Ethel M Chocolates prepares cactus garden for its annual holiday lighting ceremony

As people gather to watch the holiday lighting ceremony or marvel at the nearly 300 species of plants, cactuses and flowers at the Botanical Cactus Garden by Ethel M Chocolates, no one probably will notice Steve Bowdoin.

Hiding somewhere in the back of the crowds, secretly gathering feedback on the lighting choices, is Bowdoin, whose work is why people can enjoy the garden year-round.

"The garden is my baby," said Bowdoin, who manages the garden. "I take joy doing it because it gives people enjoyment."

The lighting ceremony is scheduled for 6 p.m. today at Ethel M, 1 Sunset Way. Activities and music begin around 5 p.m. and include performances from local choirs and entertainers George Wallace, Michael Grimm and Zowie Bowie.

When guests bring a new, unwrapped toy, they will receive a four-pack of tickets for the event. Tickets are required.

"It's a good way to kick off the holidays and offer the warmth of the season," said Jessica Ruttman, marketing manager for Ethel M. "It's great to see locals who have made this a tradition."

The garden and factory are free and open to the public from 8:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. Holiday lights are scheduled to be on from 5 to 10 p.m. daily until January.

Bowdoin has spent the past two months prepping the garden for the annual occasion.

Decorating it is quite the process, Bowdoin said, as the garden has gone from using about 1,000 lights when he started in 2006 to about a half-million lights on the 3-acre facility.

"About 40 percent are LED," Bowdoin said.

Ruttman said they continue to transition the lights to LED to make the display brighter. A few years ago, Ruttman said, the company started offering 3-D glasses.

"Makes them look like twinkling stars," Ruttman said.

The glasses are available for $2 at the retail shop. This year for the first time, Ethel M plans to hand out free glasses at the lighting ceremony.

"It's so magical, everyone should experience it," Ruttman said.

Ruttman added that this is Ethel M's 19th annual ceremony. This is Bowdoin's seventh year managing and decorating the garden.

Bowdoin said he has always had a love for the outdoors. He graduated with a degree in agricultural business. Because of his background in chemistry, he worked for Mars Inc., which owns Ethel M, in the research and development department for about 24 years.

"I left my love for the outdoors for the indoors," Bowdoin said.

When he retired, Bowdoin returned to his first passion and began tending the cactus garden.

"I really love my job," Bowdoin said. "But we usually get more interviews in the fall during this season than about the blooms. Nature does a better job decorating than we could ever do."

To the untrained eye, the cactuses might look the same. But the variations are there - some slight while others are more noticeable - putting the count at about 300 species of plants and trees in the garden.

There are plants such as the cereus Peruvians cactus, which blooms a pinkish pear, or the Texas mountain laurel, which Bowdoin said sometimes makes the garden smell like grapes.

All of them are growing and changing.

"So you will never see the same thing twice, even if you come 10 years in a row," Bowdoin said.

Before people walk through the garden and take photos of the plant life, Bowdoin and his crew are out pruning and planting to make sure everything is in tip-top shape.

Bowdoin said that at times, he feels and looks like a pin cushion.

"You try to be careful and not poke your hand that you step back and poke your leg or back," he said.

On average, Bowdoin said, he goes through two or three work gloves a week and about 200 a year.

In addition to garden work, Bowdoin maintains the lights during the holidays.

"You look around and see a bulb burn out and you think: 'Oh, no. Not another strand,' " Bowdoin said.

Bowdoin said the crew usually works until the night before the lighting ceremony to fix everything and add other objects such as inflatable snowmen or other holiday characters throughout the garden.

But even with all the hard work and sometimes 12-hour days, Bowdoin takes time to marvel at the plant life.

"When 99.9 percent of everything is done, that's when we sit back and take it in," Bowdoin said. "We look at everything we have done whether we think it is good or bad or whatever and can't believe all that we've done."

For more information, visit ethelm.com.

Contact Henderson/Anthem View reporter Michael Lyle at mlyle@viewnews.com or 702-387-5201.