The lean, deeply tanned man with a white beard and bright blue eyes has a request before we sit down.
“I’d like to feed the quail,” he says, sack of seed in hand. “I call them just like I called chickens in the Midwest.” But the quail are a little shy this morning, likely hiding from the big trucks that have been rumbling off the property, transporting desert plants for Bureau of Land Management (BLM) replanting efforts.
So, we settle ourselves on an elevated platform looking out over the seven acres forming Cactus Joe’s Blue Diamond Nursery, and Joe begins to tell the story of how a dilapidated nursery in the middle of nowhere became a beloved Vegas institution.
By 1989, when he came across the property close to the base of the Spring Mountains, he had already lived several lives, including laying railroad tracks and sailing throughout the world. He was immediately drawn to what he describes as the “Blue Diamond vortex.” A spiritual vortex is believed by many to be a place where energy is either entering into or projecting out of Earth. Sedona, Arizona; Egypt’s Great Pyramid at Giza; Peru’s Machu Picchu; and Stonehenge are examples. Both the Nuwuvi and Chemehuevi (Southern Paiute) tribes view the Spring Mountains as a sacred place; the Nuwuvi consider them their creation site.
“You can feel God’s presence,” Joe says.
It certainly took faith to buy the land, on which seven ramshackle greenhouses stood, accompanied by a few old refrigerators and rusting cars. And Joe had faith. He moved in, built a little shack, and began transforming the place into what is now continually voted “Best Nursery for Desert and Native Plants.”
JOE MOVED TO Vegas in 1985, and by his account, was operating two successful businesses in the city. The first was called Silver Cache, and second, Mandarin Imports. “But I hated the dog-eat-dog,” he says. He knew there was a need for native plants — he’d observed Lake Mead’s water-level decline. So, he started with five species of cacti, tending to all his plants himself. Gradually, he added agaves and native plants, along with a selection of succulents. Asked which of the now-many available species is his favorite, he says, “The one I’m standing next to.”
People began to notice, including at the BLM. By 2010, Joe had been asked by the agency to grow natives from seed collected on his own acres. Between 2010 and ’12, he sent 100,000 plants grown from seed to the agency for replanting projects.
While the business grew and developed, Joe met and formed a partnership with the nonprofit Desert Love Native Plants, founded in 2019 by Bill Redinger and Frank Marino. In 2023, Joe and Desert Love agreed to bring the native plant side of Cactus Joe’s under the nonprofit’s umbrella. It now maintains a permanent presence at the nursery, growing and selling plants from seed, and sponsoring events and workshops. “It’s helping people to fall in love with the desert,” Joe says.
VISITORS TO CACTUS Joe’s marvel at the collection of metal sculptures also for sale there. Aliens of all sizes, dinosaurs, stagecoaches (complete with horse teams), scorpions, and flowering cacti dot the landscape. These fit with Joe’s ongoing dedication to water conservation and are made by many local artists, as well as suppliers from around the Southwest. A buyer would need a pretty big garden to accommodate, say, the triceratops, but landscape designers find ways to incorporate them, as well as the saguaro and cholla skeletons — naturally weathered cacti remains. The saguaro skeletons can be as tall as 15 feet.
But tall calls to like, perhaps.
Magicians Penn and Teller have both had their yards landscaped with plants from Cactus Joe’s. Penn Jillette bought a giant living saguaro, Joe notes, an appropriate choice for the famously tall magician.
In 1996, designers recruited Joe to provide saguaro for what is now Harry Reid International Airport, and the ones he planted are still there. In another connection to the late U.S. senator, Joe discovered Reid had mentioned Cactus Joe’s in a 2003 speech he gave during a filibuster, explaining how jackrabbits had decimated his plants, and hiring Cactus Joe to plant cacti. (The rabbits managed to nibble on some of these as well, according to the Congressional Report.)
Joe recalled another Washington, D.C., connection: A White House event planner, preparing a year in advance for an afternoon party hosted by Michelle Obama, called, asking for purple prickly pear pads for 245 centerpieces. “We assured him there would be no problem and were honored to take this on,” Joe said.
Three months before the event, planners canceled the order — only to reinstate it a week before the party. The pads were rushed to the White House. At which point another issue arose. The event planner used his bare hands to position the pads onto the place settings — and was soon covered in spines. Panic ensued. The planner’s assistant called, explaining he needed to meet the first lady soon. “How was he supposed to shake her hand?” One of his employees suggested that they use tape to pull off the tiny thorns. “We didn’t hear anything from the event planner after this, but we like to assume the best,” Joe says. “Though to be honest, we wonder if a spine or two still stays with that event planner even now.”
Cactus Joe’s nursery was the site for an impromptu acoustic guitar concert by Moody Blues cofounder and Wings member Denny Laine, who was very taken with its ambiance. Another time, “the Dalai Lama’s people,” although without His Holiness, paid a visit. Joe says a British royal, whom he declined to name, was married onsite. And the nursery was for years the rendezvous spot for the DeLorean Society, which convened there before zooming off into the mountains.
Famous people, Joe is quick to point out, are not the ones for whom he feels the most gratitude. He praises the lawyers, who have done pro bono work for him over the years — on government contracts, for example. But most of all, he’s grateful for the customers who have supported Cactus Joe’s, “those who stop by all the time,” he says. Not to mention his employees, many of whom have been with him for years. Property manager Adrienne Ethington first met Joe when she was 12 years old and found a piece of crystallized gypsum, called selenite, at the nursery. “I’m gonna come work for you,” she announced. At age 18, she did, and has been at Cactus Joe’s ever since.
Joe waxes nostalgic for a time when he cooperated with a local vet who specialized in saving seriously injured animals, including goats and pigs, as well as dogs and cats. For a few years, multiple animals waiting to be adopted roamed the nursery. Joe kept a few, including pigs Lindsay Loham and Britney Spareribs, alongside beloved dog Sidewise Sammy, who recovered from a serious spinal injury but always walked a bit askew. There was also his beloved Maine Coon cat, named either Miss Blue, or Ms. Blue, “depending on her attitude that day.” She lived with Joe for 17 years.
Today, he enjoys the native animals, including the quail, roadrunners, jackrabbits, kit foxes, coyotes, and gopher snakes. But he misses the tame ones.
ONE OF JOE'S longest-held dreams is to build a desert botanical garden on a 10-acre site he owns across the road. Desert Love has helped create plans for a space incorporating winding trails through sections filled with native plants and cacti, demonstrating the desert’s beauty against the magnificent backdrop of the mountains, where the play of day and night, clouds and blue sky, is ever-changing, along with a call to be present in the moment to appreciate it.
To fully realize this dream, Joe and Desert Love are writing grants and seeking donors. Joe isn’t worried. He firmly believes that “the person we need will walk through the nursery doors” — as they always have. Desert Love outreach coordinator Kym Martin says, “Ultimately, our goal is to be a resource for the community that helps people recognize what a treasure we have in this desert ecosystem, and to inspire a shared effort to take care of her.”
“Every person has an incredible story,” Joe says. “I commit to meeting people on that level, respecting the sacredness in each person.”
It’s not an exaggeration to say that visitors to Cactus Joe’s sense that respect, alongside the deeply serene vibrations of the ancient land it stands and lives on.
