking over the garden in 1980 when Slim died. These days the museum closes for parties and weddings, but, Moorten says quietly, there are more requests for this kind of event than he would rather handle.

But it’s this homespun feeling that partially explains why the garden has experienced a doubling of visitors between 2015 and 2016. There are other, more obvious factors: Palm Springs is going through something of a makeover – the rising popularity of the nearby Coachella festival every spring has seen three fashionable new hotels spring up. Secondly, arid plants have been experiencing a revival not seen since the Seventies, and Moorten’s garden has plenty of them.

The main thing Instagram-trigger-happy millennials are after, though, is authenticity. Especially authenticity that looks good. This botanic garden is steeped in history, and wears its heart on its sleeve - it’s impossible not to be charmed by the signs that urge you to emulate a tortoise and take in the plants slowly.

The greenhouse isn’t just wildly popular on Instagram – it’s also something his father erected while his mother was out of town, much to her fury once she returned. “Originally the cactarium had a wooden frame, and it was covered with double thickness window screen for shade,” Moorten explains. “My father wanted a more greenhouse-type of structure, so he bent all the pipes while mother was away for a week in around 1976 or 1977.” It did not, he laughs, go down well.

From a horticultural perspective, Moorten Botanic Garden has some intriguing varieties. The Welwitschia mirabilis – a curious two-leaved succulent that splits open – is originally from Bolivia and once considered the ugliest plant in the world but has gained new appreciation. Moorten is also rightfully proud of the Bajan elephant tree, which has been in the garden for 60 years. “I remember when we planted it,” he says, “it was only four feet tall – now it’s gigantic. It’s four times bigger than any elephant tree I’ve seen in a natural habitat.”

But the garden has an approachable air – it’s a good place to pick up tips and Moorten and his team of four full-time staff (“and a couple part-timers”) propagate dozens of varieties that sell for less than $10 in the open-air, slightly ramshackle gift shop. There’s plenty to be learned, too, from the museum – where a plant comes from, what it was used for by the native people who settled in Palm Springs first.

Moorten seems quietly pleased by the way his father’s labour of love has been picked up by a whole new generation who delight in the plants that he nurtures. He’s the father of four, and already the eldest is being primed to follow in his footsteps and take over. “It was grown and prospered as a labour of love, and it still is.” He says, “I am honored to share it with the public. It’s part of my family legacy.” He adds, in a typically Californian way, “it contains a lot of positive energy.” Standing here, it’s difficult to disagree.

For more garden trends, follow Alice on Instagram.com/noughticulture.

Alice was hosted by Greater Palm Springs, accommodations included ARRIVE & Miramonte Resort & Spa. Norwegian www.norwegian.com/uk fly daily to Los Angeles from £169 one way / £285 return including all taxes and charge.