Three States, Four Cactus Nurseries Road Trip!

[Steve-0]

My wife joined me on a road trip to Lost Vegas on March 12-13, 2021 to check out Cactus Joe’s Blue Diamond Nursery and several other cactus specialty nurseries in the area. All in all we visited three stores plus the bonus Mother Nature’s “nursery” .

The first nursery was open air without any sign of a proprietor...so we stopped anyway, looked around, took pics and were entertained by a Roadruner ( Geococcyx ) wandering around the plants eating bugs. ( one of the highlights of the trip for me being a birder )

After the brief visit we went across the highway to Cactus Joe’s Blue Diamond Nursery. Here’s the link if you’re so inclined to peruse it: https://www.cactusjoeslasvegas.com

And the Google maps link for more:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Cactu ... 3358?hl=en

It was quite the place ( tourist trap ) ...lots of metal art, pottery and of course plants.

The next stop was Star nursery in South Las Vegas. Very nicely set up, organized and price points were respectable versus Cactus Joe’s which would choke a donkey. I choked and bought the Cactus Joe's tee shirt. Nice beefy white ink on black tee = $20

We strolled around picking up herbs for our garden for about an hour. I never did decide on a purchase. The Yuccas, Agaves and Cacti were all nice and for landscape sized specimens very affordable. I just waffled between a few and came home empty handed while my wife scored big on the herbs at $4 a pop, plus one 2 foot tall Tuscan Rosemary bush for $18.

Here’s the link for that nursery:

https://www.starnursery.com/

And so on the way home we stopped by Mother Nature’s Nursery just inside the Utah border after leaving Nevada and crossing over the northwest corner of Arizona.

We drove down the Mojave Desert Joshua Tree Road for a mile or two and got out to stretch our legs before the next 300 mile drive home.

That area map link:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Woodb ... 8358?hl=en

So while out of the car for a few minutes, I grabbed my camera and took a few pics of some flora right around where
we parked. A quick few quick photos and off we went. Road trip miles/km total - 881 miles/ 1417.83 km

Roadrunner image - Mick Thompson/Eastside Audubon ( wife is sending me pics soon )

[Steve-0]

Next stop....Cactus Joe's!

[Steve-0]

Some mo' of Cactus Joe...

[Steve-0]

Last shot at Cactus Joe's...the tourist trap snap.

[Steve-0]

Next stop Star Nursery! Great selection and prices were tempting. As one can see these plants are landscaping specimens for the most part. Another highlight were the hummingbirds flitting through the open air part of the nursery under the shade cloth sipping nectar from every blooming flower available...despite the human traffic.

[Steve-0]

Last but not least...in fact it was the best...Mother Nature's nursery. After leaving Lost Vegas, we took a detour in the back way to St. George to stop at the Mojave Desert Joshua Tree scenic byway for a leg stretching break prior to the marathon 300 mile non stop trip home. Which snowed most of the way....yuck. But we need it badly for our water resource. The mountain snowpack helps fill the reservoirs and the aquifer underground, which science studies are saying is like a bank account and soon to be overdrawn. Bad news for ALL the western states. But we did it to ourselves.

[Steve-0]

There were a few areas with juvenile Ferocactus acanthodes specimens...so it really was a nursery.

[Steve-0]

A few last images...

[bbarv]

You are right Mother’s Nature nursery is the best even though others were very impressive.
Love the fun metal art.
Thank you for posting.

[Steve-0]

You are right Mother’s Nature nursery is the best even though others were very impressive.
Love the fun metal art.
Thank you for posting.

Thank you, it was a bit of a frantic trip due to the blizzard delaying our arrival by 6 hours. But fun still. The metal artists were amazing at capturing the musculature in the animals quite well. The raptors were great!

[Steve-0]

Bonus Road Runner pics, beep beep! The bird's plumage mimicked the Yucca foilage and shadowing perfectly.

cell pics ... at distance ... so not the best. In person was fabulous. First one I've seen live since childhood...decades ago while crossing the desert with my family on an Army Life relocation move.

[SpineInMyFinger]

Cool...

[A_G_R]

Very nice photos!! It's good to see those big nurseries handling all those rescued cactus, and not somebody just selling them off of Ebay.

[Steve-0]

AGR - yeah, the Nevada Power and Light company picks a huge chunk of land for the next solar power farm and opens the doors for NV residents to purchase and dig all the plants. Then after a week or so they open it to commercial nurseries to dig the rest. Then they plow everything left under. And it's my opinion that a whole lotta cactus, agave and yucca get plowed under. I wish I could participate on their plant sales but residents only.

The Agave Utahensis ssp nevadaensis and eborispina go for hundreds of dollars per plant on eBay ( poached ) and BLM sells them for $2-3 per plant. Joshua Trees go for a lot more.

[mikethecactusguy]

looking back at the nursery pictures, I'm amazed at how expensive the plants were in 2021.