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Finding the Southwest at Cactus Joe’s

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Cactus Joe’s Blue Diamond Nursery on April 18, 2016.
Photo: Mikayla Whitmore

Cactus Joe’s Blue Diamond Nursery

This is where you go if you want your house to look like the Southwest. Here at Cactus Joe's Blue Diamond Nursery, you’ll find beavertails, prickly pears, yuccas, agaves and Argentine toothpick cacti, all neatly arranged amid a forest of planted Joshua trees and stacks of outdoor pots. Saguaros tie in the Sonoran Desert to our south. Mexican pottery and Southwest-style yard ornaments are in ample supply, as is jewelry made by 20 local artists. Beyond the gift shop, cut rock, decorative glass and metal sculpture sits in a labyrinth where morning meditations take place and visitors stroll to the center and back under the sun. Boulders of petrified wood are everywhere.

Beginning on a single acre in 1959, Cactus Joe’s became the 7-acre desert heaven it is today after Cactus Joe Davidson purchased it in the '90s and focused on native Nevada and Arizona plants—the stuff that grows naturally once established. From Navajo horsehair pottery to art to books on desert gardening, healing gemstones, spirit animals and native wildlife, there’s something for everyone who shares that love of the region. Head west on Blue Diamond, past the last strip mall, past the last subdivision and the last convenient store, until you’re somewhere between Las Vegas and Red Rock Canyon and the only theme around you is the Mojave.

Cactus Joe's Friday-Monday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m., 12740 Blue Diamond Road, 702-875-1968.

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