Decorator helps bring holiday magic to cactus garden

On a balmy desert day, with planes thundering overhead and Hello Kitty tour buses purring in the background, peace still somehow reigns over the 3-acre botanical cactus garden at Ethel M Chocolates.

Among the bunny ears, prickly pear, cow's tongue and acacia trees, it's hard to believe that herds of reindeer are on their way.

But the decorative icicles and garland work accumulating in the garden don't lie — even when it's 90 degrees. The Holiday Cactus Garden at 2 Cactus Garden Drive in Henderson is underway.

"Eighty percent of the people who walk through here right now ask us this question: 'Are you hanging lights for Halloween?'" quipped Steve Bowdoin, garden curator.

He and three landscape gardeners have been working since Oct. 1, seven days a week, eight to 10 hours a day, transforming the garden into a free-admission holiday lighting extravaganza for the public. It has been a tradition of hot chocolate, free chocolate sampling, Santa and introductions to the chocolate factory for the past 22 years.

The lighting team won't stop until the season kicks off with a ceremony on Nov. 10.

The lights stay up through Jan. 1, while garden pathways overflow with a holiday crowd of 5,000 to 15,000 visitors per day, according to Bowdoin.

About 75 percent of that crowd is local, estimates Stu Haack, marketing and PR manager for Ethel M Chocolates. That's a shift from the approximate year-round 60/40 ratio of tourists to locals.

Orchestrating lights

It's Bowdoin's eighth year orchestrating the lights. Now 58, he has been associated with Mars products — among them, Ethel M Chocolates — for 33 years. Twenty-five of those were in operations. Stepping into the garden was his idea of retirement.

On a 115-degree day, he said, "you can see a road runner grab a lizard and have his lunch, and then go to the back and have yours."

In the heat of July, with his mind still on the garden's irrigation system and the tricky business of keeping plants healthy under brutal conditions, Bowdoin starts to shift his attention to the holiday display. From July through September, ideas fly on how to improve on the previous year.

The lights come out of storage for testing in the warehouse in September.

"If you strung them end to end, it would go 12 miles," he said.

About 70 percent of the lights are LED. That saves power and offers a range of color splash that isn't possible with incandescent lights, according to Bowdoin. Not merely reds and greens, but also purples, pinks, yellows and oranges. Bowdoin hopes to go to 100 percent LED in three years.

Then there is that army of wire shapes, beckoning to be illuminated. Reindeer, peacocks, geese, gingerbread men and lollipops. And a host of artificial pine trees, for those who aren't native to the desert but want to feel like it's Christmas.

"We have herds and herds of reindeer here," Bowdoin said. There's also the task of making it all look new, with essentially the same lights every year. Bowdoin seeks inspiration from other botanical displays around the country. And he ponders what worked, and where, the previous year at the cactus garden.

In a garden with more than 300 species, he has had to learn just how much holiday glee some cactuses can take.

"Some of the cacti cannot handle even the lightest weight of Christmas lights being strung on them," he said. "It will damage and break the limbs down, so they just lay flat."

This year, look forward to more red and green laser spotlights cast on cactuses, rather than hanging string lights, especially around the knoll outside the candy shop. That's Bowdoin's favorite spot.

Laser spots are savers

Laser spots save energy, time and cactus pokes. The key, said Bowdoin, is making sure the laser spots don't point up at planes. LED color splash will add ever-changing variety to the mix — from reds, to greens, to purples, to a range of colors beyond the usual lights on a string.

Notwithstanding laser spots, Bowdoin and his team still hold gloves firmly in hand. Charles Herring, one of the landscape gardeners, puts it this way: "Thorns, thorns and thorns."

"It looks like a nice fuzzy plant," said Bowdoin, pointing out a mild-mannered looking prickly pear. It's sturdy enough for lights but bristles with hairs "like fiberglass."

Trees are even worse. The acacia, and especially, the twisted acacia, grabs anything, including strands of light.

Working on lights, the four gardeners go through about a hundred pairs of gloves per year. But even amid the thorns, they encounter those who see the spirit of the season everywhere.

Bowdoin recalls one prelighting season, working from a boom lift to hang lights up high in the dark. He was wearing a bright yellow shirt. "This little boy looks up at me and yells, 'Hey, Santa Claus, will you come decorate my house?'"

"I don't look like Santa Claus up there, I don't think," he insisted.

He enjoys the idea of preserving the legacy of Ethel M Chocolates founder Forrest Mars Sr., Mars' love for the desert and his desire to share it with the public. The garden was put in two years after the factory was built, Bowdoin said. The holiday display has grown "a little bigger, a little better" every year since.

"Not too many companies offer something like this for free," he said.

He remembers some of the days when Mars lived onsite, surveying the landscape from his second-floor veranda. Stories still circulate about Mars checking on chocolates in his bathrobe. His dog reportedly had the run of the cactus garden.

"A lot of the decor up there hasn't changed since the late '70s," observed Haack, pointing out the veranda from the garden. "It's got that retro feel."

The upstairs decor isn't the only source of fond memories for some Las Vegans around the garden. Trailing a lizard with a camera, Jane and Craig Wilkens, from northwest Las Vegas, discussed returning for a holiday visit. The last time they came for the holidays was 13 years ago, when Jane's daughter, Lainey Waldman, was 2.

"It would be fun to see her in all the lights," Jane said. "And they don't charge," Craig added.

Bowdoin's recommendation: "It's an awesome thing to walk through on a cool November day. And have some hot chocolate. The sooner you can come, the better."